Kayla Lavecchia, Editor-in-Chief of The Argo, sat down for a forty minute interview with President Joe Bertolino on Friday, April 10, 2026. Present was Associate Director of News & Media Relations, Mark Melhorn. 

The most rewarding part of being Stockton University President 

The interview began with Bertolino reflecting on what has been the most rewarding part of his job. “Any opportunity that I have to interact with students and spend time with students, is the most rewarding part of my job.” He referred to the office where the meeting was held, where there are several open seating options, walls with floor to ceiling bookshelves holding Stockton memorabilia, and a bed for his dog, Willoughby, who usually is around the office visiting the staff. “One of the reasons that it is set up in this way is because I want people to be able to come in and relax and have a conversation.” 

He added, “A lot of what you see is connected to the history of my career.” The office was full of items he noted were given to him over the years by students. “Wheather I am attending an event or walking through the food court, having lunch in N wing, over in Big Blue,” he took a moment to mention the joy he gets from being able to teach a leadership class every Wednesday. Here, 25 students, mostly first year students and sophomores, learn from the President himself about leadership skills. 

“I’ve been doing this for a while, so I have the privilege of interacting with alumn of all the institutions I’ve ever worked at. Some who graduated a while back and have families of their own and amazing careers.” 

President Bertolino started his career as a high school teacher in Salem County, and he noted that in the last three years of working at Stockton, he will still have those students tap him on the shoulder and greet him, noting their own children will be an incoming Stockton student, “It’s like life goes full circle,” he added. 

The reopening of the Richard E. Bjork Library 

After nearly two years of construction and the temporary space in C/D Atrium, the new library will be reopening in Fall 2026. “It’s going to be fabulous,” Bertolino exclaimed. “I cannot wait.”

“Libraries have changed over the years. They have become places that folks gather, that folks socialize, that the students come together to study in groups, and just places to go and relax.” The new plan for the library will be a more open concept to accommodate these needs, where there will be more room for students to lounge and to work in the many private study spaces.

“I think it’ll be a hub of community…and folks are going to be really happy with the space.” 

With its renewal, several offices, such as The Tutoring Center, will be moving into the ground space. In regards to what will happen once their current offices are moved out of, Bertolino stated that the spaces will be cleaned out. “The good news is that it does open up space for other things. For example, this past year, because we moved the old bookstore that was in the basement of F Wing, we converted some of those spaces to multipurpose rooms that clubs and organizations have been using.” 

He added that there are offices that need new space, such as the Forensic Science Program, who will now have access to the extra facilities. “They will be repurposed, and that of course, is a domino effect. That also gives us the opportunity to clean up and renovate spaces.” 

How Bertolino incorporates his Ethics of Care into his role and personal life 

In his three years, President Bertolino has followed the “Presidential Pillars” or Ethics of Care, which are dignity, kindness, respect, compassion and civility. “I try to model it, and I ask everyone who works here to model it. When you do that though, you’re changing the culture and that takes time for it to trickle down, so you have to provide people with support and resources, and in some cases, even training on how to do that. But it does start from the top.” 

He believes that in practicing these ethics, it is essential to take care of others, and to make sure they are okay, “The first thing I say to them [staff] is your family comes first. You need to take care of yourself: there’s self care and then there’s care of your family. If you don’t take care of yourself mentally and physically” which he noted is not selfish and is necessary “to take care of others.” 

In his own care he noted, “In order for me to be at my best, I need to care about others, and they in turn will take care of students. So that’s the goal.” He added that in his work and personal life, he will check in on people and be visible and present. 

“When things happen…I might go ‘hold on. How does that impact our students and our community in a positive or negative way?” With this, “sometimes I have to say that we’re going to do that or we’re not going to do that. I also have to say that part of that modeling is acknowledging that engaging in an ethic of care is actually hard work.” 

He stressed that in these practices, there has to be intent, and an acceptance of making mistakes but learning from them, “It’s a process and when we falter, we get up, we dust ourselves off, and we start again.” 

In his personal life outside of work, Bertolino stressed that his ethics of care is based in building and forming relationships, “My husband’s very good at keeping me on the straight and narrow and telling me to reset in order to take care of myself, and the people I care about.” He laughed, adding, “We have a family and we have grandchildren, you know, you can’t spoil the kids if you’re not taking care of yourself.” 

The annual tuition hearing and the fears with costs rising

After the tuition hearing on March 3, 2026, it was made apparent that the cost of attendance would be rising. This brought many concerns to the students, which Bertolino addressed, “I’m going to say that I have those same fears for our students. Our students only have so much capacity, and you can’t just keep adding and adding and adding, because then students just won’t be able to afford to come here.” 

“At the same time” he added, “the cost of everything goes up. I remind people that I still need to keep the lights on and that we only receive so much funding from the state.” Despite these rising costs, Stockton in comparison to other neighboring New Jersey universities, has a lower cost of attendance. 

On the same note, Bertolino acknowledged, “That most of the students who come to us, even if we consider ourselves reasonable, it’s still a heavy life for the student population we serve. So the first thing we try to do is work with the state to increase funding to the university, increase financial aid, and grants that the state has to offer.” 

To do so, one of Bertolino’s roles is to meet with elected officials and “constantly advocate on behalf of the university for these dollars. Secondly, I just spent time in Washington where I met with many of the elected officials from New Jersey.” During these meetings, students accompanied him to advocate to ensure that Pell Funding is safe.

“More than 50% of our students are Pell eligible. In addition to that, when I first started here, we had $22 million set aside from the university dollars to give our students for additional financial aid to help cover the cap. We’ve increased that to $30 million over the course of the last three years, and we’re going to continue to make that investment and try to grow that pool of dollars that we can provide to students.” 

Bertolino had discussed how he had recently traveled to Washington D.C. to both protect government money, but also to speak with donors of the university to advocate for scholarship dollars. “So I can’t promise that things won’t increase because…all the bills increase, but I can promise that we’re implementing strategies to try to mitigate that and cover the gap so that if it goes up, we have enough financial aid to help for that for the student.” 

The fear of Immigration services entering campus 

“We know that you’re [students] are feeling anxiety, and if you are, we want you to come to the focusing in student affairs-we’re on the care team-and we can help you to navigate your rights and point in the direction of the internal and external resources that can help.”

 He emphasized that Stockton does not keep a record of undocumented students and he knows, “people are scared and if they’re not scared for themselves they’re scared for their families because they may be citizens, but their families may not and that is scary.”

While Bertolino is hopeful that Stockton is a supported community, if there is ever surrounding g issues, “we are aware of it, we keep an eye on it, and we try to be prepared.” In students knowing their rights, it is important that if there is any spotting of Immigration Services, the first step should be to call campus police. 

“They would meet with whatever officials are here and escort them to our general council and the general council will take it from there. And while that is happening, if our students are directly impacted or members of our community are directly impacted, we would provide advice and counsel and appoint people in the right direction.” 

Concluding another year as President

With the spring semester coming to a close, there is much anticipation around the end of the year celebrations and commencement. Bertolino commended the work of Dr. Sass and Dr. Palladino, who he stated “run the day to day of the university,” where as his role is to “focus on the public relations of the institution, the reputiation–both internally and externally–spending time with legislators, business leaders, community leaders, alumni and donors.” 

Additionally, he will be continuing with the strategic plan and enrollment, as an expected 7,800 students have been accepted to the university.

A message of hope

“Its been a challenging time for higher education,” the president noted. He stressed the fact that students are not alone, and to share the time they spend at Stockton sharing it with others, whether that is bringing friends and family or telling others about the stories and experiences in the university. 

He also encouraged students to reach out to their elected officials to encourage them to further support Stockton and the community. In particular, for the president this is especially important as his own late mother was a Stockton graduate. 

“My mother getting a degree from Stockton allowed her to keep her job…and it was her job that paid the tuition for my sister and I,” he noted, “so without Stockton, my mother would not have have had the opportunities she had, and in turn, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to school. So I get to sit in this chair ultimately because of Stockton.”