Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee

On December 4th, 1989, the Rutgers College Class of '65 launched a competition seeking proposals for the design of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial, intended as a class gift. The monument honors Rutgers students who lost their lives or were missing in action during the Vietnam War.

The memorial, located near Scott Hall at the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street, was designed by architect R. Allen Christianson. The result of his design is a polished black granite wall with seventeen slotted, triangular projections and a sand blasted map of Vietnam. There are sixteen names of Rutgers alumni, along with their date of graduation, engraved into each slab of granite. Each triangular wedge is lit up by the rising sun each morning, until they are all illuminated together at noon.

This collection is comprised of correspondence reflecting the efforts of Howard McGinn, class president and project chairman, and the alumni of Rutgers College Class of 1965, to raise the funds necessary to complete the monument. Also included in the collection are project invoices, blueprints, class accounts, press releases for the inauguration and unveiling, and newspaper clippings.