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May 2, 2005
WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY TO HOLD COMMENCEMENT ON MAY 17
—Dave Marash, Emmy Award-winning correspondent for ABC News, to receive honorary degree
—Former Board of Trustees chairs Clarice Jackson and Gwendolyn Taylor to receive honorary degrees
—Robert Devine ‘74, president and CEO of Hartz Mountain Corporation, and Maria Nuccetelli ’63, M.A. ‘77, Wayne superintendent of schools, to receive the President’s Medal
William Paterson University in Wayne will hold its 181st commencement on Tuesday, May 17, 2005. Separate ceremonies will be held for undergraduate and graduate students. The commencement ceremony for undergraduate students will begin at 10:30 a.m., and will be held on Wightman Field; the rain date is May 18. The graduate ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. in the Rec Center, rain or shine.
Bachelor’s degrees will be conferred upon 879 undergraduates, all of whom have completed their degree requirements as of May 2005. Master’s degrees will be conferred on 333 students who completed their degree requirements between August 2004 and May 2005.
At the undergraduate ceremony, Dave Marash, an Emmy Award-winning correspondent for the ABC News broadcast “Nightline,” will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree and deliver the commencement address. Clarice B. Jackson and Gwendolyn P. Taylor, both former chairs of the William Paterson University Board of Trustees, will each receive an honorary doctor of laws degree. Robert Devine, the president and CEO of Hartz Mountain Corporation and a 1974 graduate of William Paterson, will receive the President’s Medal.
President Arnold Speert will also address the graduating class along with Andrew Monaco, a graduating senior and honors student. Monaco, a resident of Edison, will receive a bachelor of arts degree in French, summa cum laude.
At the graduate ceremony, Dr. Maria Nuccetelli ’63, M.A. ’77, the superintendent of schools for the Wayne School District, will receive a President’s Medal and address the graduate degree candidates. President Speert will also address the candidates, along with Ian Bouie, president of the Graduate Student Organization at William Paterson.
Alumni from the class of 1955, who graduated when William Paterson was called New Jersey State Teachers College at Paterson, will be present at the morning ceremony and attend a 50th reunion luncheon sponsored by the Alumni Relations Office. The Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Chapter will host a Senior Send-Off reception on Monday, May 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the University’s 1600 Valley Road building.
Marash has reported for the ABC News program “Nightline” since 1989. His award-winning reports on the wars in the former Yugoslavia, including stories that predicted the arrival of guerrilla fighting in the province of Kosovo, were highly acclaimed and earned him an Emmy Award in 1994. He also received Emmy Awards for his “Nightline” coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and for his coverage of the explosion of TWA Flight 800. Since September 11, 2001, Marash has reported extensively from the Middle East, including reports on the war in Iraq.
Prior to joining “Nightline,” Marash spent more than a decade in local news in New York and Washington, D.C. From 1985 to 1989 he was a news anchor for WRC-TV, Washington. He was an investigative reporter for WNBC-TV in New York, and a contributing reporter for NBC Weekend News and NBC Sports from 1983 to 1985. He also anchored the news for WCBS-TV in New York in 1981 and 1982, and earlier, from 1973 through 1978.
His numerous broadcasting honors include seven local Emmys, a New York Press Club Award for his WNBC-TV series on the lack of facilities to save victims of smoke inhalation, and an Overseas Press Club Award for his 1972 CBS Radio reports on the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympic Games. He has published articles in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Journalism Review, Ms. magazine and TV Guide. He is a graduate of Williams College.
Jackson served on the William Paterson University Board of Trustees from 1985 until her retirement in 2004. She served as chair of the board from 1994 to 1996, during which she led the board in its review of the University’s academic and administrative comprehensive analysis. She also founded and chaired the board’s minority affairs committee. In that role, her leadership dramatically increased the diversity of faculty, staff and students on campus and enhanced the climate for and services provided to minority members of the University community. Jackson retired in 2001 as assistant general counsel of the Woolworth Corporation, which she joined in 1981. Previously, she was an associate with the East Orange law firm Hamlet Goore, Esq., served as a legislative aide to New Jersey State Senator Winona Lipman and was interim director of the Urban League of Essex County. A graduate of Howard University, Jackson earned her law degree at Rutgers University Law School. She is a resident of Orange.
Taylor served on the William Paterson University Board of Trustees from 1993 until her retirement in 2004. She served as chair of the board from 2000 to 2004, as secretary from 1996 to 2000, and also chaired the personnel committee. During her tenure as chair, the University developed and the board approved an award-winning Facilities Master Plan and a Student Success Plan to guide the institution’s continued growth. Taylor retired in 2001 as vice president for human resources at Bellcore, where she worked for more than 17 years. Previously, she held a number of managerial and administrative positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories. A graduate of North Carolina Central University, Taylor completed executive management programs at Harvard Business School, the University of Michigan and Amos Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College. She is a resident of Denville.
Devine has held the position of president and CEO of The Hartz Mountain Corporation, the leading pet supplies company in the United States, since 2000. A 1974 graduate of William Paterson with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, he began his career with the accounting firm Thieberg, Piemer & Thieberg. In 1978, he started his own firm, Cohen, Frankel & Devine, which merged with a regional firm in 1980, forming Mintz, Rosenfeld, Zuckerberg, Frankel & Devine. From 1983 to 1994, he served as head of the Wardley Corporation, a leading producer of ornamental fish products. During his tenure there, the company grew eight-fold. When Wardley was sold to Hartz Mountain in 1994, Devine remained and after holding a number of positions there, was named president and CEO in 2000. He is a resident of Mountain Lakes.
Nuccetelli serves as superintendent of schools for the Wayne School District, which serves 8,600 students in nine elementary schools, eight middle schools and two high schools. She assumed her position in 2004 after serving as superintendent of schools for Passaic County from 1992 to 2004. Previously, Nuccetelli held positions as school business administrator for Passaic County and the Denville Township Board of Education. She has more than 15 years of teaching experience, having served as a science teacher at Valley Middle School in Oakland and Elmwood Park Memorial Junior/Senior High School.
A 1963 graduate of William Paterson with a bachelor’s degree in science education, Nuccetelli earned a master’s degree in student personnel services from William Paterson in 1977, and a doctorate in educational administration from Seton Hall University in 1996. A member of the Wayne Board of Education from 1982 to 1988, during which she served terms as president and vice president, she has held numerous state and county positions, including acting assistant commissioner for field services for the New Jersey Department of Education. A native of Paterson, she resides in Wayne.
William Paterson University, one of the nine state colleges and universities in New Jersey, offers 32 undergraduate and 19 graduate programs through five colleges: Arts and Communication, the Christos M. Cotsakos College of Business, Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Health. Located on 370 hilltop acres in Wayne, the university enrolls nearly 11,400 students and provides housing for nearly 2,300 students. The institution’s 363 full-time faculty are highly distinguished and diverse scholars and teachers, many of whom are recipients of prestigious awards and grants from the Fulbright Program (28 scholars), the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the American Philosophical Society.
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