Free Spirit

The Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick, New Jersey, stands as a memorial to one of Rutgers University’s most influential leaders. Gross started teaching at Rutgers as an assistant professor of philosophy in 1946, but quickly rose through the ranks to become the university’s provost in 1949 and finally its president from 1959 to 1971. He led the university through an era when it experienced both some of its greatest growth and most intense controversies. 
 
Free Spirit explores how Gross helped reshape Rutgers from a sleepy college into a world-renowned public research university. It also reveals how he steered the university through the tumult of the Red Scare, civil rights era, and the Vietnam War by taking principled stands in favor of both racial equality and academic freedom. This biography tells the story of how, from an early age, Gross came to believe in the importance of doing what was right, even when the backlash took a toll on his own health.
 
Written by his youngest son Thomas, this book offers a uniquely well-rounded portrait of Gross as both a public figure and a private person. Covering everything from his service in World War II to his stints as a game-show personality, Free Spirit introduces the reader to a remarkable academic leader.

This biography explores how Mason Welch Gross helped reshape Rutgers University from a sleepy college into a world-renowned public research university, while steering it through the tumult of the Red Scare, civil rights era, and the Vietnam War by taking principled stands in favor of both racial equality and academic freedom.

THOMAS W. GROSS is a retired firefighter, military officer, and emergency physician who earned his MD from the Rutgers Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey. His award-winning weekly medical column appeared in the California newspaper The Marin Independent Journal from 2004 to 2009.

Author’s Note
1 Prologue: The Inauguration, 1959
2 Postmark: Willcox, Arizona, 1928
3 Postmark: Cambridge, England,1930
4 The Blind Date, 1939
5 Postmark: Somewhere in Italy, 1944
6 The Homecoming, 1945
7 Goodbye to New York, 1946
8 In the Second Chair, 1949
9 Rutgers v. the Red Scare, 1954
10 Philosophy of Education v. the “Big Lie”
11 The Inauguration, 1959
12 Into the Fishbowl, 1959
13 The Cultural Wasteland, 1959
14 Nothing at Rutgers Was Ever Easy
15 Crisis, 1961
16 Faith and Reason
17 Score Once More, 1965
18 The Inflection Point, 1965
19 The Silent Steinway, 1965
20 The Jewel in the Crown
21 The Year Everything Went Wrong, 1968
22 Law and Order, 1968
23 Faith and Reason v. Law and Order
24 June 1970
25 Complicated, 1971
26 Guggenheim, 1972
27 The Door Opens, Then Closes Tight, 1975–1977
28 The Last Post, 1977
29 The Hope That Lies within You, 2020
Appendix: Personal Histories, Correspondence, Reminiscences, and Interviews
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index 

"This truly engaging and eminently readable biography recounts with insight, candor, and empathy the compelling life and the exemplary, highly principled career of the author’s father. It is particularly valuable for its treatment of how Mason Gross successfully met the recurring challenges he confronted during his eventful presidency of Rutgers."

"Gross’s life story is an inspiring testament to the power of ideas and principles, one that offers an important lesson and a warning in our era."

"Mason W. Gross promoted a sense of calm and reason during a decade of political action and social awareness."
 

Alumni Profiles: The Living Legacy of Mason Gross by Leslie Aristo Pfaff