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Carmen Gandulla ’03, the director of community development for the City of Jersey City, has been named a new fellow of С����Ƶ’s Center for the Development of Leadership Skills.

The fellowship allows individuals to serve as mentors to current members in the University’s Leadership Development Program, as well as other student leaders.

Gandulla will serve in the role beginning this fall through 2021. Joining her in a similar role will be Kenneth Jacobs ’10, who has been named the center’s first Young Alumni Fellow.

"The fellows serve as one of the many opportunities for our students to connect with successful alumni who are humbly eager to help them develop their leadership capacities,” says Laura Seplaki, the associate director of the Center for the Development of Leadership Skills and the director of the Leadership Development Program. "Both Carmen and Kenneth were actively involved and engaged as students while at Rider, and they very much prove that the leadership skills they developed while at Rider have been an asset to their current success and continual growth."

Under Gandulla’s leadership, Jersey City receives about $50 million of federal aid in the form of grants. She is also the chairperson for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Review Committee, administering an additional $10 million dollars at the municipal level for development and preservation of affordable housing units. Within the County of Hudson, she serves on the Alliance to End Homeliness’ and Homelessness Trust Fund Executive Board.

Before she decided to focus on government and the public sector, Gandulla had a 12-year career as a banking financial service professional. Her areas of expertise were business strategy development, relationship management, business banking, investment banking, finance operations, consumer and business lending. Gandulla received a bachelor’s in sociology from Rider.

Jacobs is currently a legal assistant with the United Negro College Fund in the Washington, D.C., area. He has also worked as a legal researcher with Baker & Miller, PLLC, and administrative assistant with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. In 2016, Jacobs founded the Urban Leadership Education and Development Institute (ULEAD) where he provides young students the opportunity to learn about leadership and develop their leadership skills, capacities, and leadership self-efficacy. He is the chair of Rider’s BOLD Alumni Council’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Jacobs received his bachelor’s in journalism from Rider, graduating with a certificate of leadership.

The Center for the Development of Leadership Skills strives to develop the leadership capacities of the Rider community. By providing effective leadership training and quality programming, it complements and expands upon Rider’s tradition of producing innovative leaders and confident professionals.

"Through their mentoring, keynote and other interactions with students, I am confident Carmen and Kenneth will positively influence our student leaders," Seplaki says.