Rutgers president plans to leave top job at New Jersey’s flagship university

The president of Rutgers University, New Jersey’s premier higher education institution, announced Tuesday that he will step down next year.

Jonathan Holloway, 57, who became the university’s first Black president when he took office in the summer of 2020, said he will step down when the current academic year ends June 30. He then plans to take a year-long sabbatical before returning to the university as a full-time professor.

“This decision is my own and reflects my own reflections on how best to serve,” Holloway wrote in a statement released on the university websiteHolloway said he informed the chairman of the Rutgers board of his plans last month.

Holloway currently receives a base salary of $888,540 and a bonus of $214,106 for a total of more than $1.1 million annually. 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 returned to campus after lockdowns, and last year also faced the first faculty strike in the school’s history, when thousands of professors, part-time faculty members and graduate students took to picket lines. He also faced a largely symbolic vote of no confidence from the Faculty Council in September 2023 and drew national criticism from Republican lawmakers earlier this year for his decision to end a pro-Palestinian settlement through negotiations rather than police force.

Rutgers was founded in 1766 and has almost 68,000 students.

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