Enrollment Advisory Group - William Paterson University Wayne USA 2024

At William Paterson University, our greatest strength is helping you find yours. Here students find a supportive and challenging environment that encourages them to push themselves, gain confidence, and come away with the knowledge that remarkable things are within their reach.

A leading public University with nearly 10,000 students, William Paterson offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate degree programs through its four academic colleges: Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Cotsakos College of Business; Education; and Science and Health.

Its 370-acre wooded campus is located in suburban Wayne, New Jersey, just 20 miles from New York City, adjacent to 1,200 acres of wetlands and woodlands, and only three miles from the historic Paterson Great Falls.

The University offers a vast array of learning opportunities in its classrooms, laboratories, and studios, and throughout the campus, as well as at various off-campus locations. William Paterson’s faculty members provide a valuable blend of accomplished scholarship and practical, applied experience. Among the University’s faculty are numerous Fulbright scholars and recipients of numerous other awards, grants, and fellowships. Students benefit from individualized attention from faculty mentors, small class sizes, and numerous research, internship, and clinical experiences.

The institution’s nearly 85,000 alumni can be found throughout New Jersey, the nation, and the world, using their William Paterson degrees and experiences as a springboard to professional accomplishment and personal growth. They are leaders in the arts, business, health care, sports, entertainment, the media, and education. They are public servants, artists, musicians, teachers, scientists, television personalities, authors, politicians, crime fighters, and entrepreneurs. Their achievements reflect the University’s mission and commitment to preparing graduates for success in their careers, communities, and lives.

The institution was founded in 1855 as the Paterson City Normal School in response to the growing demand for professional preparation of teachers-in-service in the emerging free public schools of Paterson. By 1875, the normal school had added a one-year teacher training curriculum for high school graduates seeking to become teachers, which was later increased to two years. In 1910, the school, which had changed location several times, was moved to the brand-new School No. 24 on 19th Avenue and East 22nd Street in Paterson, where it remained for 40 years.

Rapid Period of Growth
With a growing realization that the responsibility for teacher preparation should rest with the state, local educators urged the state to take over the Paterson City Normal School. In 1923 the State Legislature passed an act to establish the New Jersey State Normal School at Paterson. Its sole aim, as later described in the 1929-30 catalog, was “to develop a well-trained teacher for service in the schools of the State.”