Rutgers reflects on loss of Rutgers students, faculty

Each year, the University community has had to face deaths of students and faculty.

Eight students were remembered at last week’s event, “Rutgers Remembers,” which was a gathering of the students’ families, campus clergy and faculty from the Office of the Dean of Students.

Former Rutgers student Billy McCaw, 22, who was found beaten to death in New Brunswick, was a brother of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and was attending Kean University before he died, according to a Daily Targum article published in February.

Billy McCaw’s father, Bob McCaw, said Billy started to blossom at the age of one, and as he grew older became interested in the sports.

Bob said after Billy’s death, his friends came forward with anecdotes attesting to Billy’s humor, and Billy was known to make up nicknames for his friends, according to a Targum article published last week.

Santa Pumpura was another student who passed away this year. According to The Daily Targum, a car fatally struck her on March 21 on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.

According to the article, Pumpura came to Rutgers from Latvia and was considering a career in quantitative finance.

Pumpura had a go-getter attitude and was known for going out of her way for her friends.

In addition to the students who passed away, many retired faculty from all the Rutgers campuses passed away this year.

Donald Halsted, who was an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education since 1963, passed away in February of this year, according to the Rutgers Faculty & Staff Bulletin.

“He enjoyed gardening, cooking, baking bread and his pets,” according to the website.

Peter Rona, professor of marine geology and geophysics at Rutgers, died of a blood-related cancer Feb. 19 at the age 79.

Rona was known for his work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and his frequent trips in oceanic submersibles, according to an article in The Daily Targum.

S. George Walters, who died in January, began teaching at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Business in 1970, where he was the founding director of the Inter-functional Management Program.

Walters, who retired in 1993, worked with the National Science Foundation during his time at Rutgers and helped establish Industry/University Cooperating Research Centers.

He co-authored seven books and 188 refereed journal articles.