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Mission

Drew University’s mission is to offer its diverse community of learners a challenging and individualized education shaped by a deep-rooted culture of mentoring, thoughtful engagement with the world beyond its campus, and a steadfast commitment to lifelong cultivation of the whole person. Through its distinctive emphasis on the reciprocity of knowledge, experience, and service, Drew prepares its students to flourish both personally and professionally as they add to the world’s good by responding to the urgent challenges of our time with rigorous, independent, and imaginative thought.

History

Drew was established in 1867 as a seminary with a gift of $250,000 from Daniel Drew, a Wall Street financier and steamboat tycoon. The gift included the Madison property known as The Forest, which has served as the school’s campus ever since. Drew Theological Seminary, as it was then known, was the antecedent of today’s Drew Theological School, which empowers creative thought and courageous action through its academic programs and social justice projects.

In 1928, an unexpected $1.5 million gift from brothers Arthur and Leonard Baldwin led to the addition of an all-male undergraduate college, aptly named Brothers College. The college became co-educational during the 1940s, was renamed the College of Liberal Arts in the 1950s, and grew significantly in the 1960s. In 1980, it was granted the fourth Phi Beta Kappa chapter in New Jersey.

A graduate school, which originally focused on advanced study in the humanities, opened in 1955. A gift of $5 million from trustee Barbara Morris Caspersen G’91 and her husband, Finn, in 1999 resulted in a new name for the school: the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. It now offers degrees in professional programs for teaching, data science, finance, and education, as well as the humanities, with programs in medical humanities and arts & letters.

The University continues to add programs across all three schools based on student feedback and job market trends.