The president of Rutgers University announced Tuesday that he’ll resign from his $1 million-a-year gig — citing the school’s toxic environment and concerns over his family’s safety as reasons for the move.
Jonathan Holloway — the New Jersey university’s first black president — plans to punch out on June 30, 2025, at the conclusion of a rocky five-year tenure that included the COVID pandemic, a faculty strike and a lengthy encampment by Palestinian students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the Star-Ledger.
Those trials heavily influenced his decision — especially when union-supporting protesters showed up at his door at 7:30 a.m. during last year’s strike, he said in an interview with the paper the day before his announcement.
“I’ve moved the needle as far as I can move it,” said Holloway, a 57-year-old historian. “I haven’t talked about this until now … I don’t want to be in an environment where I need, where my family needs, protection. That’s the part I didn’t bargain for.”
In a statement announcing his plans, Holloway said the decision to step down was his alone — and the move “reflects my own rumination about how to be of service.”
Once he leaves the president’s post, he’ll take a sabbatical during the 2025-26 academic year so he can write a book on African-American history.
Then, he’ll join the Rutgers faculty as a full-time professor.
“Jonathan Holloway has led Rutgers with integrity, strong values and a commitment to service and civility while helping to steer the university through challenges facing higher education,” Rutgers Board of Governors Chair Amy Towers said in a statement, according to The Record.
“Dr. Holloway’s decision was his and his alone,” she continued. “We respect it and thank Dr. Holloway for his passion and service.”
Holloway is the latest in a line of big-time university heads who’ve decided to step down in the wake of mass student protests, including Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard; Minouche Shafik at Columbia University; Martha Pollack of Cornell University; and Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania.
Holloway, who told the Rutgers Board of Governors’ chairwoman about his decision last month, said he and his fellow college presidents are “sort of at wit’s end.”
“We’re all seeing people we looked up to who are saying, ‘I’m out.’ And I think we’re going to see a lot of that,” he continued.
“These jobs are difficult in good times, but when you’re facing absolutely no-win situations constantly, in this era of hyperbole about failing to do X, Y, and Z…none of us signed up for that.”
“Just like I didn’t sign up to have a police detail with me everywhere I go.”
Holloway — who has a five-year contract — is getting a base salary of about $889,000 that rises to about $1.1 million after bonuses.
Rutgers officials said he’ll get his full salary during his sabbatical. And when he returns as a professor, he’ll get a salary that launches him into the top 10% of his fellow high-ranking professors, the outlet added.
Holloway’s tenure wasn’t always marked by difficulty — the school enrolled 67,000 students, rose to #15 in the US News rankings of public universities, broke undergraduate admission records and raised boatloads of cash, the Ledger said.
But his relationship with the faculty deteriorated after last year’s strike, with the University Senate rebuking him with a no-confidence vote in September after a controversial decision to merge Rutgers’ two separate medical schools.
The five-day faculty strike involved thousands of unionized university workers, and ended only after Garden State Gov. Phil Murphy stepped in and helped settle it, according to the New York Times.
Then there were the campus protests, which included a weeklong encampment by Palestinian students on the New Brunswick campus that only ended after Holloway and other administrators negotiated terms with the group.
The standoff ended peacefully, with Holloway promising scholarships for Palestinians displaced by the war. But he did not agree to the protesters’ other, more salient asks such as divesting from Israel or cutting ties with Israeli universities, the Times said.
In May, he was called to testify before Congress about campus antisemitism — and he told lawmakers that he felt only civil discourse could help during such polarized times, The Record said.
“We talked with Rutgers students,” he told the committee, according to the Times. “They were not, as some have characterized them, terrorists; they were our students.”
Despite the tribulations, Holloway said that “serving as the university president has been an enormous privilege and responsibility.”
”I remain steadfast in my belief that Rutgers is on the rise and is earning the respect it has long deserved,” he wrote.