Black Alumni Collective National Conference to be held at Rutgers
Conference to celebrate “A Beloved Black Community: Honoring the Past, Treasuring the Present, and Shaping the Future.”
The Rutgers University–New Brunswick campus will host the 2024 Black Alumni Collective National Conference in-person sessions from Thursday, May 30, through Sunday, June 2.
“This national conference will allow Black alumni from some of the nation’s leading universities to join together to hear from Black alumni experts and thought leaders, build community among Black alumni worldwide, and expand networks of Black professionals,” says Sharon Stroye, co-chair of the conference and a Rutgers alumna who is the founding director of the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Center at Emory University in Atlanta. “It’s important to note that it is open to everyone—Black alumni and students, alumni association board members, university trustees and administrators, as well as professionals in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) and all allies and friends. We are thrilled to host this esteemed organization on the campus of Rutgers University.”
The Black Alumni Collective, which was founded in Atlanta in 2018, is a partnership of alumni from more than ten schools, including Rutgers, Duke, and Florida State universities, among other leading institutions. “The goal of the organization is to unify and empower Black alumni individuals and groups through civic engagement, economics, and advocacy,” says Allyson Reaves, a board member for the Black Alumni Collective. “Our annual conference is an excellent opportunity for alumni from our partner universities to bond together in pursuit of these goals.”
Speakers for the in-person sessions will include Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, as well as Alfred Edmond Jr., a Rutgers alumnus who is executive editor and senior vice president of Black Enterprise Magazine.
Additional speakers include the following:
—Coauthors of Black Faces in White Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness, Rutgers University–Newark Provost Jeffrey Robinson and Randal Pinkett.
—Richard Roper, a Rutgers University–Newark alumnus whose trailblazing career as a prominent public policy leader included directing planning for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
—Nyeema Watson, a native of Camden, New Jersey, and a double Rutgers University–Camden alumna who is senior vice chancellor for Strategy, Diversity and Community Engagement at Rutgers–Camden.
Click here to see the complete agenda and schedule.
Main event activities will be held in Piscataway at Jersey Mike’s Arena, which is home to the Scarlet Knights Big Ten basketball games. Workshop sessions will be held in various locations on the Rutgers Livingston Campus.
WTW and Chase are sponsoring the conference, which is hosted by The Rutgers African American Alumni Alliance (RAAA) and the Rutgers University Foundation.
For more information and to register for the conference, visit here. To see a video by Rutgers President Holloway about the Black Alumni Collective, click here.
