Born in 1954, Peg Van Kleef grew up in East Paterson/Elmwood Park, where she attended public schools. In the fall of 1972, she began in the first coeducational class at Rutgers College. In the interview, she recalls her initial impressions of Rutgers College, living in the River Dorms and Silvers Apartments, the Big Brother-Little Sister Program, student life on campus, typing copy for Targum Productions, her classmate serving as the first woman president of the Rutgers Student Government Association, and Millicent Fenwick speaking at graduation in 1976. After initially wanting to major in math, she switched to education. Van Kleef spent her career as an educator, first in Missouri and then in Woodbridge, New Jersey, where she was a middle school special education teacher. This interview is a part of the Pioneering Women of Rutgers College Project, an oral history project documenting the experiences of the first women to attend Rutgers College after it became coeducational in 1972. The project is a collaboration between the Rutgers Oral History Archives, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, and Institute for Women's Leadership.

The Rutgers Oral History Archives received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State. In the 2021-2022 cycle, this grant assisted the ROHA staff in making this oral history available to you for your use.