Nearly 3,000 Graduates to Receive Degrees at Six Newark Ceremonies

                                                                                              
NEWARK, N.J. -- Members of Rutgers-Newark’s Class of 2011 need only look up at the dais to get a possible glimpse of their futures during this year’s commencement ceremonies.  At two of the six campus convocations next month, distinguished alumni of Rutgers University, Newark, will deliver the addresses to their successors, while one of them will receive an honorary degree. (A complete list of ceremony dates, times, speakers and locations appears on pg. 4.) 

One of the nation's leading legal scholars, Elizabeth Warren, Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Class of 1976, will both receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and deliver the May 27 commencement address to the law school’s 2011 graduates.  In 2008 Warren w

Elizabeth Warren
as appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  In 2009 and 2010, Warren was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 most influential women attorneys in America.  A renowned authority in the field of bankruptcy, contract, and commercial law and a leading academic consumer advocate on banking issues, Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University.  She currently serves as Assistant to the President of the United States and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

 Warren has testified before Congress on behalf of American families, and served as chief adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. 

 The law school convocation will be in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Newark.

On May 16, yet another distinguished graduate of the law school,  Marc Berson, ‘68, of Millburn. N.J., will speak, this time at the convocation for the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick.  Berson is founder and chairman of The Fidelco Group, a private investment firm, and chair of Fidelity Realty Group.  A lawyer and philanthropist, Berson is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the NJPAC and a  member of its Executive Committee. He is a former trustee of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Paper Mill Playhouse.  That ceremony also is in the NJPAC.

 The May 16 Rutgers Business School ceremony is the first of the six convocations hosted by the  eight schools of Rutgers University in Newark, which will award bachelors, masters, doctorates and Juris Doctor degrees to nearly 3,000 graduates. 

 The largest commencement ceremony for Rutgers-Newark, the joint convocation of the Newark College of Arts and Sciences and the University College, takes place May 16 at 2 p.m., also in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Those graduates will hear an address by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, a former Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of History, on the Newark campus. Gordon-Reed, a noted Jeffersonian scholar, won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award for her ground-breaking “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton).

On Tuesday, May 17, the Rutgers Golden Dome Athletic Center will be the site of two commencement ceremonies. At 10 a.m. that morning, Rutgers College of Nursing graduates will hear an address by Dr. Susan Hassmiller, senior adviser for nursing for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), who helps shape and lead the foundation’s strategies to address nurse and nurse faculty shortages in an effort to create a higher quality of patient care in the United States. She also is director of the RWJF Initiative on the Future of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine.                                                             

 At 2 p.m. on May 17, Dr. Joan Morrell of the Rutgers-Newark Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience will address graduates and guest at the joint commencement ceremony for the Rutgers Graduate School-Newark and the Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration.  Morrell is a research scientist who uses basic models of neuroscience to study the brain. She specializes in research concerning steroid hormones and reproductive behavior, particularly maternal behavior with an emphasis on examining the systems that mediate maternal motivation.

On Wednesday, May 18, the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice will hold a 10 a.m. convocation in the Rutgers Golden Dome Athletic Center. The speaker is Dr. John Laub, director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.  NIJ is charged with providing objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools necessary to address the challenges of crime and justice, particularly at the state and local levels.                                                                                        

Maps, directions, parking: http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/commencement/  

  

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY IN NEWARK 2011 COMMENCEMENT DATES

Monday, May 16, 2011, 2 p.m., RUTGERS COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES-NEWARK AND RUTGERS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE-NEWARK, (JOINT CONVOCATION). New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark (Tickets required for NJPAC.) Seating is first come/first served. The Center is handicapped-accessible. The FAS-N/UC ceremony will be simulcast live in Room  220 of  Smith Hall,101 Warren St.  NO TICKETS NEEDED  TO WATCH THE BROADCAST OF THE CEREMONY IN SMITH HALL.


Monday, May 16, 2011, 10 a.m., RUTGERS BUSINESS SCHOOL-NEWARK AND NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark (Tickets required.)


Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 10 a.m., RUTGERS COLLEGE OF NURSING, Golden Dome Athletic Center, 110 Warren St., Newark


Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 2 p.m., RUTGERS GRADUATE SCHOOL-NEWARK AND RUTGERS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS & ADMINISTRATION, Golden Dome Athletic Center, 110 Warren St., Newark


Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 10 a.m., RUTGERS SCHOOL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Golden Dome Athletic Center, 110 Warren St., Newark


Friday, May 27, 2011, 10 a.m., RUTGERS SCHOOL OF LAW-NEWARK
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark  (Tickets required.)

 

 

 

 

Media Contact: Carla Capizzi
973/353-5263
E-mail: capizzi@rutgers.edu