Atlantic City, N.J. — Reanna Marie Lawan remembers in fifth grade when she first toured Stockton University’s Atlantic City campus, just three blocks from her home.

She recalls what the neighborhood was like before the campus took shape, and the difference she believes Stockton has made.

“This area was almost dead. There was almost nothing here, but it’s such a wonderful spot to put a campus,” she said. “It inspired me to go to Stockton. With the campus here, I feel a lot more people from Atlantic City are going to go to Stockton. It’s given people a second chance at higher education.”

Now Lawan is one of those students. A sophomore in Stockton’s Health Sciences program, she is one of four Atlantic City residents selected for Stockton’s newest class of the Engelberg Leadership Scholarship Program. The program was established in 2019 through a $1 million commitment to the Stockton University Foundation from Gail and Alfred Engelberg. Alfred Engelberg was a 1956 Atlantic City High School graduate who became a successful lawyer after receiving a generous scholarship from the Avoda organization.

Lawan is a member of the eighth cohort of students for the program, which covers the students’ full tuition, room, board, fees, books and other expenses for the next three years. The other students in this year’s cohort are Muaaz Tajim, Rabia Naz and Andrew Nunez. All four grew up in Atlantic City, graduated from Atlantic City High School and are now Stockton students preparing to serve the community they came from.

“This year’s cohort shares a deep commitment to making an impact in Atlantic City and is eager to get to work in growing their leadership skills through hands-on learning and service,” said Susan Davenport, associate professor of Business Administration and the faculty liaison for the program.

Davenport said each cohort is charged with creating a capstone project designed to support the city. Past Engelberg capstone projects have addressed food access, literacy, health outcomes and early career development for Atlantic City residents.

The four students already have ideas about where they hope to make an impact — from financial literacy and health care to youth advocacy and public-interest law.

Tajim came to the United States with his family in 2019 from Bangladesh, but Atlantic City quickly became his new home. The Accounting major is eager to give back by helping the city’s Bangladeshi and Hispanic communities with financial literacy.

“I grew up with the city. It’s like my own birthplace in a sense,” he said. “I have pride in the city, so I wish for greater things for the city. Hopefully, I can be a part of that in the future and help it to be better.”

Naz has already spent several years giving back to Atlantic City by tutoring elementary school students at the Texas Avenue School. She’s majoring in Nursing after seeing how caregivers helped her grandfather when he was hospitalized with cancer.

“They would help him with whatever he needed,” she said. “I like the patient-nurse relationship, and I want to help the sick.”

She’s excited about the possibilities the Engelberg program will give her.

“I see that this program does a lot of community work and giving back, and that’s what I want to do,” she said. “I want to help the people of the community.”

Lawan also has an interest in the medical field as a student in Stockton’s Pre-Physician Assistant Program. A self-described “people person,” she previously worked as a daycare teacher, which sparked her love of working with children. She would love to develop a capstone project that benefits the city’s homeless population or youth.

“I was granted a lot of resources that helped me get to Stockton, and I would love to do the same thing for other youth because there are so many talented kids,” she said. “Kids are adorable and have such fascinating minds. I would love to be an advocate for them.”

Nunez also wants to be an advocate for the less fortunate in the city by eventually opening his own law practice.

“I’m unsure if I want to be a public defender or focus on housing law, but my goal is definitely public service oriented, and I would love to stay in the neighborhood and help underserved communities and people who have been overlooked,” said the Political Science major with a Pre-Law concentration.

Nunez, 23, took a less direct route to Stockton. He has always wanted to be in law enforcement and originally thought he wanted to be a police officer. He worked a few years as a seasonal Class I officer in Ventnor before discovering that he wanted to pursue change through the legal system in a different way.

“I realized that as much as I admired the profession, I would rather make change in the courtroom,” he said. “It took a lot of trial and error to realize that policing wasn’t for me, so I decided to go back to school.”

Another significant aspect of the Engelberg program is to help build future Atlantic City leaders, Davenport said. Students participate in professional development seminars, meet with local business and community leaders and take part in experiential learning opportunities, including summer internships. Lawan is especially excited about the peer mentoring in the program.

“As someone who’s lived here my whole life, I’ve seen the beauty and I’ve also seen the changes,” she said. “I look forward to helping the people that are here.”

-- Story by Mark Melhorn, photo by Susan Allen

Read more about the Engelberg Leadership Scholarship Program