Message from NJCU President Andrés Acebo on Middle States Commission Action

Dear and Beloved NJCU,

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education has taken accreditation action that advances the establishment of Kean Jersey City this summer, marking a defining and historic moment for our university and our community.

As our campus approaches its centennial, this moment, however, is about more than history. It is about responsibility. It is about a renewed commitment to the indispensable and storied mission we were called to carry forward. It is about honoring nearly a century of purpose etched into stone, into classrooms that have stayed lit long after dusk, into offices where quiet acts of care lifted students and colleagues when no one was watching, into a campus that has borne witness to generations rising, striving, and becoming. This milestone reflects years of extraordinary work by a remarkably devoted community whose passion and convictions safeguarded a noble public purpose. It has served thousands of students, most of them first-generation, positioning them to change the trajectory of their lives. 

This milestone was not born of ease. It was forged in faith and tested, stretched, and, often, strained. There were many moments over the last four years when the weight of what we were called to preserve and reimagine pressed heavily upon us. But this community did not turn away. It leaned in and drew closer.

New Jersey City University has always been more than a name or a place. It is a promise sustained by faculty who have taught beyond the syllabus, by staff who have lifted what could not afford to falter, and by students whose aspirations gave this campus its purpose and its power. This milestone belongs to them. It belongs to a campus community that held its ground, and to the external partners who stood with us in shared purpose.

In the course of the last 99 years, we have changed our name and expanded our charters to meet a moment: New Jersey State Normal School at Jersey City in 1927, New Jersey State Teachers College at Jersey City in 1935, Jersey City State College in 1958, New Jersey City University in 1998, and soon our mission will endure and expand as Kean Jersey City in the summer of 2026. Jersey City has always been where the moment has been met.

More than 60,000 alumni carry this campus’s story into the world. Behind every one of them: generations of faculty, staff, and classmates who gave everything to them and one another. And in a few short weeks the Class of 2026, our final graduating class, will join them and we will witness the answer to every doubt that tried to define this season. The Class of 2026, thousands of students and families who relied on our hearts and minds in our most defining chapter, will cross the stage, and trailing behind their names will follow thousands of stories, thousands of sacrifices, thousands of quiet victories. They are proof that hope, when held long enough, becomes something you can see, something you can touch, something that walks across a stage and into the world. They are what you made possible together. They lay the cornerstone for our next century. 

I am deeply grateful to our faculty, staff, students, and alumni, whose commitment and presence sustained this university through a period of challenge, transformation, and change; to our university leadership, who undertook this work with discipline, resolve, and care; to our community supporters and partners in state and local government who joined us in that purpose; and to President Repollet and our colleagues at Kean University, whose partnership reflects a shared belief in what this next chapter can be. 

Kean Jersey City will expand opportunity, strengthen offerings, and carry nearly a century of impact into a second century with greater reach, greater strength, and renewed purpose. A rich and fortified legacy will be preserved and celebrated. It will be extended and elevated as we create a new and more dynamic public university committed to student success that is forever anchored in the communities we are entrusted to serve.

If there is something to be claimed in this moment and at this hour, it is this: that even under strain, hope held. That even in uncertainty, purpose endured.

What we carry forward is not simply an institution’s history, but a calling. One shaped by sacrifice, sustained by belief, and made real through the lives we are privileged to change. The work before us now is sacred in its own way: to carry forward what others built with care, to widen its reach, and to ensure that those who come after us inherit not only what we preserved but what we had the courage to imagine anew.

Let us move ahead with reverence for what has been, with compassion for all that this moment asked of us, and with steady hands and open hearts for what lies ahead. Let us be grounded in what we have been and unwavering in what we are now called to build.

The measure of this moment will be what, together, you now make possible for our students, for this community, and for generations still to come who will one day stand and call this place their own.

Yours in service with admiration, affection, and gratitude,

Andrés Acebo
President
New Jersey City University