Exclusive interview: Holloway reflects on historic term with Targum

The Daily Targum's 156th news desk sat down with University President Jonathan Holloway to discuss campus events in the past year and the legacy of his tenure as he closes out his historic five-year term.

When the Targum last interviewed Holloway in September 2023, he recalled feeling optimistic about the upcoming academic year. Going into this year, Holloway said he remains confident.

Sources of pride for Holloway at that time included the Rutgers Scarlet Service Internship program (RSSI), faculty research grants and record-high enrollment and rankings across all three campuses. Even this year, Holloway cited the RSSI program as a major success, now receiving external donations rather than internal funding.

"I do hope that's part of a legacy that I have, that we started a program that is about shifting sensibilities of public engagement for a university doing this great work," he said.

But the University quickly saw challenges just one month after his previous interview, with changes to the campus climate, community responses to "what's happened (in the) Middle East, (which) is a complete tragedy, absolute tragedy," according to Holloway and other longer-term issues, such as University finances and general issues related to faculty discourse.

Regarding campus climate and how the community as a whole navigated the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, Holloway began by acknowledging the University's particularly large Jewish and Palestinian populations compared to other higher education institutions. At Rutgers, the conflict was a notable cause of strife and pain for University community members as a whole.

He also offered more insight into his public disapproval of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which was first explicitly addressed during the Rutgers University Student Assembly divestment vote, by positing that social issues do not warrant a University-backed opinion.

In doing so, he cited the University of Chicago's 1967 report on institutional neutrality, which explains that the role of higher education institutions is to take a neutral stance and allow community members to express themselves freely and without university influence, except in unique situations.

"From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry," the report reads. "In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values."

At the same time, the report also emphasizes that a university's community members must be able to challenge institutional neutrality, something that was evidenced at Rutgers through the various protests, counter-protests, sit-ins, demonstrations and, ultimately, Pro-Palestinian encampments that marked the now-penultimate year of Holloway's term.

When asked about those events and the University's newly published Free Speech guidelines, Holloway responded by referencing transparency at the administrative level, the role of external bodies and his experiences testifying before Congress.

On free speech heading into this year, Holloway said the guidelines largely reflect guidelines that have been in place at the University for decades. He noted that the issue has not necessarily been in these policies existing, but instead, the various ways they have or have not been implemented in the way they were intended to be over time.

"My whole staff knows I'm absolutely committed to academic freedom and free speech, and so, we're still abiding by that," he said. "But that doesn't mean people get to say what they want without accountability."

The trend of clarifying these policies is not unique to Rutgers, Holloway said. Higher education institutes across the country are working toward providing more guidance about the expectations of their communities.

Regarding conduct by both University community members and outsiders, Holloway said his office was fielding thousands of automated emails and hundreds of voicemails to an unlisted number at the height of ongoing activism on campus last semester.

Holloway said he had to balance external input by those who do and do not impact the University's finances and functioning, the former of which includes legislators.

In responding to those types of actors, he said he had to undergo 10 days of preparation ahead of his testimony to understand the political environment he would be entering when speaking before the U.S. Congress.

He said in that way, the hearing entailed a performance of everyone in the room, referencing the wording used in the Targum's question. While he felt satisfied with the way he spoke on behalf of the University, he did not leave with a positive outlook.

"The main thing that I walked away with was sadness," Holloway said. "I think we are better than this as a country, as a people, and I think that we can be better. So, I found it quite sad."

When discussing certain issues, both similar to recent student demonstrations — including the management of the endowment — and beyond, such as classifications of faculty members, Holloway responded that those areas were not under his scope as president.

He defined his job as the management of systems between the New Brunswick, Newark and Camden campuses which allows for specific work to be completed by the chancellors. At New Brunswick, he added that Juli Wade, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, also plays a significant role, considering that the program is the "most effective."

At the same time, his management role — paired with the reason behind his hiring, which is to be a figurehead for the University — has placed pressure on Holloway, which he said is sometimes unrelated to his job responsibilities.

"In order to maintain the safety (and) integrity of the University, one gets put in pretty uncomfortable positions that allows one to be caricatured for taking positions," Holloway reflected. "That's the reality of last year — and this year, as a matter of fact."

Though his comments about specific New Brunswick issues were limited, he was able to weigh in on the 93 percent statistic referencing the amount of part-time faculty in the New Brunswick campus's writing program who were laid off. Based on his understanding, the figure is inaccurate, with New Brunswick leadership actually increasing the number of sections in the program.

He also touched on his interactions with the University Senate, which previously conducted a no-confidence vote on his capabilities. Holloway said many university presidents endured similar votes, and the nature of these votes can hold varying degrees of importance across different college campuses.

He said he has visited the University Senate approximately 27 times as a whole, which reportedly surpasses the number of times other University presidents have interacted with the body. He said claims of non-transparency pertaining to his communication around the University's medical schools confuse him, and he remains uncertain of how to proceed.

"I thought I was being hyper-communicative and transparent," he said. "Clearly, people disagree with things that we were doing. That's different than being transparent, that's different from being communicative."

He shared that while the vote at Rutgers negatively impacted him, he was bolstered by the Board of Governors, who voted unanimously in support of him.

When looking at larger, campus-wide issues, such as University finances, Holloway was able to provide more context. He said the Board of Governors is operating under a financial sustainability mandate. In simpler terms, Holloway said that the University needs to move out of its current situation, which has mainly arisen from the persisting effects of COVID-19. 

Failure to move out of the "red" is simply "not an option," he said. The pathway to doing so includes finding avenues for revenue generation through tuition, medical services and state governance.

Looking beyond these tumultuous events and toward future opportunities for University-wide successes, Holloway said he will be taking a year-long sabbatical to write a book before determining any other steps for his personal journey.

While the idea of coining a legacy is uncomfortable to him, he said he hopes that he leaves behind a university that works to better society as a whole and acknowledges just how successful it is — something Rutgers did not do before his term.

"I knew Rutgers was great in other places, and I didn't understand why its reputation did not match its excellence," Holloway said. "It almost seemed like an internal discomfort with being proud of how good we are … Let's be unapologetic about (how) we're an excellent institution. It's an orientation shift, and that's part of my legacy."