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Douglass Residential College

Welcome to the 103rd Douglass Spring Convocation

Digital Program

The 103rd Annual Douglass Convocation May 11, 2024  

Order of Exercises

 

PROCESSIONAL

Graduating Class 2024

Platform Dignitaries

“Pomp and Circumstance” by Edward Elgar

 

DEAN’S CONGRATULATIONS

Meghan Rehbein, Ed.D.

Dean, Douglass Residential College and Douglass Campus

 

CHANCELLOR’S CONGRATULATIONS

Francine Conway, Ph.D.

Chancellor, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

 

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Gabrielle Moore, Class of 2024

Voorhees Choir Members

Words by James Weldon Johnson

Music by John Rosamond Johnson

 

CONVOCATION SPEAKER

Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis

New Jersey Supreme Court

 

STUDENT ADDRESS

Cassandra Vega

Class of 2024

 

CONFERRAL OF THE DOUGLASS CERTIFICATE

Ellen Lieberman, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Enrollment Services

 

Meghan Rehbein, Ed.D.

Dean of Douglass College

 

RECOGNITION OF INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATES

Lydia Prendergast, Ph.D.

Director and Associate Dean of Douglass WiSE Program

 

ALMA MATER

Gabrielle Moore, Class of 2024

Voorhees Choir Members

Music by Nancy Hoffacker Miller, DOUGLASS COLLEGE 1954

Words by Jean Gruen Munzer, DOUGLASS COLLEGE 1956

 

RECESSIONAL

Platform Dignitaries

Graduating Class 2024

 

College Gonfaloniers

Sana Amanullah DRC'24

New Jersey College for Women Gonfalon

 

Gabrielle Moore DRC'24

Douglass Red Pine Gonfalon

 

Virginia Uyehara DRC'24

Douglass College Gonfalon

 

The audience is requested to remain in place until the academic recession has left the field.

Graduates at Spring Convocation

A Message from Dean Rehbein

On behalf of Douglass Residential College, our staff, and students, I congratulate you on earning the distinction of receiving your undergraduate degree from Rutgers and your certificate of achievement from Douglass. These recognitions are the culmination of your hard work, intelligence, and talent. You are the reason your success today is possible.

Commencement is not just a celebration of individual achievements but a testament to the collective journey we have embarked upon as a community. It's a time to honor your perseverance, determination, and unwavering commitment to excellence, even amid adversity. The Class of 2024 has contributed so much to our campus community. Among you there are artists, activists, and researchers. There are scholarship and fellowship recipients, presidents and chairs of student organizations, and members of prestigious honor societies. There are peer-mentors, community volunteers, and leaders.

You join a legacy of accomplished Douglass graduates who have preceded you in reaching this milestone, and your undergraduate journey is only the beginning of all that you will accomplish. As you embark on the next chapter of your lives, remember the lessons you've learned and the bonds you've forged during your time here. May your experiences serve as guiding lights as you navigate the path ahead with courage, resilience, and unwavering determination.

Graduates, we will miss you greatly and hope you return often. The Douglass difference - where we examine inequality and center women’s lived experience - is only possible with the partnership of our 40,000+ alumni network. Stay in touch!

Sincerely,

Meghan Rehbein, Ed.D.

Dean, Douglass Residential College

Today's Speakers

Today's Speakers

Meghan Rehbein

Dean Meghan Rehbein, Ed.D.

Dean, Douglass Residential College

Dean Meghan Rehbein

Meghan Rehbein serves as the eleventh Dean of Douglass, a role she has held since July 2022.  Dr. Rehbein joined Douglass in 2018, serving most recently as Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives where she developed new opportunities for collaboration, with a special focus on communications and sustainability. Prior to that, she led the record-breaking conclusion of the highly successful Power of 100 Years Campaign on behalf of Douglass, and previously served as Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Georgian Court University. She has a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College, a master’s degree from Sacred Heart University, and an Ed.D. from Stockton University. Dr. Rehbein has more than two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, higher education, and health and human services organizations, and her research focuses on gender and leadership development in the nonprofit sector.

 

 

Fran Conway.jpg

Chancellor Francine Conway, Ph.D.

Chancellor, Rutgers University–New Brunswick

Chancellor Francine Conway

Dr. Francine Conway is Chancellor-Provost of Rutgers University–New Brunswick, a top 20 public university (U.S. News and World Report) with more than 20 programs and schools in the nation’s top 20; a $907.8 million research portfolio that transcends the sciences, humanities, and arts; and a proud culture of diversity across its more than 40,000 students and 10,000 faculty and staff. She previously served as Provost. She also serves as Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, where she served as Dean from 2016 to 2020. Chancellor-Provost Conway led the creation of—and is now leading the implementation of—the Rutgers–New Brunswick Academic Master Plan, a comprehensive blueprint for the institution’s future based on Four Pillars of Excellence: Scholarly Leadership, Innovative Research, Student Success, and Community Engagement. Dr. Conway, an internationally recognized clinical psychologist, is a graduate of Cornell University and Columbia University and earned her doctoral degree at Adelphi University.

 

 

Fabiana Pierre-Louis

Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis

Associate Justice, New Jersey Supreme Court

Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis

Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis was nominated by Gov. Phil Murphy on June 5, 2020 and was sworn in as an associate justice on September 1, 2020.  She is the first Black woman and first woman of color to serve on the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Justice Pierre-Louis is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and spent her early childhood in Brooklyn before moving to Irvington, NJ when she was eight years old.  She received a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick and a law degree from Rutgers Law School in Camden where she was a fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

At the time of her appointment, Justice Pierre-Louis was a partner at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads in Cherry Hill where she worked in the white collar and government investigations practice group.  She focused her practice on complex commercial litigation, white collar crime, and government investigations.  Early in her career, Justice Pierre-Louis was an associate at Montgomery McCracken before joining the United States Attorney’s Office as an Assistant United States Attorney. 

Justice Pierre-Louis was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division from 2010 to 2019.  She began working in the Newark Office in the General Crimes Unit then later in the Organized Crime and Gangs Unit where she handled diverse caseloads that included bank robberies, firearms offenses, investigations of street gangs, and narcotics offenses.  In 2012, Justice Pierre-Louis transferred to the Trenton Branch Office where she was appointed the Attorney-in-Charge from November 2016 to December 2018, the first woman of color to hold that position in the history of the district.  Justice Pierre-Louis was later appointed the Attorney-in-Charge of the Camden Branch Office and was the first woman of color to hold that position as well.  As the Attorney-in-Charge of the Trenton and Camden offices, Justice Pierre-Louis supervised all aspects of criminal matters handled by those offices, including investigations and prosecutions of large-scale drug trafficking organizations, complex mail and wire fraud offenses, healthcare and government fraud matters, and violent crimes.  Justice Pierre-Louis also continued to manage her own individual caseload and prosecuted a wide range of cases including public corruption matters, export control violations, defense contracting fraud, national security matters, and child exploitation offenses. 

Justice Pierre-Louis began her legal career as a law clerk to New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justice John E. Wallace Jr., whose seat she now occupies.

 

 

Cassandra Vega

Cassandra Vega DRC'24

Class of 2024, Edele Neilsen Prize in Speech

Cassandra Vega DRC'24

Cassandra Vega (SAS & DRC ‘24) is a senior at Rutgers-New Brunswick majoring in Political Science and double minoring in Latino & Caribbean Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies. She is a 2024 Eagleton Undergraduate Associate, a 2023 Lloyd C. Gardner Fellow, a 2023 Institute for Women’s Leadership Scholar, and a member of the Cap & Skull, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, and Triota honor societies.

Vega is a co-founder of the Fellows in Racial Justice Learning Community (RAJU) at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ), the first tri-campus undergraduate academic program for students passionate about activism and advocacy. In addition to working on RAJU, she leads the student advisory board in planning the annual Racial Justice Summit, the first and only tri-campus, student-led event in Rutgers history.

At Douglass she is a member of the Douglass Welcome Ambassadors and the PLEN Ambassadors, led the Human Rights House within the Global Village, and was featured in the documentary, The Douglass Difference.

Outside of Rutgers she has interned for Congresswomen Bonnie Watson Coleman and Nydia Velázquez, served as a 2022 New Jersey Governor’s Hispanic Fellow, worked at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and represented the state of New Jersey at the Henry Clay Center’s 2023 College Student Congress. She is also the Policy Coordinator at the New Jersey Department of Labor’s Office of Policy.

After graduation she hopes to continue improving people’s lives through policy, and eventually run for public office.

Performances

Performed by Gabrielle Moore DRC'24 and the Voorhees Choir

Alma Mater

Hear our voices, Alma Mater
Douglass College, hail to thee!
Hearts in song now join together
In a pledge of fealty.
Though our future paths may sever,
Thoughts of golden college days
In our hearts will live forever
As a constant song of praise.

Douglass_Seal

"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Lift every voice and sing, ‘til earth and heaven ring;
Ring with the harmonies of liberty
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on ‘til victory is won

graduates on Antilles Field

Special Thank You

Thank you to the donors to Douglass Residential College and the Douglass Fund for their contributions that have made this program possible.

We acknowledge that the land on which we stand is the ancestral territory of the Lenape People. We pay respect to Indigenous people throughout the Lenape diaspora- past, present, and future- and honor those that have been historically and systemically disenfranchised. We also acknowledge that Rutgers University, like New Jersey and the United States as a nation, was founded upon the exclusions and erasures of Indigenous peoples.

Special thanks to:

Douglass Residential College Staff
Rutgers University Staff and Friends
Rutgers University Dining Services
Rutgers University Facilities
Rutgers University Police Department
Rutgers Department of Transportation Service
Rutgers University Office of the Registrar
The Red Pine Ambassadors (ushers) and EOF staff

 

Land Acknowledgment

We acknowledge that the land on which we stand is the ancestral territory of the Lenape People. We pay respect to Indigenous people throughout the Lenape diaspora–past, present, and future–and honor those that have been historically and systemically disenfranchised. We also acknowledge that Rutgers University, like New Jersey and the United States as a nation, was founded upon the exclusions and erasures of Indigenous peoples.