Rutgers Celebrates Joyful Commencement Season
Nearly 18,000 students graduated from Rutgers last week during inspirational commencement ceremonies held across the university.
Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Rutgers Health grads celebrated their milestone during a ceremony held on Mother’s Day, which added special meaning to the moment. Among the crowd were graduates who made national headlines: a mother and daughter who completed their degrees together and a doctoral candidate who earned the title "supermom" after she defended her dissertation from the hospital after giving birth in a car earlier in the day.
At the Rutgers-Newark commencement, rapper and creator Black Thought of The Roots urged grads to become mythmakers during the ceremony held at the Prudential Center and Rutgers-Camden marked the occasion with a jam-packed week of ceremonies.
Here are the highlights from celebrations around the university.
Freeman Hrabowski Offers Rutgers Class of 2024 a Hopeful Message in Challenging Times
Freeman Hrabowski III, educator and civil rights champion, told the Class of 2024 to build a future based on strong character and cherished relationships, taking the advice of a handful of students he met who requested a hopeful message in a challenging time.
“Watch your thoughts. They become your words,” Hrabowski said during the 258th anniversary commencement for Rutgers-New Brunswick and Rutgers Health. “Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. Be the change, Class of 2024.”
Although this year’s graduating class faced unprecedented challenges shaped by a global pandemic and tumultuous world events, the scene was joyful Sunday despite the rain as crowds arrived at SHI Stadium in Piscataway.
“Having a regular ceremony like this is very special,” said Ahmir Brown, a graduate from the School of Arts and Sciences who had a nontraditional start to college taking classes remotely due to the pandemic. “All my family is coming today, and I know that means a lot to them because I didn’t have a regular high school graduation. A lot of us feel like we only got three years, but it was a great experience nonetheless.”
The pandemic may be behind us now, President Jonathan Holloway said, but we emerged into a changed world.
“We are still in recovery,” Holloway reminded the graduates. “This is a phrase that we need to ponder in a moment such as this: when we find ourselves buffeted by so many violent storms, by so much disagreement and pain and hurt and loss.”
Rapper and Creator Black Thought of The Roots Urges Rutgers-Newark Graduates to Become Mythmakers
Rapper and multi-faceted creator Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought, cofounder of The Roots, urged Rutgers-Newark graduates to forge new myths and meaning out of a “collapsing old world” at the commencement ceremony.
In a speech that cited sources as wide-ranging as Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth and the Declaration of Independence, Trotter encouraged the Class of 2024 to embark upon a journey of creation and self-invention.
“The collapse of the old world requires a new myth to be born that connects us all… You write it, discover it, calculate it, draw it, create it…You are the mythmakers,’’ said Trotter, known by many as front man of the legendary hip-hop group The Roots. For more than a decade, they have been the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The ceremony, held at the Prudential Center in Newark, celebrated 3,017 undergraduate and graduate degree recipients.
Rutgers University-Camden Celebrates Joyous, Jam-Packed Commencement Week
Walking across the stage of Camden's Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, which has been graced by music legends like Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, and Bruno Mars, the 1,676 graduates in Rutgers-Camden's Class of 2024 were the stars of the moment, rejoicing in their status as Rutgers-Camden's newest alumni and commemorating the start of their careers in science, art, business, nursing, law, and many other fields.
While most graduates attended school-specific ceremonies alongside their classmates, the Rutgers-Camden and Graduate School Commencement, along with a graduation picnic immediately following the ceremony, were open to all graduates and their guests, giving the entire university community a chance to come together in recognition of a life-changing week.
Brian K. Bridges, secretary of higher education for the State of New Jersey, emphasized that overcoming challenges and burdens has helped graduates identify their greatest opportunities and strengths.
“My wish is the memories you have here and now – and the ones you have made over the years at Rutgers-Camden – will anchor you and your purpose for years to come,” Bridges said. “Whether it’s hours of studying at the library, hounding your professors during and outside of office hours, or getting a class assignment done in between shifts at work, that’s where resilience is built.”
