By Peter J. McDonough Jr.
Rutgers’ two governing bodies, its 15-member Board of Governors and 41-member Board of Trustees, are about to name a new president for one of the oldest, largest and most prominent public research universities in the nation.
Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway will step down on June 30. A permanent successor, who will lead the university through significant fiscal and political challenges in both Washington and Trenton, is expected to be named by April 25.
This is probably the most important decision that those 56 men and women will make in their unique roles leading the 259-year-old university.
Their exclusive decision will determine if the university builds on the foundation for success and national prestige that has been built over the last 15 years, or if the university will slide into the morass of mediocrity that the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act of 2012 sought to forever end.
That restructuring act brought the New Jersey Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School into Rutgers. For the first time, New Jersey had within its borders a true academic medical center whose creation, in tandem with the ongoing growth of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, provides Garden State residents with access to the comprehensive medical care, cutting-edge cancer treatments and clinical trials that otherwise would only be available by traveling to New York, Philadelphia or beyond.
Rutgers’ diverse research activities now approach $1 billion per year. The last published report, for 2024, put the annual research total at $969 million. Nearly 60% of that research is funded by federal grants from sources like the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Defense. About one-quarter of the research funding is from the state of New Jersey and the balance comes from private industry and other sources.
To put this research juggernaut in perspective, the volume of research conducted at Rutgers is more than double that of Princeton University. Even more striking, the annual research volume at Rutgers exceeds the combined total of all other colleges and universities in New Jersey, public and private, including Princeton.
Rutgers now ranks among the Top 15 public universities in America according to the annual the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The university’s dramatic rise in the rankings began in 2021, shortly after Jonathan Holloway took the reins at Rutgers. During that time the university has leapfrogged 22 spots on the list of the best public universities in America.
The university has attracted record-breaking philanthropy and the Rutgers endowment now approaches $2.2 billion — an increase of nearly 50% during his five-year tenure. Applications for admission to the university last year set a record and included more than 90,000 students from across the nation and around the globe.
Obviously, this is not your father’s Rutgers, it is no longer a safety school. It is now among the very best universities in America.
Holloway deserves a ton of credit for the respect and recognition that the university receives. So do his two immediate predecessors, Robert Barchi and Richard McCormick.
Barchi directed the medical school merger, brought the university into the Big Ten and oversaw the university’s largest-ever construction program that built nearly $3 billion in new academic and research facilities at campuses across the university.
McCormick overcame enormous institutional resistance and redesigned the fundamental organizational structure of the university. He ended the Balkanized system of schools and colleges that until his action, encouraged academic fiefdoms, prolonged a caste-like hierarchy among schools and colleges within the university, guaranteed inefficiency and contributed to mediocrity.
Holloway will leave Rutgers at the end of this academic year and the boards need to pick his successor in the very near future.
It’s their pick. It’s not the governor’s pick — Jim McGreevey didn’t pick Dick McCormick, Chris Christie didn’t pick Bob Barchi and Phil Murphy didn’t pick Jonathan Holloway. Their opinions matter, but they don’t have a vote.
The faculty unions, the University Senate and the student body can all provide important input, and the presidential search committee led by Rutgers Board of Governor’s Chair Amy Towers has welcomed their insight. They are key constituents, but they don’t have a vote, either.
The residents of the state, the taxpayers who fund more than 20 percent of the Rutgers operating budget, and the more than 356,000 living alumni who live in New Jersey can and should make their voices heard about the direction of the university.
The university’s Presidential Search Committee welcomes public input regarding the characteristics and qualifications of a successful candidate. To provide your input, answer a short survey or send an email to presidentialsearch@rutgers.edu. (Go to Rutgers Presidential Search for more information.)
After more than 20 years teaching at Rutgers and 13 years as a senior administrator, I believe this is not the time for parochial thinking or narrow vision.
Rutgers is bigger, badder and bolder than the other public institutions in New Jersey. Its peers are Penn State, Wisconsin and Ohio State. It aspires to compete with Michigan, the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina.
The next president needs to lead the university to compete with those academic giants, needs to have a plan of how to do it and needs to have a proven track record on the national stage.
It’s time to think big.
Pete McDonough recently retired as the senior vice president for External Affairs at Rutgers. He taught at the Eagleton Institute of Politics for 20 years. He previously served as director of Communications for Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
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