Rutgers president explains why he plans to leave top job at NJ's flagship university

The embattled president of Rutgers University announced Tuesday that he will step down next year after a tenure that has included contending with the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing the university’s first-ever strike and surviving a no-confidence vote by the faculty senate.

Jonathan Holloway, 57, who became the first Black president of New Jersey’s flagship institution of higher learning when he took office in the summer of 2020, said he will leave office when the current academic year ends June 30. He then plans to take a yearlong sabbatical before returning to the university as a fulltime professor.

“This decision is my own and reflects my own rumination about how best to be of service,” Holloway wrote in a statement posted on the university’s website on Sept. 17, 2024. Holloway said that he notified the chairwoman of the Rutgers Board of Governors about his plans last month.

“Serving as the university president has been an enormous privilege and responsibility,” he wrote. “Throughout my tenure, I have been appreciative of the former and respectful of the latter. I welcomed the opportunity to join the Rutgers community in July 2020 because I found inspiration in the possibilities that this institution represented: a belief that cutting-edge research could thrive in a university that was committed to making education as accessible as possible to a profoundly diverse student population. The reality behind this inspiration has been reaffirmed time and again during my tenure.”

Holloway currently receives a base salary of $888,540 and bonus pay of $214,106 for a total of more than $1.1 million a year. He will receive his full salary during his sabbatical, school officials said.

Holloway began his tenure in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, as students were returning to campus from lockdown, and also dealt with the first faculty strike in school history last year, when thousands of professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers hit the picket lines. He also faced a largely symbolic no-confidence vote by the faculty senate in September 2023 and received national scrutiny earlier this year from Republican lawmakers for his decision to end a pro-Palestinian encampment through negotiations rather than police force.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers has nearly 68,000 students in its system.

School officials said Tuesday that they plan to conduct a national search to find the university’s next president. They noted that during Holloway’s presidency, Rutgers broke records in undergraduate admissions, climbed significantly in national rankings and exceeded its fundraising goals.