Name-a-Day Calendar, May 18: NJIT Highlanders

Page 193 of 365

Chosen in: 1949

Chosen by: Robert Skettini via student body vote

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Newark Technical School was founded in 1881 as part of a joint effort between a few government agencies (including Newark City Council) and some local industrialists (including Edward Weston). As far as I can tell, their first sports team was the men’s basketball team, which began play in 1925. To my knowledge, this team did not have an official nickname in its early days.

In 1930, Newark Technical School became the Newark College of Engineering (NCE), but it wasn’t for almost two more decades that the school’s sports teams would finally gain an identity.

The school held a nickname contest in early 1949, with suggestions to be put to a vote on May 26. Of the four finalists, two played on the school’s primary color red (Red Devils, Red Rockets), one played on the name of the industrialist whose contributions helped found the school (Westonians), and one played on the school’s location on high ground in the city of Newark (Highlanders). Out of 700 students at NCE, 333 participated in the vote, which selected “Highlanders”, the name submitted by Robert Skettini.

Following curricular expansion, including the addition of an architecture school, NCE would become the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1975, retaining the Highlanders branding in the process. By this point, the school had already debuted a highlander mascot, which was modernized when they jumped to Division I in 2006.

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