Welcome Back to NJCU for the Spring 2026 Semester

Dear Members of the NJCU Community,

As winter sunlight returns to our campus, to the brick and stone that has witnessed nearly a century of striving and becoming, I want to welcome you back to campus for the Spring 2026 semester. The start of each term has always carried the quiet hum of possibility — the rustle of pages, the murmur of purpose, and the familiar rhythm of our students chasing what’s next. But this semester carries something more. It is a hinge between centuries.

For ninety-nine years, this institution has stood as a sanctuary for those who believed in the transforming power of education. We have created, endured, and witnessed almost everything the world could deliver: the Great Depression and the New Deal; the wars that remade nations and the peace that tried to bind them; the civil rights marches that redefined democracy; the birth of the digital age; the towers that rose and fell just across the river from our campus. Through it all, this university — first a single building along what was then Hudson Boulevard — has kept faith with its founding purpose: to open doors wider than circumstance would otherwise allow.

When the New Jersey State Normal School at Jersey City was established in 1927, few could have imagined that its modest halls would evolve into a vibrant urban university — changing names, expanding horizons and charters, and welcoming generations. New Jersey State Teachers College at Jersey City (1935). Jersey City State College (1958). And since 1998, New Jersey City University — a name that will evolve once more this summer when we become Kean Jersey City. Our fifth evolution in 99 years — each one reflecting our commitment to serve the changing needs of our community.

Names change. Purpose endures. The soul of this place has never been a logo or a signpost; it has always been the people who teach, learn, labor, and love here.

I know that change can be unsettling. But if history teaches us anything, it is that change has always been our constant companion and our catalyst. Each generation of this community has built the future from the fragments of its present. And so do we now.

Just before the start of this semester, Governor Murphy signed into law the legislation that formally advances our merger with Kean University. This act of state recognition, and the $25 million transition support, alongside $44 million in historic campus infrastructure investment, represents both confidence and commitment: confidence in the work we have done, and commitment to ensuring that this campus will continue to serve as a beacon of access, opportunity, and excellence for generations to come.

We do not walk backward into this moment. We are not losing an identity; we are securing a legacy. With this integration, our students will gain access to expanded academic offerings, new research and career pathways, and a statewide and global network of resources and opportunities, all while remaining rooted in the community that has defined us for nearly a century.

Over the past several years, our campus community has valiantly achieved an unprecedented recovery — one that created a path for our mission to endure beyond the exigent circumstances that long challenged our university before the headlines ever highlighted them. For the last year, we have been working to establish a financial model as part of a new university system — one designed not only to weather the headwinds facing higher education, but to ensure that a once-distressed campus can thrive for generations to come.

Still, as we have long shared in our open forums, University Senate meetings, and Board of Trustees convenings, the next stage of this work requires difficult but necessary steps. Beginning today, notices will be issued to potentially affected faculty and professional staff as part of a reorganization and restructuring of our campus operations. These decisions, guided by our Board, are financially necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of our mission and the successful merger ahead. In the weeks ahead, we will also begin the formal orientation and integration of the faculty and staff who will help anchor Kean Jersey City as part of the Kean University system.

I want to acknowledge how deeply this news affects our community. These are not abstract actions. They touch the lives of valued colleagues and friends who have devoted themselves to our students and to our campus. We remain committed to working with our labor partners, the State, and our colleagues at Kean University to ensure that this process is handled with transparency, dignity, and compassion, and that the transition remains centered on our students and our shared mission of access and opportunity.

We do this not out of indifference, but out of duty to act responsibly today so that this campus, this mission, and this promise can endure tomorrow. Our current name is about a generation old, but our history of service reaches back almost a century. We have taught through war, through pandemics, through economic collapse and recovery. We have prepared teachers, nurses, artists, entrepreneurs, social workers, and dreamers who have gone on to build, to heal, to lead. This campus has been a witness to the evolving story of Jersey City and of America itself: a living chronicle of public purpose and human perseverance.

To our students — and especially to the Class of 2026 — know this: you are the bridge to our second century. You have studied, created, and persevered during a time of profound transformation. Yours is the class that carried forward a nearly hundred-year legacy and helped secure its future. On May 19, 2026, when you walk across that Commencement stage, you will not only close one chapter of your lives, but you will open the next for this institution. Your degrees will bear the name New Jersey City University, but your legacy will be etched into the history of Kean Jersey City. You are the class that rebuilt faith in what this university can be.

To every student on this campus: your courage and conviction inspire every decision we make. You remind us daily that this work, no matter how hard, is worth it. You are the living proof of our mission’s endurance. As you walk these halls, remember that you are part of a story much larger than any one of us. It is a story written in resilience, sacrifice, and hope. And that hope is what carries us forward.

And now, we stand at the threshold of our second century.

May we meet it with the same courage that brought us here. May we honor the generations before us by building a future worthy of their labor. And may we remember, as we always have, that education is not merely about advancement, it is about belonging.

Thank you for your continued dedication to our students and to one another. The bridge to our second century is real, and it has been built through your resolve.

Welcome home. Welcome back. And welcome forward — into our next chapter as Kean Jersey City.

Yours in service with admiration and affection,

Andrés Acebo
President
New Jersey City University