NEWARK, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of Rutgers-Newark, and can be seen online here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.
Rutgers University–Newark recently held its 80th commencement ceremony, marking a milestone anniversary year, with 2,849 students receiving degrees, along with advice from keynote speaker Jonathan Capehart, a Newark native, Pulitzer Prize winner, and co-anchor of MS NOW's The Weekend.
Held at the Prudential Center in Newark, the event marked the first commencement ceremony for Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson, who stepped into her role in August. “I have been looking forward to this moment since the day I arrived,’’ she said. “Because nothing tells the story of a university better than the faces of its graduating class.”
Smith-Jackson is presiding over a year-long celebration of Rutgers University’s 1946 merger with the University of Newark, when Rutgers-Newark was established and became the institution it is today.
Capehart has deep roots in the city and opened his remarks with a warm greeting to his hometown. He told the crowd he lived on North First Street until the age of 10 and attended St. Rose of Lima Elementary School.
He also gave a shoutout to his high school alma mater, St. Benedict’s Preparatory School, and pointed to octogenarian headmaster Ed Leahy, who has worked there for 53 years and was invited to the ceremony, along with a handful of students, known as “Gray Bees.”
Capehart, who was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters, imparted three lessons to the graduates, all of them drawn from his own life. “First, and I’ve learned this lesson more than once, when someone asks you what you want, tell them,’’ he said.
Capehart confided that after he won the Pulitzer Prize, he met with the head of Bloomberg News, who expressed interest in hiring him, but he initially refused because he wrote about national politics and social issues, and Bloomberg focused on finance.
“He then asked a question that would change the course of my career: ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ Feeling I had nothing to lose, I told him. ‘I want to write a column once a week and go on television and talk about it like I do right now,’” he said.
The job wound up being exactly what he wanted and tripled his salary.
Lesson two?
“Go where your talents are wanted,’’ said Capehart.
“Not everyone will ask you what you want. Some will see your talents and invite you to use them. It’s good for them. You make them look good. It’s good for you. You get to hone your skills and refine your talent with every invitation,’’ he said.
It’s an arrangement that also includes the risk of failure, he warned. But failure is necessary for growth. “Some of the biggest lessons you will learn in life — about yourself, about other people, about what you want and don’t want out of life — will be the result of a failure,’’ he said. “Do not fear it when it happens.’’
What matters is how you respond to failure, Capehart advised.
“Will you crack under the pressure or will you persevere? You will have to be resilient. You will have to be versatile. And when you come out on the other side of failure, you’ll be stronger, smarter, wiser,’’ he said.
Lesson three requires faith, said Capehart. “Everything we do in life is an audition for something else. We just don’t know what for yet,’’ he offered, explaining that some of the most valuable opportunities are gained indirectly. “They might seem like disparate actions divorced from any grand plan… You might even feel like you’re wasting your time,’’ he said. “Until you’re not.”
As an opinion columnist at The Washington Post, Capehart continued doing extra work, including hosting his own podcast and a radio show for WNYC. The side projects wound up getting him hired for his dream job. “I brought all the skills I learned doing all those seemingly disparate things to bear in the anchor chair. I got the call I waited for my whole life: You’re getting a show. And I’ve had a show for five and a half years now,’’ he said.
Smith-Jackson gave her own advice to graduates, assuring them that their education at Rutgers–Newark has equipped them with the strengths to overcome challenges and find solutions. “The world you are entering is complex, urgent, and full of problems that need exactly what you have been trained to do: think critically, act with integrity, and build across differences,’’ she said.
She also extolled the many cultures and backgrounds embodied by the Class of 2026.
"You brought your stories, your languages, your families' sacrifices, and your own hard-won wisdom — and you transformed this university even as it transformed you,’’ she told the graduates. “Our student body — including this graduating class — represents more nations, languages, and life experiences than almost any university in the United States.”
She reminded the grads that the city of Newark has been an integral part of their experience, manifesting itself at RU-N through arts, civic engagement, and research. “The City of Newark is not just a location on a map. It is the living context of everything we do. As an anchor institution, we continuously listen to, learn from, and partner with the city and its residents on the issues that matter most,’’ she said.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka also spoke at the ceremony, declaring that RU-N graduates will uplift the nation and the world. He listed the accomplishments that lie ahead for them, “create cures for diseases that people haven’t found yet, cook food that will make people live longer, teach folks about humanity and democracy,’’ he promised.
“When you show the world who you are, and how big, and bad, and beautiful Rutgers–Newark is, that you started here, the world better watch out, because here you come,’’ he said.
The student speaker was Victor C. Agbara, a Computer Science major and member of the Honors Living-Learning Community, who has conducted tuberculosis research with the Rutgers Center for Cancer and Biomedicine and earned fellowships with the United States Department of Defense and NASA.
"Coming into Newark I came into a community empowered by a collective struggle, a community that embraced me as one of their own,'' he said. "Rutgers-Newark gave me the soft hug that allowed me to move from a restrictive environment to opportunities to accrue economic freedom for myself and the generations that will come after me."
Also speaking at the ceremony were Undergraduate Student Governing Association President Adrian Henry and Graduate Student Governing Association President Tiffany Olivera.
The ceremony also included a special video message from U.S. Senator Cory Booker and remarks from Rutgers-Newark alumna Brittany Hale (Class of '09).
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