Rutgers-Camden’s Nyeema Watson has a new job title — and a lifetime stake in the city

Not long after Nyeema Watson graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1995, she took the bus from her East Camden neighborhood to the Rutgers University campus downtown. She had a letter of admission and a lot of questions.

“No one in my immediate family had ever gone to college,” said Watson, who was appointed last fall as vice chancellor of diversity, inclusion, and civic engagement — a new position — at Rutgers-Camden. “I wondered, ‘Am I really college-ready? Is this really the right place for me?’”

Watson was also concerned because Francis L. Lawrence, then president of Rutgers-New Brunswick, had sparked an uproar by saying that the “genetic” background of Black students was associated with lower test scores. Lawrence, who had been known as a diversity advocate, said he had misspoken, and apologized; he retired in 2002 and died in 2013.

Watson said Lawrence’s words “made me really question myself and whether I would actually be successful in college … [because] I also knew that people did not believe that young people from Camden could amount to anything of substance.” While a staff member at Wilson High suggested she apply to Rutgers, another adult at the school “believed I could only be a hair dresser and that college was not for me,” said Watson.

A quarter of a century later, the city school district is renaming her alma mater because of the flagrant racism of Woodrow Wilson. Jonathan Holloway has become the first Black person to serve as president of Rutgers University. And Rutgers-Camden has been led by two successive Black chancellors, Wendell Pritchett and Phoebe Haddon.

Once regarded by many residents as culturally and physically isolated from the city itself, Rutgers-Camden has opened its doors, expanded its presence, and created new partnerships with the community. Watson, who is raising her 2-year-old daughter, Zora, in Camden, has been a leading force and face of that evolution, speaking at conferences, attending community meetings all over town and beyond, and serving on boards of major Camden organizations, such as the Center for Family Services.

The work is ongoing and far from finished, as the reckoning with racism’s legacies that is underway nationwide, and on campus, attests. A recent survey found a number of Rutgers-Camden students reporting food insecurity in their households, and not feeling entirely comfortable “being who they are” on campus, Watson said.

There’s also a simmering controversy about two major pieces of public art on campus, including the prominent sculpture of Walt Whitman that some students want removed because of the poet’s racist views. A block away, a mosaic on the exterior of a university building formerly called the Walt Whitman Center was covered over last year after a neighborhood resident complained of the artwork’s stereotypical depictions of Indigenous people.

Following a series of meetings with students, faculty, and city residents, recommendations on how the university will proceed are expected later this year. And with a faculty that remains far less diverse than its student body, a Rutgers-wide diversity strategic planning process been launched.

“We have good things in place,” said Watson, 43, who earned a bachelors in Afro-American studies and psychology, as well as a Ph.D. in childhood studies, at Rutgers-Camden. “We’re not starting at zero. But people are looking at everything with fresh eyes.”

After working as a career counselor at Penn, where she earned a master’s degree in psychological services, and as a policy professional for the N.J. Department of Education, Watson was hired by Rutgers-Camden in 2004 as associate director of the Center for Children and Childhood Studies.

She oversaw the Rutgers Future Scholars enrichment program, enabling students in city schools to experience college learning; became director of Public School Partnerships for the Rutgers-Camden Office of Civic Engagement; and in 2015, was promoted to assistant chancellor of that office, which works to connect the university with neighborhoods, and residents, citywide.

“I have watched Nyeema grow into one role after another,” said Margaret Marsh, interim chancellor at Rutgers-Camden.

“When Jonathan Holloway became president, and set out for the university to … use diversity and equity as clear pathways to academic excellence, I realized that Nyeema was doing much of the work in that regard. But she didn’t hold the title or the authority, so we created the new [diversity, equity, and civic engagement] position.”

Civic engagement is a two-way street: The university shares expertise with the community, and connects the community with the institution. Rutgers and its students have assisted in a number of projects undertaken by Parkside Business and Community in Partnership, Inc., a community development organization in the city’s Parkside section.

With the university’s help, “we have updated the neighborhood plan and identified new partners and funding opportunities,” said Bridget Phifer, PBCIP’s chief executive officer.

“Also, when I reached out to Nyeema about having someone from the university sit on our board,” said Phifer, “she told me ‘I would love to do it. Camden is my home.’”

Watson remains ever-mindful of the disconnect with Rutgers — and the prospects of attending college — she and many of her peers experienced while growing up in Camden.

“We want to make sure kids in the city know that Rutgers-Camden can be their next step,” she said. “We want to make sure this is a place where they can feel comfortable — a place where we can nurture, educate, and graduate them.”

Moises Urena, 25, grew up in East Camden and as an eighth-grader at the city’s LEAP Academy Charter School was introduced to the Rutgers Future Scholars program. “I knew that college existed, but I didn’t know anyone who went to college,” he said.

“I’m so thankful that Nyeema was there every step of the way, encouraging me to ask her for help,” Urena, who graduated from Rutgers-Camden with bachelor’s in computer science in 2018, said. He’s now a software engineer for a company in Moorestown, and loves the work.

“Nyeema had been in the same shoes as me in terms of having to figure out college,” said Urena. “It’s just good to have someone like her on your side.”

Elisabel Laluz, 26, earned a master’s in social work at Rutgers-Camden and is a case worker at the N.J. Department of Children and Families. She also credits Future Scholars, and Watson, with helping her launch her college and professional career.

“The whole time I was in high school, Ms. Nyeema had after-school programs and summer programs for us,” said Laluz. “A lot of us were first-generation college students and she put an emphasis on what to expect. She’s still a role model for me.”

Watson said the new responsibilities, and the magnitude of the tasks ahead, can keep her up at night.

“All of this work is deeply personal and it’s always going to be personal for me, coming from this city, living in this city, and with the expectations I put on myself to do right by the people here,” she said.

“This is work you want to get right. You don’t want to overpromise. You want to deliver.”