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Dear Members of the NJCU Community,

March invites us into remembrance. Women’s History Month is not simply a commemoration on a calendar; it is a summons. A summons to honor the immeasurable imprint women have left on our world, our communities, and the quiet architecture of our own lives. The 2026 theme, “Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future,” asks us to see women not as footnotes to history, but as its authors, its builders, its steady hands on the compass when the winds shift.

Nowhere is that truth more tangible than here, on this campus. You feel it the moment you step into Hepburn Hall, with light pouring through tall windows onto floors worn smooth by generations of footsteps. You hear it in the velvet hush before the curtain rises inside the Margaret Williams Theatre. You sense it in the daily rhythm of Vodra Hall — with doors opening, ideas forming, futures unfolding. Clara Hepburn. Margaret D. Williams. Edra Vodra. These were not ornamental figures in our past; they were foundational. Their names are etched in brick and stone, but more importantly, they are etched into the spirit of this institution. 

We began as a teacher-training college with 330 women and one man — a bold declaration, nearly a century ago, that women’s intellect and leadership were not peripheral but essential. Today, women comprise nearly 60 percent of our student body. The throughline is unmistakable. Women built this campus. Women sustain it. Women carry it forward in laboratories and lecture halls, on stages and athletic fields, in offices, classrooms, and boardrooms.

Commencement, our most luminous tradition, is where the full arc of that labor comes into view. It is the stage upon which perseverance meets possibility. And throughout our history, we have been intentional about honoring extraordinary women in that sacred moment. From New Jersey First Lady Elizabeth Moore in 1963, to civil rights titan Rosa Parks in 1983, to U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis in 2012, to U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón just last year — each woman embodies a simple but profound truth: the highest honor belongs to those who leave the world more just, more generous, more awake than they found it. 

And yet, the story is not only written in headlines.

It lives in our mothers, who stretched every dollar and every prayer so we could stretch our dreams. In our abuelas, whose hands carried both sacrifice and sweetness, who met each dawn with quiet dignity and unshakable resolve. In our sisters, daughters, colleagues, and friends who lead teams, nurture families, write policy, teach lessons, build bridges, and still find the grace to lift others as they rise.

They are shaping a sustainable future, too. Not always loudly. But persistently. Patiently. Powerfully.

This March carries particular weight. It is our final Women’s History Month as New Jersey City University. As we stand at the threshold of a new chapter, we must be clear about what we refuse to leave behind. We carry forward the stories of every woman who shaped this place, those whose names are carved into our buildings and those whose names may only be spoken in living rooms, classrooms, and grateful hearts.

Their contributions are not memories to be archived. They are a foundation to be built upon.

May we honor them not only with words, but with the kind of courageous, compassionate, and unrelenting leadership that ensures their legacy endures in every student we serve and every future we dare to imagine.

With gratitude, affection, and admiration,


President
New Jersey City University