The first degree awarded at NJIT today was to Joseph Micalizzi, the student who was killed May 2 in his fraternity house.
NEWARK -- Thousands gathered Tuesday for the News Jersey Institute of Technology commencement, but the first degree that was awarded went to a student who could not attend the ceremony.
"The first degree presented will be in memoriam of Joseph Micalizzi," said NJIT Provost Fadi Deek, explaining the posthumous award to the student who was killed May 2 during an apparent robbery in an off-campus fraternity house.
The 23-year-old Micalizzi was shot in the hand and head as he struggled with the robbers in his room at the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house on the 300 block of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.
NJIT awarded a degree in mechanical engineering, which was Micalizzi's major, Deek said during the ceremony at the Prudential Center in Newark, a few block from the NJIT campus.
NJIT president Joel Bloom handed the degree to Dan Weiss, the president of fraternity, in a presentation that drew applause from the graduates and their friends and family.
"After reviewing Joe's earned credits, courses completed, grades and other pertinent information, NJIT awarded the posthumous degree as a humanitarian act for the Micalizzi family, friends and the many others in the campus community who knew and loved Joe," Bloom said in a statement after the commencement ceremonies.
Micalizzi was a junior at NJIT, having transferred to the school from Brookdale Community College.
As the commencement was going on, two suspects in the shooting, Taquan Harris, 22, of Newark and Nafee Cotman, 18, of Irvington, appeared in Superior Court on West Market Street, several blocks south of the NJIT campus. Both men pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, felony murder and weapons offenses.
At the commencement, the Institute conferred bachelor's, master's and doctorate degree on more than 2,800 graduates honored in the fields of engineering architecture and design, science and liberal Arts, management and computer sciences.
Among those receiving honorary degrees was commencement speaker Leonard Kleinrock, professor of computer science at UCLA and one of developers of a program that was the precursor of the internet.
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