Caldwell College Celebrates 71st Commencement Saturday

Caldwell College will celebrate its 71st commencement Saturday at 11:30 a.m. in the George R. Newman Center on the campus.  

The day will mark a milestone for the college as it awards its first-ever doctoral degrees. Eric Rozenblat, of Oakland, and Denise Kerth, Collingswood, will receive Ph.D.s in applied behavior analysis.

A graduation Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. in the center.

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One of the commencement speeches will be delivered by Gulay Maffia, who survived the September 11 terror attacks while she was working at One World Trade Center.

Maffia, of Vernon, will also receive her masters degree in special education, learning disabilities teacher consultant. She will share how surviving 9/11 caused her to rethink her life and put her on track to becoming a teacher helping children with special needs.  

Chelsea Loscalzo, from Bayside, N.Y., who will receive a bachelor’s degree in marketing, will also deliver commencement remarks.  

Caldwell College will award more than 450 graduate and undergraduate degrees in addition to doctoral degrees on Saturday. 

Colelge President Nancy H. Blattner will present doctoral students with their Ph.D.s, graduate students with their Master of Arts or Master of Business Administration degrees and undergraduates with their Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees. 

Caldwell College was the first in the state to develop a master’s degree and a Ph.D. degree specifically in applied behavior analysis, a scientific approach to learning. The effectiveness of this method in autism intervention is backed by more than 40 years of research.