Chancellor's First Year: Getting Into the Spirit

Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson has placed a great emphasis on school spirit, including an effort to elevate and expand athletics at RU-N and create events that will unify the campus and deepen the connection for alumni and donors, such as this year’s 80th anniversary celebration and Rutgers-Newark’s first homecoming in more than a decade, held last year. This year, homecoming has been expanded to an all-day event on Oct. 24. On October 23, the Chancellor's Student Achievement and Resilience (STAR) Night will bring together alumni and community supporters to celebrate the  achievements of RU-N students and raise scholarship support. “The STAR fund helps turn potential into opportunity and aspiration into achievement,’’ said Smith-Jackson. In the final installment of our four-part series focusing on the chancellor’s first year at Rutgers-Newark, she discusses Scarlet Raider pride. Find the other installments here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. 

Why is a robust sense of school spirit, including athletic games and events like homecoming, an important part of the RU-N community experience?

It’s about that swagger. We have the right to celebrate scholarship and academic excellence. People should know when they walk on this campus that we are proud, and that’s why we wear our Rutgers-Newark pins and Rutgers-Newark gear. Rutgers is wonderful overall, but we want people to know Rutgers-Newark is in the house.

 Sports and athletics are great for branding and visibility. It brings people together under one flag, cheering on their team. With homecoming, everyone needs to have a place, everyone needs a pilgrimage. Scarlet Raiders deserve that pilgrimage, for people to say, I’m going back to the places I loved, to see my classmates, to walk around the campus and see the great things the university is doing.

It's important to carry that pride forward. We want homecoming to be a signature event. I want it to be something people want to come back to. This is your place. You want people to remember how this place influenced their lives in positive ways. And after a pilgrimage, we hope they leave inspired to go on and keep doing great in the world.

What feedback have you gotten from alumni and donors about RU-N and supporting its students?

I hear them say this all the time: but for Rutgers-Newark, I would not have made it. And these are alumni who are high achievers. They’re doing great things, and they came from struggle. They recognize that when Rutgers-Newark opened its door to them, it was a golden opportunity.
I saw an alumna walking down the street who graduated two years ago, and now she’s working at Ernst & Young. She said she would never have gotten there without Rutgers-Newark.

We’re working on a campaign with donors in specific areas: housing, transportation, food and child care. Maybe someone has a big heart for child care and they say, I struggled at school because I couldn’t afford child care for my 3-year-old, or I failed math because I didn’t have reliable transportation to get to math class.
Alumni look back and say, if someone helped me with this, I would have graduated in four years instead of six or eight. We had a student-athlete who was commuting. This person had to be at practice at 6 a.m., and lived an hour away. We found a donor who was willing to donate for room and board.
Many of our donors identify strongly with our students’ lived experience. Donors want students to have an easier time than they had on their journey towards completion of the degree.