Alumna Sheryl Lee Ralph stars as Barbara Howard, the all-knowing kindergarten teacher in ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary.

Sheryl Lee Ralph
Alumna Sheryl Lee Ralph starred in the role of Deena Jones in the 1982 Broadway hit Dreamgirls.
Pamela Littky/ABC via Getty Images

Forty years after being nominated for a Tony Award for her electrifying performance as Deena Jones in the 1982 Broadway hit Dreamgirls, alumna Sheryl Lee Ralph is again receiving critical praise, this time for her role as Barbara Howard, the all-knowing kindergarten teacher in ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary.The show has captivated the nation with its depiction of an underfunded Philadelphia public school. Ralph RC’75 (a 2002 inductee into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni) has based her resolute character, in part, on 99-year-old Ann Hughes, her mother-in-law who had a long career as a secretary in the Philadelphia school system. Ralph’s husband, Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Hughes, advocates for improving conditions in the city’s public schools. “To see him using his voice to fight for proper education for all the state’s children, and for God to put me on a path to get a show that’s all about Philadelphia, with the trajectory of teachers and education and students—it’s like sometimes God and celestial Mother Goddess are amazing at how everything comes together,” Ralph told The Philadelphia Inquirer.