14th Annual Chancellor’s Awards Highlight the Work—and People—Shaping a More Inclusive Rutgers–Camden

Faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community partners gathered at Rutgers University–Camden this spring to celebrate the 14th Annual Chancellor’s Awards for Impact and Community Engagement, an event recognizing individuals and initiatives that strengthen connections between campus and community while advancing opportunity, belonging, and civic impact. 

Held at a moment when the value and public purpose of higher education are increasingly under scrutiny, the ceremony affirmed the university’s ongoing commitment to inclusive excellence, community partnership, and meaningful engagement beyond the classroom.

Senior Vice Chancellor for Institutional Strategy and Engagement Nyeema Watson welcomed the crowd gathered in the Campus Center’s Multipurpose Room to celebrate the 2026 honorees.

“These awards remind us that inclusion is not a static goal—it is an active, daily commitment to ensuring that everyone has access to opportunity and the ability to thrive,” Watson said. “At Rutgers–Camden, civic and community engagement and inclusion are not side efforts. They are central to our identity. They are how we prepare our students to navigate complexity, to engage across difference, and to lead in an interconnected and ever-changing world.”

The awards recognize a wide range of contributions that advance civic and community engagement, and public impact at Rutgers–Camden and throughout the broader community. Award categories honor achievements in community-engaged scholarship and research, student civic involvement, collaborative partnerships, and service initiatives that create meaningful social change.

Alongside these recognitions, a Lifetime Achievement Award was presented for only the second time in the program’s history to Chancellor Antonio D. Tillis, honoring his enduring leadership in advancing inclusive excellence and community partnership.

In introducing the chancellor, Watson noted that Tillis’s tenure has been defined by a deep commitment to embedding civic and community engagement at the core of higher education, shaping how students are prepared to lead, how research is applied, and how the university builds reciprocal partnerships with surrounding communities. 

Under Tillis’s leadership, Rutgers–Camden has expanded access for first-generation and historically underserved students, strengthened trust-based community partnerships, secured $7 million in state funding for the university’s civic engagement efforts, elevated the university’s national and global profile, and advanced key institutional milestones that enhance its role as a catalyst for community-driven change.

“Chancellor Tillis has led with a clear and unwavering belief: that universities must be deeply connected to the communities they serve, and that our greatest impact is realized when we align academic excellence with civic responsibility,” said Watson. “He understands that civic and community engagement are not an add-on— that they are central to the mission of higher education. Because of his leadership, civic and community engagement at Rutgers–Camden is not peripheral—it is embedded. It is strategic. And it is essential.” 

The 2026 winners are profiled below and can also be found on the Division of Impact and Community Engagement website or in the Program Book for the event.