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Credit: Steve Goodman
Camden provost Roger Dennis; Gloria
Bonilla-Santiago, Rutgers Board of
Governors Distinguished Service
Professor of Public Policy and
Administration in Camden; and Sila
Calderon, former governor of Puerto Rico
at a recent reception at the home of
President Richard L. McCormick. Calderon
has pledged to raise $500,000 to support
Camden’s graduate program in public
administration and the Center for
Strategic Urban Community Leadership.
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A former governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Maria Calderon, has pledged to raise $500,000 to support the graduate program in public administration and the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership at Rutgers-Camden.
Calderon made an initial gift of $100,000 and pledged to help identify $400,000 in matching grants for the Sila Calderon Endowed Fund. The funds will support faculty research and graduate fellowships in the master’s in public administration program on the Camden campus and a lecture series on community and social issues. The Rutgers Foundation will administer the fund.
“This gift will help the center do even more in the areas of community building, leadership and capacity building, transparency in government and social justice,” President Richard L. McCormick said during a breakfast reception for Calderon at his home in Piscataway May 11. “What’s more, it will strengthen the bond between New Jersey and Puerto Rico.”
The fund is a direct outcome of projects started in Camden after Calderon accepted an honorary doctoral degree from the university in 2004. It is also a result of ongoing collaboration with Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, a Rutgers Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy and Administration in Camden, where she also directs the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership.
“I have been admiring Sila for a long time,” Bonilla-Santiago said. “Sila is a symbol of leadership and honor for the island. A lot of the work I do is about building community and rebuilding neighborhoods, through housing, health care and schools,” she added. “This is a way to continue the legacy of her work in rebuilding communities in Puerto Rico.”
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