U. Board of Governors holds meeting, striking nurses rally outside

On Thursday, the Rutgers Board of Governors convened for its bimonthly meeting at the Paul Robeson Campus Center on the Rutgers—Newark campus, which was also attended by representatives of striking nurses from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH).

The meeting began with an hour-long closed session at noon and moved to the open session around 1 p.m., per the meeting's schedule.

At the request of Board of Governors Chair William Best, University President Jonathan Holloway gave opening remarks.

He spoke about the University's recent successes, including the three Rutgers campuses' strides in the U.S. News & World Report's 2024 Best Colleges rankings, University professors' nominations for prestigious distinctions and increased participation in the Rutgers Scarlet Service program.

Additionally, Holloway shared that Jeffrey Robinson, who currently serves as provost and executive vice chancellor of Rutgers—Newark, has agreed to replace Chancellor Nancy Cantor as interim chancellor at the conclusion of Cantor's term.

After Holloway's statements, Cantor provided her report, mainly focusing on Americans' dwindling faith in higher education. She said the reason for this is the nation's wealth gap, particularly between Black and white households.

"Many Americans do not feel that they have an opportunity to get through a college-to-career pathway," Cantor said.

She said pre-college programs such as dual enrollment and summer camps are critical in breaking down barriers. She also talked about the value of strengthening relationships between prospective students and financial aid, county colleges and corporations.

Cantor said these solutions are especially important for women, underrepresented minorities, immigrants, refugees and the previously incarcerated, adding that many people from these populations have the potential to do phenomenal work.

"Those are people," she said. "Those are talented people that need to be at our table, and they are."

Before moving to public comments, Best took a vote from the Board on his letter to Adrienne Simonds, chair of the University Senate, expressing his support for Holloway's decision-making. The Board voted unanimously in support.

The meeting then opened to public comments, including those by University medical workers who talked about the lack of an outlet for clinicians, the nonexistent hazard pay for nurses at the height of the pandemic and the importance of staffing for medical staff's mental health.

Each committee within the Board then shared their respective reports, including an announcement of the University's first transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment machine and new academic records set by student-athletes across metrics like grade point average and graduation rates.

As the meeting went on, supporters of the nursing union strike, which has entered its second month, gathered for a rally outside the Paul Robeson Campus Center.

RWJUH nurses rallied for safe nurse-to-patient ratios and contract negotiations with RWJBarnabas Health, according to a press release by the Rutgers American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT).

At the rally, nurses spoke of their experiences with understaffing at RWJUH, receiving support from prominent AAUP-AFT members and Safanya Searcy, a student representative to the Board of Governors, who gave a speech to all in attendance of the demonstration.

Searcy said that upon her transfer to Rutgers last academic year, she found that University staff were not being heard. She said listening is vital to making any imperfect place bearable.

"An injury to nurses is an injury to students. An injury created as a result of a board vote to merge a medical school is an injury to students. An injury to Chancellor Nancy Cantor is an injury to Newark students especially. As students, I want you all to know that we see you, we stand with you and we will make every effort to press for accountability," Searcy said in her speech.

Rebecca Givan, the general vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, said the union attended the rally to stand in solidarity with the nurses' union.

"We're sending a message that there is no place for union busters like Mark Manigan on the Board of Governors," she said.

Mark Manigan, the president and chief executive officer of RWJBarnabas Health, is a member of the Board of Governors.

Back inside the meeting, after welcoming the new student and faculty representatives to the University Senate, Simonds addressed the Senate's recent no-confidence vote in Holloway. She said that shared governance at Rutgers must be returned from its current critical state to a stable one.

"We need to redefine shared governance, and that means representation, inclusion, equity. All of these take work: hard, uncomfortable, sustained work," she said.