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NJCU Recovery and Revitalization Plan   Academic Master Plan (AMP)

2024 Mission and Vision Statement Refresh   Strategic Enrollment Plan (SEP)

Andrés Acebo

Interim President of ����̽��

Phone:  201-200-3111 | Email: aacebo@njcu.edu

Andrés Acebo, the Interim President of ����̽��, is the proud first-generation son of Cuban exiles and a Hudson County native who grew up in Union City, N.J., and has maintained strong ties to the community. In January 2023, he became only the second Hispanic to serve as the leader of a four-year public institution of higher education in the State of New Jersey. He is the youngest known president to ever lead a public university in New Jersey.

In under 18 months of widely praised mission-driven servant leadership, Acebo has demonstrated extraordinary vision, guiding NJCU from a fiscal emergency to a remarkable recovery which will be a case study throughout higher ed.

In May 2024, ROI-NJ named him the in New Jersey Higher Education in the 2024 Higher Education Influencers annual publication.

Taking office in the midst of a financial emergency, he has steered NJCU forward. He has helped orchestrate three major strategic initiatives: the release of the NJCU Recovery and Revitalization Plan (April 2023), introduction of the university's first Academic Master Plan (February 2024) and the institution’s first Strategic Enrollment Plan (April 2023).

In February 2024, the university unveiled a refresh of the University Mission Statement and introduced its first ever Vision Statement. Both statements are offered in both English and Spanish, in recognition of the richly diverse community the university serves and as testament to its status as the oldest public four-year minority and Hispanic-serving institution in New Jersey.

Furthermore, Acebo has led to the University's finances being stabilized and the first balanced operating budget since 2017 — less than two years after NJCU reported a $22.7 million deficit. Moody’s agreed, upgrading NJCU’s outlook from “negative” to “stable.” Acebo's advocacy rallied ����̽�� for the university from key stakeholders — including the campus and local community, union and local leaders, and legislative champions.

Additionally, he has forged key partnerships — highlighted by the Hudson Connect Program — and signed key strategic MOUs, including with the NJEA, Hudson Building Trades, GLACO, AFT Local 1839, Jersey City POBA, and Hudson County Boys and 

Acebo was appointed president on January 17, 2023, becoming only the second Hispanic to serve as the leader of a four-year public institution in the state of New Jersey — following in the legacy of another NJCU leader, Dr. Carlos Hernandez, who led the institution as its 11th president from 1993-2012. 

Throughout the university’s financial emergency, Acebo has demonstrated significant executive leadership. Facing a $22.7 million deficit, he collaborated with NJCU’s organized labor, stakeholders, and constituencies to reduce the deficit by more than 50 percent within 120 days, while leading with empathy and compassion about the mission of the university and those who serve it.

Acebo has worked diligently with NJCU’s other senior leaders, external stakeholders, and entities, including the bond rating agencies. His collaboration with academic affairs leadership led to developing an academic rightsizing framework that honored collective bargaining rights and created a pathway for reallocation of resources and an updated academic portfolio. As an outcome, in Spring 2024, NJCU graduated 1,667 students  — an 8.2 percent increase in bachelor’s degrees from 2023 and a 3.4 percent increase in graduate degrees.

In December 2023, NJCU was ranked No. 1 in the state of New Jersey and 10th in the United States in CollegeNET’s 2023 Social Mobility Index (SMI) — a unique and innovative measure that assesses factors such as affordability, graduation rates, and alumni outcomes. 

Under his leadership, NJCU introduced the most significant overhaul of its general education curriculum in decades, allowing every course on the approved New Jersey Council of County Colleges (NJCCC) list, including those without direct equivalencies, to be accepted at NJCU for general education credit. The NJCU University Senate, with 95 percent in favor, overwhelmingly voted in favor of the reforms to the General Education program — thus making NJCU the most-transfer friendly institution in the State of New Jersey. 

In Spring 2024, NJCU continued making transformative changes to higher ed, dismantling systemic barriers that students face in their degree completions. Effective in 2024-25, NJCU introduced a pledge of guaranteed schedules for its students. Additionally, NJCU announced plans to absorb the cost of books into the price of tuition beginning in Fall 2024, which will eliminate the uncertainty about the cost of college. 

NJCU also further cemented its relationships with its community college partners. In December 2023, Acebo helped launch HCCC|NJCU CONNECT — a transformational program that will provide highly visible, inclusive, and barrier-free transfer pathways to guide students and their families from high school, through studies at HCCC, and on to a timely graduation from NJCU.

���������’s&�Բ�����;commitment to shared governance was embraced in June 2023 when, at his recommendation,  the Board of Trustees in the history of the university, as three ex officio positions were approved to join the Board in September at its reorganization meeting — Meriem Bendaoud, Ph.D., Faculty Representative Member; Helen Dao '99, '05 M.S., President, NJCU Alumni Association; and Pete Hernandez, Chair, NJCU Foundation. This reformation of the Board governance structure ensures the voices of students, tenured track faculty, alumni, and the foundation will be a permanent fixture in all Board deliberations. 

Acebo’s personal story and mission-driven leadership resonates far beyond NJCU’s borders, and as a result of the university’s communications outreach, he has appeared in dozens of news outlets to tell NJCU’s story to audiences around the state and nation. Most notably in Spring 2023, he appeared on "Tiempo" on ABC-7 in New York to tell a national audience about the university.

Acebo’s distinction as the No. 1 higher education influencer in New Jersey in 2024 was the culmination of consistent praise by multiple publications, organizations, and legislators. Since January 2023, Acebo has been recognized five times on ROI-NJ’s influencer lists. He previously was named to the 2023 Super 60 Power List as one of the 60 most influential people and one of the top 25 chief executives and leaders across public and private higher education. ROI also named him to the, the 2023 and the. In December 2023, InsiderNJ.com recognized his influence with selection to the. 

Acebo has been recognized as a Rising Star by New Jersey Super Lawyers, a Top Latino Lawyer by Latino Leaders Magazine, a Top Lawyer under 40 by the Hispanic National Bar Association, and as a Diverse Attorney of the Year by the New Jersey Law Journal. In Fall 2022, he was recognized as a 2022 “” award recipient by Negocios Now, in recognition of leadership by young Latinos in the New York metropolitan area. Acebo was also honored by the  with the 2022 Good Scout Award, in reflection of his service to his community. 

Acebo joined the NJCU community on February 1, 2024 as Chief of Staff and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, as a senior leader facilitating institutional planning, policy and program development, facilitating effective decision-making and coordinating the execution of strategic initiatives, while guiding NJCU’s government relations initiatives. He was elevated to Executive Vice President and University Counsel in the midst of the announcement of the university’s current financial emergency on June 27, 2022, before becoming its president.

Acebo completed a one-year fellowship program as part of the third annual cohort of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo in Spring 2022, was one of just 25 fellows selected nationally. Beginning in August 2023, he participated in the 2023 American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) (NPA).

He currently serves as a Deputy Regional President of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) and Chair of the Special Committee on Cuba. He serves on the board of the  (CAALE) — an award-winning non-profit that serves first-generation students in the community. Acebo also serves on the board of the North Hudson Community Action Foundation, which helps underserved members of Hudson County with equitable access to healthcare and social services. Acebo served on the vetting and due diligence team for the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) and Alliance for Latinx Leadership and Policy (ALLP) partnership to identify U.S. Department of Justice presidential nominees for the Biden/Harris transition.

In his private practice, Acebo has counseled and represented governmental entities, higher education institutions and public school districts, and closely-held corporations. His practice focused primarily on employment and labor, education law, and government/public entity law.

Acebo completed his undergraduate study at Brown University, where he was a senior editor of the Brown Journal of World Affairs and a volunteer at the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service. He received his law degree from Rutgers School of Law. While in law school, he served as president of the Association of Latin-American Law Students, vice president of communication of the HNBA Law Student Division, and managing symposium editor of the Rutgers Race and the Law Review.  Acebo also served as a constitutional law research assistant and a pro bono mediator with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

After law school, Acebo clerked for the Honorable Jonathan N. Harris, J.A.D. (retired) in the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey.  In private practice, Acebo was a partner at a firm where he represented governmental entities, higher education institutions and public-school districts, and public and closely held corporations and businesses.

Acebo is a published legal scholar, with articles concerning the cross-section of race, law, politics, and public policy to his credit, with such publications as the Columbia Journal of Race and Law, The Brown University Policy Review, the Seton Hall Legislative Journal, and the Rutgers Race and the Law Review.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Acebo lives the NJCU mission every day, as a first-generation college student, who has a life story mirrored in many of the institution’s students and alumni. His family story began nearly 60 years ago when his father fled Cuba for freedom, and his path to NJCU was recently depicted  and in an NJ.com Op-Ed entitled “.”

Acebo holds a B.A. from Brown University and a Juris Doctor from Rutgers Law School. A North Jersey resident, he  is a proud product of Union City public schools in Hudson County. He’s the proud father to three young children and husband to an extraordinarily dedicated educator — an NJCU alumnae — who proudly celebrate and champion their community and their roots together.

Updated: June 1, 2024
 

Office Staff

Main Phone Number: 201-200-3111

Chief of Staff to the President
Milagros Peralta

Confidential Assistant to the President
Michael Sims