Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway announced on Tuesday that he will step down as the university’s 21st president next June. The 57-year-old will resign after his five-year contract expires at the end of the 2024-25 school year.
The state university’s first Black president began his tenure in July 2020 at the onset of the pandemic and went on to weather several turbulent years. In an interview with the Star-Ledger, Holloway said the political climate that surrounded the university drove his decision to step down. He said in a statement that “this decision is my own.”
“I’ve moved the needle as far as I can move it,” Holloway told the Star-Ledger. “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.”
From a faculty strike last year to a no-confidence vote by the faculty senate to the recent student protests calling for divestment from Israel, it has been a rocky tenure for the university’s president. At the height of the recent protests that had taken place on many campuses, Holloway testified before Congress about his handling of the demonstrations and issues of antisemitism on campus.
Holloway, a historian and professor of African American studies, said he plans to take a year sabbatical to work on long-standing research projects and then return to Rutgers as a full-time faculty member. He said he is not done as president, either.
“There is plenty to do before I complete my term, and I remain focused on that work, especially that which is committed to the connections between Rutgers and civic preparedness and civil discourse, ” Holloway wrote in a letter to the Rutgers community. “But whatever the topic, I remain steadfast in my belief that Rutgers is on the rise and is earning the respect it has long deserved. I look forward to seeing it flourish in the years ahead.”
