'A sight to behold': Rutgers University inaugurates first Black president

Rutgers University celebrated the historic inauguration of its 21st president, Jonathan Holloway on Friday — the first Black man to hold the position in the institution's nearly 250-year history.

The inauguration was postponed by a year due to COVID-19.

“It’s a great honor to stand before you today. As I have learned over the course of my 18 months in office, this honor does not come freely, nor does it come without its difficulties,” Holloway said in his inaugural speech.

He said taking office during a pandemic, and during an "age of profound social reckoning" has been challenging, but, he said, "I stand before you gladly."

Holloway, 53, a U.S. historian, took office six months after the Rutgers University Board of Governors chose him in January 2020 to succeed Robert Barchi, who served as the university president for eight years.

Historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, who spoke at the event, compared the “excitement and optimism” in the atmosphere Friday as “a promise of possibility” that Holloway’s election has ushered in for the university. Dunbar referred in her speech to the response from Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to be elected to Congress in 1968. When asked how she felt, she said: “It's overdue, I’m not terribly overexcited.”

The investiture ceremony took place with full regalia and ceremony, as faculty members dressed in multi-colored velvet robes and hoods representing their academic credentials streamed into the floating sounds of the processional “On the banks of the Old Raritan,” the university’s alma mater song and played by the university brass quintet.

The two-hour ceremony took place in the newly renamed Jersey Mike's Arena, formerly known as the Rutgers Athletic Center, on the RU campus in Piscataway. Gov. Phil Murphy was in attendance.

Holloway began his presidency a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, which required him to steer the university through an unprecedented time. During that time he took some noteworthy steps, including a pay cut for himself to "reflect sacrifices" made by the community during the pandemic. He also approved a tuition and fee freeze for the 2020-21 academic year.

Holloway, in his speech Friday, likened the challenge of changing the face of higher education to the challenge of building a cathedral, a comparison inspired by a speech delivered by then Chief Judge of the U.S Third Circuit Court, A. Leon Higginbotham, when Holloway was a graduate student.

“I wish I could say the skeptics are always wrong, but Rutgers remains a work in progress," he said. "We may not complete the cathedral but we will be…Rutgers will be… a sight to behold.”

Some of the actions Holloway has already taken in his time at the state university include raising more than $10 million for the Scarlet Promise Grant program, which provides aid to students experiencing financial crises, most brought on by the pandemic.

During his speech, he said the most important statistic so far is the Scarlet Promise Grant program has already benefited more than 9,000 students. He announced he is committed to raising $50 million more to support the program in the coming years.

Holloway announced the start of work to build an innovation and technology hub in New Brunswick and the creation of the "Rutgers Summer Service" initiative to be run by the Eagleton Institute of Politics and the university’s career service offices. The program, said Holloway, is a way for the university "to be bold and not shy away" from its responsibility to public service and public good. He said it would place 150 students in paid public service internships.

Speeches at the ceremony reflected the gravitas of Holloway being Rutgers' first Black president.

“Wow, wow!” said Dwight McBride, president of the New School, who delivered the keynote address. "Wow” said McBride, was the only word that he felt represented the feelings around Holloway’s inauguration. McBride called on Holloway and those in attendance to recognize the challenges of being a Black leader, saying that “in spite of his distinguished career” Holloway would still have to prove his mettle every day as a university president.

Longtime friend, McBride said Holloway's inauguration comes at a time when higher education is coming to be seen more as a personal privilege than a societal good. He called on those in attendance to recognize the importance of the moment by standing up to sing the Black National Anthem, an African American Civil Rights song first performed in 1900. They did this and the arena resounded with the words “Sing a song, facing the rising sun of a new day begun, let us march on till victory is won.”

Holloway made news when he took office last July when he announced he would take a 10% pay cut on his first day in office. Reports say he still took home $1 million in compensation .

Rutgers was the first university in the nation to mandate COVID vaccines for its students, a measure announced under Holloway's leadership.

Holloway, a scholar in African American studies focusing on post-emancipation U.S. history, last September announced that the university received a five-year, $15 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers.

“The nation is at a tipping point with respect to racial and social justice. This grant will enable Rutgers, an institution older than the country itself, to be an international leader in understanding the causes, effects and solutions to problems that have plagued the world,” Holloway posted on the Rutgers website.

While he has never lived in New Jersey, he reminded a Rutgers audience in January that he has family ties in South and North Jersey enclaves, and committed to building "a beloved community" in his annual address to the university in September.

Holloway grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, but moved to California to attend Stanford University for a bachelor's degree in American studies and then to Yale, where he earned a doctorate in history.

While earning his undergraduate degree, he played outside linebacker for the Stanford football team. One of his teammates was U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Prior to becoming president of Rutgers University, he was provost of Northwestern University from 2017 to 2020 and was a faculty member of Yale University from 1999 to 2017. During that tenure, he served as Dean of Yale College and the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History, and American Studies, according to Rutgers Today.

Holloway is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of American Historians, a Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.

After his election to the position of university president, he was appointed to various commissions dedicated to addressing the fallout of the pandemic in New Jersey, including the Governor’s Restart and Recovery Commission by Gov. Phil Murphy and the Economic Advisory Council by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin.

During the ceremony, newly re-elected Murphy said: “We need leadership committed to push us in the right direction, to not just teaching history but also learning from history."

Mary Ann Koruth covers education for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news about New Jersey's schools and how it affects your children, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: koruthm@northjersey.com

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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Rutgers University NJ inaugurates first Black president