Photos by Samuel Sylvester.

RU-Newark campus-wide graduation includes hundreds of business school students

Fri, May 22, 2026

Rutgers University-Newark celebrated the graduation of 2,849 students, including more than 400 from Rutgers Business School, during a milestone 80th anniversary convocation marked by hopeful, inspiring words from speaker Jonathan Capehart, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and MS Now anchor.

The graduating students represented six schools from across the Newark campus, including more than 1,200 graduate students. The ceremony featured speeches by three student leaders and Newark Mayor Ras Barak as well as Capehart.

Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson, who was presiding over her first convocation, told the crowd she had been looking forward to graduation since she arrived last summer.

“When I look out at this arena today — I see exactly why Rutgers University–Newark matters, and exactly why this work matters to me,” she said. “We are a proud, proud intercultural community and we have committed to partnering with our students to realize their dreams.”

Smith-Jackson highlighted the diversity of the campus – students and faculty -- as well as its strong connection with the city that surrounds it and offers students an extension of their classrooms.

“Our faculty, staff, and students come from dozens of countries, generations of American families, and every corner of New Jersey — and this university is stronger for every one of those stories,” the chancellor said. “We are built on the contributions, sacrifices, and ambitions of people who came here with a dream — and we honor that legacy today.”

“The City of Newark is not just a location on a map,” she said. “It is the living context of everything we do.”

Capehart, who received an honorary doctoral degree of humane letters before he spoke, offered the graduating students advice based on his own lived experience. He also urged them to continue believing in themselves and the country through "the challenging times."

“There is a reason why America is a beacon to the rest of the world, why many of your parents came here so many years ago, why many of you came here," he said. “America is based on a universal ideal that burns in the human heart. No amount of impudence, corruption, amoral leadership or galling disrespect can diminish America’s proven promise. Or your role in helping to fulfill it.”

Read the Rutgers Today story.

Rutgers Business School at the RU-Newark Convocation

Jonathan Capehart speaks from a podium during the RU-Newark graduation convocation.

Jonathan Capehart from MS Now, a Newark native, told the students that some of the biggest lessons they will learn in life...will be the result of a failure. "It’s not the failure that will be most important," he said. "It will be how you respond to it."

A student makes a gesture of accomplishment after receiving degree.

A Rutgers Business School student reacts to the accomplishment of completing his college education after receiving his degree.

Two students make a heart for the camera during RU-Newark graduation convocation.

Two students pose for the camera during the convocation ceremony at the Prudential Center.

Rutgers University-Newark Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson at the podium during 2026 graduation ceremony at Prudential Center.

RU-Newark Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson presided over her first graduation convocation. She told 2, 849 graduating students: "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 difference."