New Jersey City University Athletics

Mission Statement
The Rising Knight Institute is bound by five essential pillars of success: academics, personal enrichment, leadership, community outreach and career preparation. We support the holistic growth of each student-athlete’s intellectual development, academic excellence, social responsibility and self-empowerment. Our goal is to build character, stimulate motivation and foster strong community relations, while preparing student-athletes to succeed as leader.

RKI is Nationally Recognized
The NJCU athletics department and its Rising Knight Institute was selected as the March 2020 recipient of the NCAA Division III Diversity Spotlight Initiative, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced. Read the full story.

RKI in 2020-21
RKI, entering its third year of existence, has evolved its nationally-recognized holistic student development program for NJCU student-athletes. Beginning in Fall 2020, the RKI program will launch a new workshop calendar of events entitled The UknightED Series. This is a pivotal shift for NJCU athletics to offer all programs in a hybrid model approach, whether in person or virtually, to support the needs of all student-athletes. Subsequently, the UknightED Series will contain all of the student-athlete workshops and speaking engagements that have become the signature of the RKI program. Universally, the RKI program will continue to house community service, career engagement, academic success and preparedness (ASAP), as well as the UknightED series each semester.

View the RKI program's calendar of events for the 2020-21 academic year. Please note, this schedule is subject to change.