On President McCormick's desk sits a small bell that dates back to the 19th century and connects him to one of his most important predecessors.

When Dr. McCormick was a boy of 5 or 6, his father, Rutgers historian Richard P. McCormick, was working on a history of the university. At the time, William H. Demarest, who was Rutgers president from 1906 to 1924 and who had written his own history of the institution many years earlier, was living out his retirement in a house on the corner of Seminary Place and George Street in New Brunswick. The senior McCormick used to meet with Demarest there on Saturday mornings to discuss history. Young Dickie would tag along and prowl around the Demarest library. He became intrigued by a small replica of the Liberty Bell. Dr. Demarest had obtained it as a schoolboy when he went to Philadelphia for the country's centennial in 1876. "He saw how much I liked it," recalls President McCormick, "and one morning he gave me the bell. I still have that bell. It is on my desk to this day, and I will always treasure that connection to a great president of this university."