Black Alumni Collective 2024 National Conference Hosted at Rutgers

The Black Alumni Collective (BAC)2024 National Conference took place at Rutgers University May 30th -June 2nd bringing together alumni from around the country to participate in seminars, workshops, tours, a golf outing, and networking opportunities.

“As an alumna of Rutgers University, I was very proud to welcome alumni throughout the nation to our campuses,” said Simone Mack-Bright, president of RAAA. “We were really gratified about the enthusiasm expressed by the attendees and the requests for follow-up. We heard many great things about the conference, Rutgers and New Brunswick.”

Started in 2018, the BAC held its first conference in 2019 at Georgia Tech. Over the years the organization has continued to grow and now has partnerships with alumni from 40 different schools including Rutgers, Duke, and Florida State. The 2024 National Conference was the first time the event took place in the Northeast and the first time at a Big Ten school. Allyson Reaves, an alumna of Clemson and Boston University and co-founder of BAC sees the Rutgers hosting as a move forward.

“We are so incredibly happy and excited to be in the Northeast for the very first time because that gives extra momentum to the works that got started in Atlanta,” Reaves said.

More than 300 participants took part in events during the four-day conference and there were many highlights. A Celebration of Paul Robeson seminar was led by his granddaughter Susan who presented a film of his life. There was also a tour to view the Paul Robeson Plaza on Voorhees Mall. Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway participated in a fireside chat. Holloway is the first African American president in the history of Rutgers, a college that started in 1766.

“If we can make a difference in a community of this size, imagine what great things can be done,” said Holloway referencing the 100,000 Rutgers community that consists of students, faculty, and staff. “Higher education can be a role model for the world.”

Rutgers Newark Provost Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, who also serves as the school’s interim chancellor and Dr. Randal Pinkett did a presentation on Black Faces in High Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness, the same name as the newest book they co-authored.

After sharing their presentation, the two facilitated a riveting discussion on how Black Americans can navigate corporate America and the business world. Panelists included Lawrence Hibbert, President of BCT Partners, John Harmon, founder and president of the African American Chamber of Commerce New Jersey, (AACCNJ), Alfa Demmallash, CEO and co-founder of Rising Tide Capital, and Judge Victoria Pratt.

Drs. Robinson and Pinkett who met on Rutgers Busch campus as engineering students developed a lifelong partnership and friendship. Along with Hibbert and another Rutgers alumnus, Dallas Grundy they co-founded BCT Partners based in Newark, NJ a celebrated consulting firm featured in Black Enterprise and Forbes magazines.

“If you don’t have a strategy of how you will succeed it will already be too late because you may look over your career and find you have made too many comprises,” said Pinkett an international speaker and season five winner of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, the only person of color to win.

Rutgers alumna and Black Enterprise Executive Editor and SVP Alfred Edmond closed out the conference with inspiring words of hope in his address, Collective Call to Action—Till Victory is Won: Recommitting the Fight for Black Freedom. He said that the troubling times we see with diversity, equity, and inclusion are not something new.

“We’ve been here before. We should not expect schools to teach our history and do it ourselves,” Edmond said. “We have to realize that being first isn’t an achievement, it's an assignment. We have to bring in others as we climb.”

The 2025 BAC National Conference will be in Ghana and 2026 will be at the University of Pittsburg.

For more information about the Black Alumni Collective list their website: https://blackalumnicollective.org/