Commencement speaker Gustav Heningburg has spent the past thirty years of his life helping to revitalize Newark and the surrounding area.

Heningburg is well-known for his award-winning NBC public affairs program, Positively Black. His numerous other accomplishments include serving as the first president and CEO of the Greater Newark Urban Coalition, which helped guide Newark forward in the aftermath of the upheaval of 1967.

For decades, he has remained engaged in the social, political and economic advancement of the city. He chaired the then-newly elected Mayor Sharpe James’ transition team in 1986, served as commissioner of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, and chaired the New Jersey Educational Opportunity Fund for the first 10 years of its existence. In addition, for nearly three decades, he has served as a trustee of the Fund for New Jersey.

He was most recently honored by having the Gustav Heningburg Civic Fellows program initiated by the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience. The program works to create partnerships between Newark’s established and rising leaders and local and nationally known scholars to find new ways to address some of the city’s issues.