Clayton R. Brower, <\/span>13th president of the college and namesake of the Brower Student Center, died on June 30 at the age of 99.<\/p>\n Brower\u2019s first interaction with the college was in the 1950s, when he served as assistant superintendent of schools in Plainfield, New Jersey. Back then, he was in charge of recruiting student teachers. He met students up and down the East Coast and in the Midwest, but the ones from Trenton State College, he said in a 1981 interview, were \u201cthe tops,\u201d and the campus community in general struck him as \u201cclose and cordial.\u201d<\/p>\n He joined TSC in 1962 when James Forcina \u201938, then chair of education, tapped Brower to take over the department. It was Brower\u2019s first college position, and he found it better than being a public school administrator because \u201cI could be much closer to students.\u201d<\/p>\n Brower\u2019s strong connection to students would become part of his legacy. Named president in 1971, he was a beloved leader and quickly became known as the \u201cstudents\u2019 president.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClayton was the guy,\u201d says Philip Tumminia \u201964, a history major who was in the first course Brower taught at the college. \u201cHe helped me understand leadership, and how to treat everyone as an equal.\u201d<\/p>\n Luckily for Tumminia, Brower\u2019s kindness toward students didn\u2019t end in the classroom. \u201cI lived on campus,\u201d says Tumminia, \u201cso I wasn\u2019t eligible for a parking decal and was getting ticket after ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n Tumminia, a Lions football player, often talked sports with Brower, an avid Syracuse football fan.<\/p>\n \u201cClayton heard about my tickets and said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you park at my house?\u2019\u201d says Tumminia. \u201cImagine. He let a kid from Camden park an old Dodge in his driveway for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n The college\u2019s student center, which opened in 1976 and is often referred to as \u201cthe stud,\u201d was named in Brower\u2019s honor by a unanimous vote of the board of trustees in 1981, a year after his retirement.<\/p>\n In addition to his ties with students, Brower is known for prioritizing faculty research, increasing admissions standards, and positioning the college for its future success.<\/p>\n \u201cHe helped TCNJ achieve the select image it has today,\u201d says Tumminia. \u201cHe will be dearly missed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>I met Dr. Brower on a few occasions as a student. He was always pleasant. I was just a common undergrad student, but a year or two after I\u2019d met him, I was being introduced to him at a function in the student center when he interrupted and said, \u2018No introduction needed, I\u2019ve already met Mark.\u2019 I couldn’t believe he remembered me.\u201d <\/span>\u2014 Mark Eckhardt \u201979<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLoved Dr. Brower! I<\/span> knew him as a student and then later as staff. I remember one weekend, seeing him just outside of the student center, which was closed. I stopped to say \u2018Hello,\u2019 and he sheepishly asked me if I could let him in so he could show the student center to his friends. I replied, \u2018This is your building; of course I can let you in.\u2019\u201d <\/span>\u2014 Leslie McCausland \u201976<\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>There are few people like Dr. Brower. He was absolutely the right person at the right time for TSC \u2014 warm, generous of spirit, caring, authentic, and committed to doing good. TSC began its tremendous journey to becoming the best of New Jersey\u2019s colleges under his leadership.\u201d <\/span>\u2014 Bob Parrish \u201972, MA \u201986<\/p>\n Picture: TCNJ Archives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The TCNJ community remembers Clayton Brower\u2019s legacy. Clayton R. Brower, 13th president of the college and namesake of the Brower Student Center, died on June 30 at the age of 99. Brower\u2019s first interaction with the college was in the 1950s, when he served as assistant superintendent of schools in Plainfield, New Jersey. Back then, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":11994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11978"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12005,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11978\/revisions\/12005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}