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Rutgers University votes 'no confidence' in school president
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 22, 2023
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By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 22, 2023
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The Rutgers University Senate delivered a vote of no confidence in President Jonathan Hollway on Friday, passing the resolution with a vote of 89-47 after months of controversy and a faculty strike this spring.
Though the resolution against Holloway is nonbinding, it is an official rebuke from the University Senate, which is made up of faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Members who spoke in favor of the resolution on Friday accused Holloway of failing to uphold a tradition of shared governance with the senate, despite attempts to get him to engage on issues critical to the school community.
“It is a really solemn day at the Rutgers Senate and for Rutgers,” Anna Haley, an associate professor at the School of Social Work, said on Friday afternoon before the vote. “A vote of no-confidence is a mechanism for conveying profound concern about institutional leadership. We all recognize that it is one that should be pursued only after extensive other efforts have been attempted. This senate has done that.”
The resolution details a slate of grievances against Holloway, including allegations that he threatened to have striking workers arrested. Holloway called the strike “unlawful” earlier this year, raising the possibility Rutgers would seek a court order to force faculty back to work.
The resolution also criticizes Holloway for dismissing Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor with "no explanation," and goes on to describe Cantor as “a highly effective, popular, widely respected, and nationally recognized campus chancellor.”
Neither Holloway nor Cantor have publicly addressed the reasons Holloway announced plans to replace her in August, but she said she’d “hoped to remain.”
“It is more than just a single issue or two,” said Rutgers-Newark psychology professor Paul Boxer shortly before the vote.
Members of the senate also leaned into Holloway’s role in merging Rutgers' medical schools in New Brunswick and Newark despite vigorous opposition from some members of the school community and Newark leaders.
Rutgers’ Board of Governors, on which Holloway sits, unanimously approved the merger this summer after a public session in which faculty members, medical students and Newark community members all spoke out against the merger. Many said the Newark school was under-resourced, and that they feared a merger would harm it further.
Other members of the university senate expressed reservations over a no-confidence vote, with Ronald Quincy, a faculty member at the School of Planning and Public Policy, saying the resolution had “destabilizing elements.”
“I think it’s a hindrance to reconciliation,” he said before the vote.
In a statement after the Friday vote, Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin said Holloway “will continue to work collaboratively with the university community and the University Senate as he has for the past three years.”
“President Holloway continues to have the support of the university’s Board of Governors, the governing body comprised of eight members appointed by the governor of the state of New Jersey and seven members appointed by the Rutgers Board of Trustees,” Devlin said after the vote Friday. “The Board of Governors has the sole responsibility to appoint the president of the university.”
Holloway wrote a letter to the Senate last week saying that part of the problem may be rooted in holding online video meetings instead of meeting in person. He said he’d like to work directly with senators more frequently, including in small-group meetings in his home.
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Michelle Bocanegra
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