'I CELEBRATE Myself', said Walt Whitman, . .

. . .and in that spirit we invite you to a community celebration. Roger Williams University is turning 50 this year. In 1956 a group of visionaries launched something new.

In the years since, two generations of inheritors have nourished and guarded the initial vision, embellishing it and elaborating it and bringing it to a youthful maturity, and a third generation stands poised to take upon itself responsibility for the University’s continuing success.

In that half-century older colleges have passed into history. Many expected that the junior college founded in 1956 would be no more than a footnote in the educational history of Rhode Island: a diversion soon to be overwhelmed by the larger, better known, better endowed, and better connected institutions scattered around the state. These were wrong. Roger Williams is here; strong, confident, creating a vision of academic excellence and transforming that vision into reality.

Fifty isn’t old. Fifty isn’t young. Why celebrate Fifty? We celebrate Fifty to recognize our past, celebrate our present, and to build our future. It is in that spirit that we invite you to participate in this year long celebration. Attend events, check out the links on this website, reconnect with classmates or simply take a moment to think about what RWU has meant to you! This celebration is about our institution, the people that make it the special place it is, and our hopes for the future.

There is no better time for a celebration than now. Let the party begin!

- Allison Chase Padula, John Lindsay, Mike Swanson
50th Commission Co-Chairs