Rutgers grad displays spirit of 76

Dominick Ruggiero, dressed in a black cap and gown and draped with a scarlet-and-white Rutgers University sash, hugged classmates a quarter his age yesterday and groused about his final grades.

The self-described "surrogate grandfather of Rutgers-Camden" was among 1,369 students to receive undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Susquehanna Bank Center during the day's three ceremonies.

"It took me 58 years to get here," said Ruggiero, 76, who earned a bachelor's degree in liberal studies.

Like many these days, the Mantua resident returned to the classroom after being laid off at work. But the former Washington Township school board member, whose wife died in 2003, was also after a new focus.

He jettisoned self-pity for education, Ruggiero said, and reinvented himself in the process.

"I'm not the standard 76-year-old," said the energetic theater minor.

Like many of his fellow Rutgers undergraduates, Ruggiero loved to debate issues at the student center and to kill time shooting pool. He discovered acting in his second semester at the school, while trying to get out of an assignment.

Students in his theater class were exempted from writing papers if they landed a stage role, he explained.

"It's not that I'm afraid to write," said Ruggiero, who entered Rutgers in 2007. "I won an essay contest and write for the campus newspaper. It was just sheer laziness."

His acting credits now include university and community productions of Angels in America, Tartuffe, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and A Shot in the Dark. He will play a security guard in an independent film scheduled to begin shooting next month in Philadelphia and South Jersey.

"The truth is, we put him in a wheelchair for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because we knew we couldn't keep up with him unless he were somehow subdued and confined," said Paul Bernstein, assistant professor of fine arts. "We all need to run on the same set of spark plugs they put in Dominick."

"Everything I thought I knew about public speaking was dwarfed by what I learned on stage," said Ruggiero, who served on the school board in the 1990s.

Anyone going into law or public service should act, he advised. "There's no second chances. You're just out there in front of people."

Bert Johnson, 55, of Camden, became friends with Ruggiero in a rigorous biology class last fall.

"He was sitting beside me raising hell that he wasn't trying to be a doctor, he just wanted to get through," Johnson said, laughing.

As a fellow "second-time" student, Ruggiero motivated him, said Johnson, who graduated yesterday with the highest grade point average among University College nontraditional students. Johnson, a psychology major, plans to pursue a doctorate.

"You can't stop the process of aging, but you don't have to get old," he said.

Ruggiero grew up in South Philadelphia and graduated from Southeast Catholic High School, now Bishop Neumann. After a stint in the Navy, he married and worked dozens of jobs in fields including manufacturing, defense contracting, transit, journalism, and insurance.

During their 48 years together, he and his wife, Carmella, lived in South and Southwest Philadelphia, several Gloucester County towns, and Florida.

Always interested in public affairs, Ruggiero testified before the New Jersey State Senate during Gov. Christie Whitman's administration to advocate for a 48-hour hospital stay for mothers and infants after delivery. His testimony is recounted in Hillary Rodham Clinton's book It Takes a Village.

Ruggiero has three children, 11 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, with two more great-grandchildren on the way. "Most of the team" was there to cheer him on yesterday, as they have his stage performances, he said.

At Pasco-Hernando Community College in Florida, where Ruggiero earned a paralegal degree in 2005, his granddaughter Gabriella took a course with him.

"After I corrected the professor twice during class, she never took another class with me," Ruggiero said. "Hey, he was wrong."

He won other students' hearts shooting pool with them, he said. They elected him student government president, and he promptly arranged the purchase of a new pool table, big-screen television, and Xbox for the student lounge.

"They deserved it," he said. "They were good kids."

Ruggiero moved back to Gloucester County in 2005 at the urging of his children. He initially worked as a host at Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City, but was laid off. He would like to work in legal mediation or motivational speaking.

At Rutgers-Camden, "he's a campus legend," said Nancy Gulick, assistant dean in the office of academic advising. "He's out there interacting with the younger students and giving them advice."

"I don't know how I would have coped after my wife's death without the young people," Ruggiero said. "What's so breathtaking to me is that these kids come to me and what I say affects a decision they make. I've had an effect on the future. It's awesome."