Rutgers University Traditions - Around Campus

Around Campus

Fenton B. Turck, a New York physician and biologist, with the assistance of railroad magnate, and longtime Rutgers trustee Leonor F. Loree (RC 1877), anonymously donated a statue of William of Orange (William I, Prince of Orange, 1533–1584) commonly known as William the Silent, who was the leader of the Dutch rebellion against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. Turck, of Dutch extraction, intended to give the statue known familiarly as " Willie the Silent" to the University to signify the institution's Dutch roots. He kept the statue in the basement of his laboratory in Manhattan for eight years before it was unveiled on the Voorhees Mall on 9 June 1928. According to student tradition, the statue is said to whistle when a virgin in her senior year passes by. So far, Prince William has remained silent.

This statue is a rough replica of a similar monument that stands in The Hague.

Between the Cook and Douglass campuses is a location known as Passion Puddle. Superstition holds that if a male student from Cook College and a female student from Douglass College hold hands and walk around the water three times they will be married.