Meet Our Students
HLLC scholars – uniquely qualified to make a difference.
The HLLC student body is comprised of dynamic, academically promising, and civic-minded scholars who desire to make a positive impact on their communities. The HLLC identifies exceptional first-year students and community college transfers from Newark, Greater Newark, and beyond who have a broad range of academic interests, co-curricular involvements, and social justice interests, including equity in healthcare, LGBTQ rights, racial disparities, and mass incarceration. Its curriculum provides students with a framework to explore social inequities and themes related to citizenship, as they emerge within various academic disciplines. HLLC scholars exemplify the best of those who will become our future innovators and thought leaders.

Mayada Ahmed
Biology

Hansier Rodriguez
Biology and Public & Non-Profit Administration

Brian Siaw
Biology

Stacy Tyndall
Criminal Justice
SPOTLIGHT
“ Everybody is used to hearing honors programs..students that have really high English and math scores or criteria that fall along those lines, but HLLC really redefines that.”
Vivian Peralta
“ ...you’re able to find people who look like you, who have the same interest, who are in the same class as you and you’re able to connect with them.”
Sabrina Ahmed
A DAY IN THE LIFE: MAYADA AHMED
Age: 19
Major: Biology
Second Concentration: Pre-Health
Class: 2020
Mayada Ahmed heard about RU-N HLLC at a campus open house and was inspired by the program’s social change platform and its position on honors.
PHOTOS
“To me being a change agent is to be unapologetically passionate about something and to realize that it can be done better.”
–Kayla Christine Roski, HLLC student