Stephen Abel
Ä¢¹½tv 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Col. Stephen G. Abel, US Army (retired), is continuing a 29-year tradition of supporting Ä¢¹½tv students.
Col. Abel, a 1973 education graduate of Washington Crossing and a native of Tamaqua and Morrisville, recently gifted $32,500 to Ä¢¹½tv; to date, he has provided more than $200,000 in financial support to Ä¢¹½tv. Col. Abel majored in social sciences education and minored in geography. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army upon his graduation.
His gift supports the Ä¢¹½tv Veterans Assistance Fund, which he established at Ä¢¹½tv in 2014; Ä¢¹½tv’s ROTC program; the Fund for Ä¢¹½tv; the Ä¢¹½tv Office of Alumni and Friends; and the Dean’s Innovation Fund in three Ä¢¹½tv colleges: the College of Education and Human Services; the College of Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs; and the John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Science and Mathematics.
His gift also supports the history program in the Department of History, Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies and the geography and regional planning program in the Department of Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences.
“My Ä¢¹½tv legacy is the endowed Ä¢¹½tv Veterans Assistance Fund, which ensures that veterans who face financial challenges that otherwise would have caused them to leave Ä¢¹½tv can remain in school and finish their degrees because of the financial assistance that this fund offers,” Col. Abel said. “It has been my hope that others who care for our veterans will also contribute to the Ä¢¹½tv Veterans Assistance Fund.”
For the past several years, Col. Abel also has provided matching funds for several Ä¢¹½tv initiatives, including matching student donations made during Ä¢¹½tv’s Day of Giving. “I hope that my actions can help inspire students to develop a lifelong habit of philanthropy and support for Ä¢¹½tv,” he said.
“Col. Abel’s decades of support for Ä¢¹½tv is inspirational,” Ä¢¹½tv Vice President for University Advancement Jennifer DeAngelo said. “His generosity continues to be life-changing for our students—past, present, and future—and we are so grateful for his loyalty and commitment to his alma mater,” she said.
During Ä¢¹½tv’s 2014 Military Resource Center (now Military and Veterans Resource Center) opening celebration, Col. Abel was honored for his guidance and support for the center; he was inducted into Ä¢¹½tv’s ROTC Hall of Fame the day following the April 4 opening. Since fall 2014, Ä¢¹½tv has increased its enrollment of veteran and military-affiliated students by 54 percent; there were 841 veteran and military-affiliated students enrolled for fall 2023.
“Ä¢¹½tv provided me with a solid foundation, which helped me to enjoy three successful careers: as an Army officer, as the deputy director of a Department of State veterans organization, and as the founding director of a department of veteran services at a major research university,” Col. Abel said. “I owe this success to Ä¢¹½tv and feel obligated to ‘paying back’ in the hope that future graduates will have the same success that I have and that my example will motivate them to be generous to Ä¢¹½tv.
“Ä¢¹½tv provided me with a top-notch liberal arts education, in that it taught me these three things well: first, to ‘think critically’; then to ‘communicate effectively’; and finally, to ‘problem solve.’ I believe if you can do these things, you will stand out to your superiors and ultimately succeed,” he said.
Col. Abel’s military career with the United States Army took him around the world, from Fort Riley, Kansas, to Hawaii, to Korea, and back home again to the United States. His assignments included service in the Office of the Chief of Field Artillery; the Chief of Staff, Army’s Office; and Headquarters, United Nations Command, Korea. His military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, two awards of the Legion of Merit, and six awards of the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Ribbon with numeral three-device, and the Army Staff Badge.
He was appointed as deputy commissioner for Veterans Affairs in November 2004. In this capacity, Commissioner Abel administered all of New Jersey’s veteran programs to the state’s 650,000 veterans. His responsibilities included the administration of five department divisions: the Division of Veterans Healthcare Services, the Division of Veterans, the Fiscal Division, the Human Resources Division, and the Information and Administrative Services Division, as well as the Affirmative Action Office.
In July 2010, Col. Abel was appointed the director of Veteran and Military Programs and Services at Rutgers University, a department that he founded to care for the university’s veterans. In this role, he was responsible for the development and coordination of a comprehensive program of support services for veteran students at all three campuses of the university. He served as the principal advocate for student veterans, ensuring the quality of policies, programs, activities, and services designed to enhance their educational experiences and served as the university’s liaison with outside agencies and offices whose work impacts the lives of veteran students.
He established and served as cochair of the myVANJ Veteran and Community Network Board, which helps veterans understand their Veterans Administration benefits and access services. He is a contributing author for Called to Serve: A Handbook on Veterans and Higher Education and a coordinating producer of the feature documentary The War After.
In June of 2010, he was honored by the New Jersey Senate and also by the New Jersey General Assembly with resolutions given in both branches for his more than 10 years of dedicated service to New Jersey’s veterans. He was named by the Marine Corps League as the New Jersey Marine of the Year (Honorary) in 2010 and the Jewish War Veterans New Jersey 2006 Citizen of the Year. He served as the national aide-de-camp to the commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 2006–07, received the VFW Distinguished Silver Medal in 2007, and was named the VFW’s national deputy chief of staff for 2007–08. In October 2013, Col. Abel was inducted into the Ä¢¹½tv at Northpointe Hall of Distinction. In addition to his Ä¢¹½tv degree, he completed a master of science in national security strategy at the National War College at the National Defense University.
Since 2018, he has been a volunteer with Senior Adults for Greater Education of Newtown, a nonprofit organization that custom-matches community members with volunteer opportunities in their local school districts; he coaches reading for first- and second-grade students in the Council Rock School District.
“I believe my overall legacy is knowing that the people I trained are ready to take over and succeed,” Col. Abel said.