Rutgers University awarded degrees to the largest class in the school’s 244-year history today in a traditional ceremony that included an honorary degree — and a smattering of boos — for Gov. Chris Christie.
Richard McCormick, Rutgers’ president, officially conferred the record 12,651 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees during the nearly four-hour ceremony beneath elm trees on Voorhees Mall at the state university’s New Brunswick campus.
Following Rutgers tradition, New Jersey’s new governor was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree in his first year in office. Christie, who has proposed cuts to higher education funding, received a few jeers and hisses from the crowd when he was introduced. Before the ceremony, members of the faculty union stood at the entrance to the green and asked those attending to sign preprinted letters calling on the governor to restore a proposed 15 percent cut in state funding to Rutgers.
rutgers-graduatuation.JPGJohn O'Boyle/The Star-LedgerGraduates enter Voorhees Mall on Rutgers College Avenue campus during the Rutgers University graduation in New Brunswick.Christie made no mention of the state budget crisis in his speech. Instead, he encouraged the graduates to follow their own path and not be bound by the fields they chose to study at Rutgers.
"Don’t let it define who you might want to be tomorrow," Christie said.
He also pointed out a long list of New Jerseyans — from Thomas Edison to Alice Paul and Bruce Springsteen — who followed their own passions to success.
"It all started for them right here in New Jersey, where it starts for you," said Christie, who appeared to win over the crowd, which applauded at the end of his 12-minute talk.
Several thousand graduates, including many of the doctoral and master’s degree recipients, attended the ceremony in front of a crowd of nearly 12,000 guests sitting in plastic chairs on the sprawling green. The commencement, in which the Rutgers president formally awards all degrees, marks the beginning of a week of more than 25 ceremonies on Rutgers’ three campuses, where the rest of the graduates will be honored in front of their families and friends.
This year’s ceremonies are bittersweet for many at the university because they mark the end of the tradition of holding individual graduation celebrations at Douglass, Livingston, Cook and Rutgers colleges. Next year, Rutgers officials plan to hold a large commencement at the campus football stadium in Piscataway.
The consolidation is part of a restructuring of Rutgers that began in 2007 and merged many of the individual undergraduate colleges into a single arts and sciences school. This year’s graduates are among the last admitted under the old system.
At today’s ceremony, Rutgers awarded an honorary degree to Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and former president of the National Organization for Woman. Smeal, 70, said her 40 years as an activist taught her there is still much work to be done.
"The struggle to end sexism is a daily battle — as is the struggle to end racism, homophobia, age, class, disability and other forms of discrimination," Smeal said. "So, in case you the Class of 2010 think you have missed the glory days of the great movements to end discrimination, forget it. The struggle continues. And we need you to finish the job."
Additional honorary degrees were presented to: Judy Blume, author of "Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret" and other young adult books; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Liberia and the first elected female head of state in Africa; and the Rev. M. William Howard, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Newark and chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors.
A sixth honorary degree will be awarded at today’s Rutgers-Newark convocation to Carl Djerassi, a Stanford University chemistry professor who helped pioneer the female contraceptive known at "the pill."
Many of the students who sat through today’s lengthy ceremony said they were graduating with mixed feelings as they set out to find a job during one of the most difficult economic climates in decades. Student speaker Julie Bianchini, a molecular biology and biochemistry major, tried to offer her fellow graduates some encouragement that their state university experience will give them an advantage in the job market.
"We are about to enter an unstable, unforgiving economy," said Bianchini, of Hillsborough. "Fortunately, I think being at Rutgers University set us apart from other graduating seniors facing the same problems."
