Fairleigh Dickinson University
private university in New Jersey, United States

Fairleigh Dickinson University () is a private university with its main campuses in New Jersey, located in Madison / Florham Park and in Teaneck / Hackensack. Founded in 1942, it offers more than 100 degree programs. In addition to two campuses in New Jersey, the university has a campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; one in Wroxton, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom; and an online platform. It is New Jersey's largest private institution of higher education, with over 12,000 students.
History
Fairleigh Dickinson University was founded as the Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College in 1942 as a junior college by Peter Sammartino and wife Sally, and was named after early benefactor Colonel Fairleigh S. Dickinson, co-founder of Becton Dickinson. Its original campus was located in Rutherford, New Jersey. By 1948, Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College expanded its curriculum to offer a four-year program when the GI Bill and veterans' money encouraged it to redesignate itself as Fairleigh Dickinson College. In that same year, the school received accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
In 1953, Fairleigh Dickinson College merged with the 400-student Bergen Junior College, acquiring its campus in Teaneck. At the time of the merger, Fairleigh Dickinson had more than 2,800 students and would be able to accommodate a total enrollment of 4,000 with its two campuses.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Fairleigh Dickinson University” as private university in New Jersey, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as private university in New Jersey, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1393301. VIAF identifies the subject as 158273798. The Library of Congress control number is n80069059. Authority coordinates are 40.898, -74.029. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1948 and 1953.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Fairleigh Dickinson University”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Fairleigh Dickinson University primary sources, Fairleigh Dickinson University archive and Fairleigh research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fairleigh Dickinson University”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Fairleigh Dickinson University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.