Richard W. Roper
VIEW: 2026 Graduation Celebration Keynote Address
Richard W. Roper is a public policy consultant who has held senior level positions in local, state, regional, and federal government agencies and has had experience in nonprofit organizations, private consulting and in academic research, teaching, and administration. He served as director of the Office of Newark Metropolitan Studies for the City of Newark, as Special Assistant to U. S. Department of Commerce Secretary, Juanita Kreps, in the Carter Administration also as Director of the Department’s Office of State and Local Government Assistance. For 12 years following his work with the federal government, Roper served as director of the Program for New Jersey Affairs, director of the Council on New Jersey Affairs and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. During his last for years at Princeton he also served as an assistant dean at the School. Following his years at Princeton, he served as a senior executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from which he retired as the Planning Department Director in 2010.
His many civic engagements have contributed to the development of the social, political and cultural infrastructure of urban New Jersey, particularly Newark. He was a founding trustee of Newark Emergency Services for Families, a 24-hour crisis intervention program that serves residents in the Greater Newark area. He was a co-founder of the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute, Inc., an organization dedicated to research, analysis, and dissemination of information on issues affecting New Jersey’s communities of color; and co-founder of Leadership Newark, an organization dedicated to identifying and nurturing talented individuals in business, education, arts, government, social services, and the non-profit sector in Newark and vicinity. In addition, Roper was a founding Trustee of Newark Public Radio, Inc., the licensee of radio station WBGO-FM, Jazz 88, the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice, and University Heights Charter School.
Roper currently serves as a Visiting Associate at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, chairs the Board of Trustees at the Fund for New Jersey, a public policy-oriented philanthropy, is a member of the Board of Directors at La Casa de Don Pedro, a social welfare organization serving the Latino community and others, a member of the Board of Directors of the NJ Coalition for Diverse and Inclusive Schools, member of the Board of Directors of The New Jersey Performing Art Center and a former member of the Board of Governors, Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey. Additionally, he serves on the Rutgers University – Newark Advisory Board and the Rutgers Future Scholars Development Committee. He also is a member of the Board of Deacons at Bethany Baptist Church in Newark, NJ, and served as deacon board chair for 15 years from 2003-2018.
Roper is co-editor with Robert Holmes of A Mayor for All the People: Kenneth Gibson’s Newark, a book published in 2019 by Rutgers University Press which features reflections about the 16-year tenure of Ken Gibson, Newark’s first African American mayor.