They sang, they danced and they gave for the benefit of expanding education. NJIT’s 32nd annual Celebration gala brought in nearly 500 people to the black-tie affair, raising more than $1 million for student scholarships.
The evening featured music, dinner and recognition of six individuals and organizations whose work reflects ties to NJIT. But its central purpose was the students whose education the fundraiser supports.
Sydney Burlingame-Grissom, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, Albert Dorman Honors Scholar and midfielder on NJIT’s women’s soccer team, described how scholarship support helped her pursue opportunities across campus. She spoke about research in a faculty lab, an internship that led to a full-time job offer with Factory Mutual after graduation and the community she found through soccer and honors college activities.
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“Scholarships have allowed me to explore these different paths without the fear of financial burden,” she said. “You have given us the opportunity to explore, challenge ourselves, and discover what we are capable of.”
Interim President John A. Pelesko ’97 reflected on the people behind those opportunities through a story about an empty celebratory champagne bottle he has kept for nearly three decades. His adviser brought it out after Pelesko defended his doctoral thesis at NJIT in 1997; faculty members signed its label as they shared a drink in celebration. Pelesko said he carried it with him through his career and brought it back to NJIT when he returned as provost in 2023.
The bottle’s meaning became clearer after he met applied mathematics and computer science student Pablo Leyva. Pelesko described how Leyva found community through the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, received help from fellow students and alumni and kept pursuing an internship at Apple after an initial rejection. Leyva is set to begin a full-time job with the company after graduation.
“I kept that bottle because it is a symbol of the people that are the power of an NJIT education,” Pelesko said, thanking the students, faculty, staff, alumni, board members, donors and corporate partners who support the university.
Foundation Board Chair Steve Saperstein ’84 reflected on Celebration’s growth and thanked the Executive Dinner Committee for helping bring the event — and thus fundraising efforts — to new heights. He described the sponsors’ generosity as an investment in NJIT students and the university’s mission, then introduced Board of Trustees Chair Robert Cohen ’83, ’84, ’87 as his partner in advancing that mission. Cohen also addressed the audience, bringing trustee leadership into an evening focused on student opportunity and the community that supports it.
Celebrating the Awardees
The honorees offered further examples of those connections. Made Scientific received the Special Friends to the University award, and Fiserv was named Outstanding Corporate Partner. Accepting for Made Scientific, CEO Syed Husain ’03 spoke about his and his late brother Hasan’s NJIT education and the company’s roots in the New Jersey Innovation Institute. Fiserv’s Nancy Hall described a partnership that includes hiring NJIT graduates and creating opportunities for students beyond recruiting.
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Among the alumni recognized, Komal Dangi ’19 received the Edward F. Weston Medal for Professional Achievement, and Richard Schatzberg ’93 received the University Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Dangi said success also means creating opportunities for others. Schatzberg reflected on building sustainable businesses and his continuing commitment to giving NJIT students opportunities like those he received.
Leon Baptiste ’91, recipient of the Lifetime Alumni Leadership Award, spoke about coming to NJIT from Newark’s Weequahic High School, learning through an internship and eventually founding LB Electric. He also described establishing the LB Training Center to provide solar energy technology training to young people, vice veterans and people reentering the workforce.
Joel Bloom, NJIT’s eighth president and president emeritus, received the University Medal for Lifetime Achievement. In his remarks, Bloom credited the colleagues who helped advance the university and urged attendees to remain part of the community supporting it, as he and his wife Dr. Diane Bloom have.
The evening program never lost sight of the students the event was designed to serve. In her remarks, Burlingame-Grissom thanked the scholarship supporters and looked ahead to carrying that support forward.
I hope that one day, I can pay it forward just as you have.
