 Rutgers Day now contains the New Jersey Folk Festival within it, which is an older annual event that happens on Douglass Campus, and which has been going on since the mid-1970s.The first Rutgers Day took place Saturday, April 25, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and attracted 50,000 visitors to university campuses in New Brunswick and Piscataway, N.J..

Rutgers Day expanded on the university's long-standing traditions of Rutgers Agricultural Field Day and the New Jersey Folk Festival, which also occurred that day.The day featured performances, tours, exhibits, hands-on activities, lectures, demonstrations, children's programs and more aimed at the general public, parents and children, teens, current and prospective students, and alumni.