'He's up there smiling,' says widow who gets state trooper's posthumous degree

Frankie Williams was enrolled in a master's program there at the time of his death.

CAMDEN -- The first of five commencement ceremonies this year for Rutgers University-Camden began Wednesday afternoon at the BB&T Pavilion here honoring 222 graduate school students with degrees and a former state trooper with a posthumous award.

A total of 1,890 students are inline to receive diplomas.

A key honoree Wednesday was the widow of Frankie Williams, a New Jersey State Trooper killed in the line of duty in a head-on traffic accident last year. Williams was enrolled in a graduate criminal justice program at the time of his death.

His widow, Kimberly Williams, accepted a posthumous degree in his honor Wednesday during the ceremony.

"He was really looking forward to completing his education so he could continue his career as a state trooper," she said before the ceremony. "I just recall the time we were here for his bachelor's degree and how excited he was. I'm fully looking forward to being in the moment and thinking of him. I know he's up there smiling and would be totally honored if he knew this was going on."

Frankie Williams, 31, died Dec. 5 in a double-fatal accident on Route 55 in Millville.

Scheduled keynote speakers at the ceremonies included Carla Hayden, who was sworn in as the 14^th Librarian of Congress in September. She is the first woman and African American to serve in the post. Sherman Leis, a board-certified plastic surgeon and a leader in transgender surgery, spoke at the graduate school ceremony. James Sandman, honored as one of the "90 greatest lawyers in the last 30 years" by a legal trade journal is the scheduled keynote speaker for the law school commencement Thursday.

Rutgers University-Camden began as the South Jersey Law School and the College of South Jersey in the 1920s, a school history said. The two schools became the Camden campus when it merged with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in 1950.

Today, the school has 6,750 students and more than 43,000 alumni.