By David Cruz
Robert Barchi was introduced to a joint session of the Rutgers University board of governors and trustees. The university’s new president made it clear up front that, despite having spent the last couple of academic decades in Pennsylvania, he is a Jersey guy.
“From the time I was a toddler until the time I was past my first year of high school, we lived in Westfield, NJ, 15 miles from here,” he said from the meeting at the New Brunswick campus. “My dad worked in Perth Amboy and his job eventually transferred to Trenton. They moved their home to the Trenton area where they remained until they died. What I found, to my surprise, when I started discussions here at Rutgers was that this feels a lot like coming home.”
Barchi comes to Rutgers most recently from Thomas Jefferson University, in Philadelphia, where he was president, and before that he was the Provost at the University of Pennsylvania. He will take over an institution that is facing a number of challenges, including strained relations with campus unions, some high-profile bias incidents and the proposed merger of some of the university’s campuses with UMDNJ and Rowan University. It’s an era of change at Rutgers which search committee chairman Greg Brown says makes Barchi the perfect choice.
“The things we were looking for were depth of experience, accomplishment, leadership, courage, content, coming into a complex situation and being able to manage complexity and sea change,” said Brown. “Yes, there’s a lot of things going on, but consistent with Dr. Barchi’s comments, I think we couldn’t have picked a better president.”
On the question of the proposed merger with Rowan, Barchi drew a long round of applause from some of the staff and faculty in the back of the room when he said: “We have to be the best at the undergraduate education business, not just a player, and when I say undergraduate I’m not talking about Rutgers New Brunswick. I’m talking about Rutgers, as a university, and that includes Rutgers-Camden, and it includes Rutgers-Newark.”
But Barchi made it clear that he wasn’t taking a position on the merger, just acknowledging the importance of all of the university’s campuses. The decision on the merger will be made before Barchi begins his tenure.
Barchi confirmed that he had met with Gov. Chris Christie and found him to be direct, very opinionated and very smart, traits which he says the two men share. “I’m not here to hit and run,” he said, “and I’m not a keeper of the status quo.”
Barchi, whose salary will be $650,000, takes over from departing president Richard L. McCormick, in September.
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