In the evening, we checked into a hotel in Cherry Hill (To answer the questions I’ve been asked again and again: The hotels were great, there was time to relax, and, yes, we each got our own room.). From there, we took a walk through a park to the Cherry Hill boathouse, where we downed fresh New Jersey seafood and very good, non-New Jersey wine (But the state does have a proud viniculture tradition: There’s nothing New Jersey can’t do.).

In the days that followed, our bus made a wide circle through the state, from the farmland of Salem County to the suburbs of Monmouth County and the urban bustle of Newark. Experts hopped on and off the microphone to inform us about the preservation of the Pinelands, the state’s pharmaceutical industry, the impact of the arts on urban redevelopment, and the reason New Jersey has such high property taxes, which I still don’t quite understand.

In a high school lunch room in the
middle of New Jersey, 39 faculty
members suddenly felt the impact
of their mission.

Along the way, there were dozens of highlights. A few standouts included lunch at a Buddhist temple, the legacy of Japanese farm workers brought in from internment camps on the West Coast to make K-rations at Cumberland County’s Seabrook Farms during World War II. In a nondescript basement, we feasted on poached chicken breast, rolls of thinly sliced, lightly sweetened omelet, asparagus with miso dressing, lots of hot dark tea, and, for dessert, strawberry shortcake, which was the perfect thing to eat on a spring afternoon in a place that happens to grow exceptional strawberries. Then a group of third- and fourth-generation Seabrookers entertained us with a traditional Japanese dance, and we shook the room with our ovation.

Another treat was a behind-the-scenes tour of Ellis Island. (Thought Ellis Island was part of New York? Think again! Seventy percent belongs to the Garden State!) In hard hats and long pants, we visited the island’s former hospital, with its laundries, operating rooms, and quarantine wards – sites which won’t be open to the public for another 15 years. As the light shined through broken windows and the Statue of Liberty gazed across the water, it wasn’t difficult to feel the presence of the thousands of people who’d passed through those rooms – including several of our own grandparents and great-grandparents.

But for most of us, the highlight of the trip was a visit to Lakewood High, an economically struggling school in Ocean County. At a lunchtime panel with students, teachers, and the principal, we met juniors who wanted to know more about Rutgers but didn’t have the means to visit our campuses. President McCormick took the mike and offered to arrange transportation for Lakewood students to come visit all three campuses next year. The students looked overjoyed.  We faculty were thrilled. In a lunch room in a high school in the middle of New Jersey, all 39 of us suddenly felt the impact of our mission: to better appreciate the multifarious conditions of New Jersey, and to connect to the people most affected by them.

So this fall, I look forward to leading Lakewood students on a tour of Rutgers–Camden. I’ll show them our playing fields, our art gallery, our theater, and our waterfront. And then, if they’re curious, I’ll tell them everything they could possibly want to know about New Jersey, their surprising, fascinating home state – and mine.

Lauren Grodstein is an assistant professor of English at Camden College of Arts and Sciences.