Homecoming 2024: Prof pride shines during weeklong celebration

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Someone, somewhere, was grilling pork roll. Or maybe it was Taylor ham.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, the penultimate day of Homecoming 2024, thousands of students, friends, family and alumni came to campus to cheer the Profs during the inaugural “Breakfast Bowl” versus Montclair State University and to reconnect with the Rowan community.

Though the outcome of the big game would ostensibly settle the North Jersey-South Jersey debate over what to call the popular breakfast meat, at least for one year, for many attending the more important matter was connecting with old friends.

“We have a lot of friends who are back,” said Robert Moore ’71, a retired high school and college educator from West Deptford who returned to campus with his wife, Audrey Moore ’72, also a retired teacher.

For Moore, the question of what to call the breakfast meat was never in doubt.

“My grandson loves the stuff, and to him it’s pork roll,” he said.

Celebration across generations

For Keycha Muriel ’09, Homecoming included induction into the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering’s Alumni Circle of Distinction.

“I’ve been back a few times since graduating but this is extra special,” said Muriel, who since leaving from Rowan’s celebrated engineering program has opened her own engineering firm.

“My civil engineering class had only 27 students and I think it’s quadrupled since,” she said.

Ahead of the big game, representatives from dozens of Rowan organizations welcomed returnees back to campus. With food trucks lining one side of Lot O-1 near Coach Richard Wackar Stadium, footballs whizzed overhead and Rowan’s Pride of the Profs marching band prepped home team fans with a lively rendition of the Fight Song.

Dr. Thomas Gallia, a former professor, vice president emeritus and former chief of staff to three Rowan presidents, said though he still lives in Glassboro, and never really left since arriving on campus in 1962, he’s always thrilled by Homecoming.

“I’ve been here for 62 years,” said Gallia, who attended with his wife, Donna, and grandson Joe. “It’s always nice to reconnect with my former students, former colleagues and alumni I went to college with.”

Alex Conaway of Glassboro said though he lives in town he still marvels at all the changes on campus since he graduated in 1976.

Conaway looked especially forward to seeing friends from his fraternity, Iota Theta Phi, Inc., and the generations of students who followed him in it.

“We were founded April 12, 1975,” he marveled. “This April our chapter will be 50 years old.”

Full week of fun

Saturday’s festivities capped a busy Homecoming Week in which students displayed school pride in various competitions as they sought to win Rowan’s spirit competition.

Team Student Center & Campus Activities won the competition, with Rowan Club Swimming placing second and Rowan Bowling Club third.

In individual team contests, the ASCENDers had a terrific week, winning the banner and CANstruction competitions. During CANstruction, students used nonperishable food items to build sculptures on the “Hearts of Gold” Homecoming theme. All canned food items brought in for the competition – more than 1,000 pounds – were donated to The Shop, Rowan’s food pantry and resource center for students.

In other competitions, Men’s Ultimate Frisbee took the top prize in the pushcart contest, while The Chaos Squad won Battleship. Alpha Psi Omega, the theatre honor society, won the lip sync contest.

The Profs football squad, which notched a thrilling 16-10 overtime victory over NJAC rival Montclair State, also claimed some Homecoming hardware. With the victory, Rowan won the first-ever Breakfast Bowl, which was designed to bring awareness to food insecurity in the state while settling the debate over the proper name for pork roll (which is preferred by the Profs) or Taylor ham (as it’s called by the Red Hawks).

All donations collected at the Breakfast Bowl went to the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. 

Meanwhile, the victory ensured that pork roll will be the moniker for the breakfast meat for the next year…until the 2025 Breakfast Bowl.