About
Kean University () is a public university in Union, Elizabeth, Hillside, Jefferson, and Jersey City, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education and is a state-designated research university.
The university was founded in 1855 in Newark, New Jersey, as the Newark Normal School, then became New Jersey State Teachers College in 1937. In 1958, the college was relocated from Newark to Union Township, site of the Kean family's ancestral home at Liberty Hall. After its move to the historic Livingston-Kean Estate, which includes the entire Liberty Hall acreage, the historic James Townley House, and Kean Hall, which historically housed the library of United States Senator Hamilton Fish Kean and served as a political meeting place, the school became Newark State College, a comprehensive institution providing a full range of academic programs and majors. Renamed Kean College of New Jersey in 1973, the institution earned university status on September 26, 1997, becoming Kean University of New Jersey.
Kean University is the fourth-largest institution of higher education in New Jersey and currently comprises five colleges and the Nathan Weiss Graduate College. Kean University also hosts research institutions including the New Jersey Center for Science, Technology and Mathematics, the Kean University Human Rights Institute, the Holocaust Resource Center, the Wynona Moore Lipman Ethnic Studies Center, and Liberty Hall. It has a satellite campus in Toms River, New Jersey, a campus in the Skylands Region of New Jersey, and Wenzhou–Kean University a stand-alone joint venture university in Wenzhou, China. In early 2025, Kean University submitted a proposal to acquire New Jersey City University (NJCU). On March 5, 2025, the NJCU Board of Trustees voted to move forward with the proposal. The proposal changed the name from NJCU to Kean Jersey City, oficially becoming part of the system of Kean campuses on July 1, 2026.