A Mid-Year Reflection from Interim President Andrés Acebo
Dear Members of the NJCU Family,
This week marks six months since I accepted the privilege to serve as interim president of a university whose mission has been inextricably linked to my life. In its nearly 100-year-old history, I firmly believe that we are writing the university’s most remarkable chapter together: a story of resilience and community worthy of the lives we touch and champion.
I can proudly say we have accomplished so much by uniting and working together. When I agreed to serve our community — one that raised me and shaped me — I acknowledged that the road ahead would be difficult, but that this refuge, this sanctuary to our community, was deserving of investment and preservation. I also acknowledged that despite the painful immediacy of the challenges we face, these challenges paled in comparison to the ones that members of our community overcome everyday.
Today, as I am set to embark on the next six months as your president, I can declare with confidence that we have officially moved from an era of crisis to a time of recovery.
NJCU’s mission is here — to stay. And it's strengthened by our collective commitments and convictions to lift the communities we serve.
Just a few short weeks ago, months of advocacy has led to a $13.8 million increase in our funding for Fiscal Year 2024 — including $10 million in stabilization funding that is an investment by the State of New Jersey in the future of our beloved institution — a future we outlined in April with the announcement of the university’s multi-year Recovery and Revitalization Plan.
We did this, together. At no time in the history of our institution has a community come together like they have in the last six months. Our students, faculty and staff, alumni, labor leaders, and stakeholders and friends in the community wrote over 7,000 letters of support to legislative leaders around the state. We made phone calls, we knocked on doors, and we sent emails and letters. That is an incredible example of a community coming together — coalescing to protect a mission of an indispensable institution.
We are thankful for the additional support of our university, a remarkable community of extraordinary students, faculty, and staff. We are grateful to Governor Murphy’s administration, our legislative and community leaders, and our friends in organized labor who all came together with our administration to champion the mission of this university and the community it serves. Together we will continue to strengthen NJCU’s mission.
I especially wish to thank Senator Brian P. Stack, Assemblywomen Annette Chaparro and Angela McKnight, Assemblymen Raj Mukherji and William Sampson, Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, Senator Nellie Pou and the Latino Legislative Caucus, and Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter and the Black Legislative Caucus. Special thanks also to Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Nicholas Scutari for their stewardship of the budget and Senators Nick Sacco, Joseph Cryan, Gordon M. Johnson, Andrew Zwicker, Paul Sarlo, Vin Gopal, Declan O'Scanlon, and Assemblywomen Eliana Pintor Marin, Mila Jasey, and Lisa Swain for their thoughtful support.
The University is fortunate to be anchored in a community that supports its mission. Our gratitude is also extended to the Jersey City Mayor and the City Council and Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, his administration, Commissioner Bill O’Dea and the Board of Commissioners, for supporting the institution’s role and significance.
Furthermore, I must acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude, our leaders in organized labor, from the American Federation of Teachers, both nationally with Randi Weingarten and locally with Donna Chiera and AFT New Jersey and AFT Local 1839, to Charlie Wowkanech with the AFL-CIO, to leaders in the CWA, IFPTE, the Hudson County Building and Construction Trades, and the Hudson County Central Labor Council.
On January 17, the university had a $23 million structural operating deficit. Today, six months later, the university has reduced this deficit to less than $8 million. This means that the university’s rightsizing efforts brought about by unprecedented collaboration with our campus stakeholders and organized labor has ensured the university is in a far stronger position than it was just six months ago. NJCU is on a clear path to long-term sustainability and recovery with the enhanced state support and partnership. The efforts of our institution to strategically develop and implement rightsizing measures must continue to strengthen the university’s mission, not just in the short term, but for its long-term sustainability.
We are happy to report that in our deficit reduction efforts conducted with our union partners, we have been able to rescind nearly 50% of the planned layoffs.
In these six months, while in the midst of transitioning from crisis to recovery, we have made other strides towards the future. Together with an unprecedented 95 percent support of our University Senate, the university has overhauled its general education program to become the most transfer-friendly public institution in the state, and those efforts will culminate in an academic master plan which we expect to announce in the second half of 2023 in collaboration with our University Senate, so our faculty will have a say in authoring the university’s academic focus and promise.
Additionally, NJCU and Hudson County Community College (HCCC) have collaborated to design HCCC | NJCU CONNECT, a transformational program that will provide highly visible, inclusive, and barrier-free transfer pathways to guide students and their families from high school, through studies at HCCC, and on to graduation at NJCU. We have recently announced another partnership agreement with the Latino Action Network and the Latino Action Network Foundation which will focus on the development of community education, civic engagement, and research initiatives on educational equity and health care access policies.
Finally, this spring, we announced a memorandum of understanding between NJCU's administration and faculty with our AFT Local 1839 local affiliate, that sets the vision for shared governance and good faith labor relations at the university, underscoring a commitment to collective responsibility for student success, which has been celebrated by the media, including ROI-NJ and NJ Spotlight News. While labor strife may have occurred elsewhere in the state, at NJCU we have come together to champion a mission.
In the coming weeks and months, we will have more good news to celebrate with the NJCU community.
The world is rapidly changing around us. Rights to equal opportunity are being eroded and challenged. The mission of our institution is more critical now, than ever before. In a recent interview I conducted with News 12 New Jersey on this topic, the television station noted that what is clear is universities like NJCU are now even more significant to the people of the state of New Jersey, and its college students.
The promise of higher education, particularly in communities of color and communities that have been historically underrepresented and underserved, needs to be safeguarded. As I expressed in an important feature story on this topic with ROI-NJ, my story isn’t possible if there wasn’t an investment in me by my community — if there wasn’t an institution that cared about where my story began.
At NJCU, we have always prided ourselves on serving the most diverse student community in the state and among the most diverse in the country. Investing in institutions like NJCU that drive economic mobility through high access to affordable higher education has never been more critical and we will continue our mission of ensuring that every student is able to receive the education they need to thrive right in their own community.
We are here. We will continue to be fiercely protective of our mission and community. We will champion it together. That work will never relent but we will achieve great results together.
In the coming weeks and months, we must continue pushing our mission forward and elevating our community to greater heights with urgency. We will write a beautiful story of resilience, perseverance, and greatness together.
In solidarity and with affection,
Andrés Acebo
Interim President
New Jersey City University