Mayor and professor to speak at commencement

Special to The Flash

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory A. Booker and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marybeth Gasman will serve as speakers for Jackson State University’s 2012 commencement ceremonies. This year approximately 950 undergraduates will receive degrees and more than 350 graduate students will receive advanced degrees.

Gasman will be the speaker for the graduate ceremony scheduled for April 27 in the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center on JSU’s main campus. She is a Professor of Higher Education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.  She holds secondary appointments in history, Africana Studies, and the School of Social Policy and Practice.

Booker will speak during the undergraduate ceremony scheduled April 28 at the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium.  Mayor Booker is likely to bring his passion for social change to the podium. Drawing from a deep belief in service and social justice, Mayor Booker inspires audiences to greater civic responsibility and issues a call to action for America.  He recently made headlines for rescuing a woman from a burning house.  Many called him a “superhero,” but he said he was just being a good neighbor.

Gasman’s areas of expertise include the history of American higher education, historically black colleges and universities, minority serving institutions, African American leadership, and fundraising and philanthropy. She has written or edited 15 books, including Understanding Minority Serving Institutions, Envisioning Black Colleges, Uplifting a People, Rediscovering Booker T. Washington, Race and Gender in Nonprofit Leadership, The Morehouse Mystique, and A Guide to Fundraising at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

She is a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Diverse Issues, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and Academe.
Dr. Gasman is the co-principal investigator on two major grant-funded research projects related to Minority Serving institutions (MSIs).  One project (with Clif Conrad) is focused on student success at MSIs and funded by Lumina Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and USA Funds.  The other project (with Yvonne Patterson) is focused on increasing faculty of color at MSIs in the sciences and is sponsored by NIH.

Her research has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, USNEWS, CNN, and on National Public Radio.

Booker took the oath of office as Mayor of New Jersey’s largest city in July 2006 following a sweeping electoral victory, and was re-elected for a second term in another overwhelming majority in 2010.

Elected with a clear mandate for change, Mayor Booker has begun work on realizing a bold vision for the city. Newark’s mission is to set a national standard for urban transformation by marshalling its resources to achieve security, economic abundance and an environment that is nurturing and empowering for individuals and families.

As his second term gets underway, Mayor Booker and his Administration have made meaningful strides towards achieving the City’s

mission. As of July 1, 2008, Newark, New Jersey led the nation among large cities for reductions in shootings and murders, achieving decreases of more than 40 percent reductions in both categories.  Radical transformation of the Newark Police Department under Mayor Booker’s leadership, together with the deployment of over 100 surveillance cameras throughout City, has led to Newark setting the nationwide pace for crime reduction.

Among other recent notable achievements in the past two years, under Mayor Booker’s leadership, the City of Newark has committed to a $40 million transformation of the City’s parks and playgrounds through a ground-breaking public/private partnership. The Booker Administration has also doubled affordable housing production within the last two years.

Mayor Booker’s political career began in 1998, after serving as Staff Attorney for the Urban Justice Center in Newark. He rose to prominence as Newark’s Central Ward Councilman. During his four years of service from 1998-2002, then-Councilman Booker earned a reputation as a leader with innovative ideas and bold actions, from increasing security in public housing to building new playgrounds. This work was the foundation for his leadership as Mayor. For this work, he has been recognized in numerous publications, including, among others, TIME, Esquire, New Jersey Monthly (naming him as one of New Jersey’s top 40 under 40), Black Enterprise (naming him to the Hot List, America’s Most Powerful Players under 40) and The New York Times Magazine.

Reflecting his commitment to education, Mayor Booker is a member of numerous boards and advisory committees including Democrats for Education Reform, Columbia University Teachers’ College Board of Trustees and the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Mayor Booker received his B. A. and M. A. from Stanford University, a B. A. in Modern History at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and completed his law degree at Yale University.