Dear colleague,
We learned on Tuesday, as you did, that Jonathan Holloway will step down as president at the end of this academic year. Holloway’s administration began four years ago with high hopes and expectations—including among union members—that he would lead Rutgers in a new direction from his conservative predecessor. Today, we feel disappointment and frustration—at promises not kept, at commitments not honored, and at rhetoric constantly at odds with action.
Most obviously for our unions, we welcomed President Holloway’s promise that his administration—mostly with inherited officials, but some new—would work to improve relations with unions at Rutgers. But during bargaining for our new contracts in 2022–23, he did exactly the opposite, maintaining a hands-off attitude. When our members, frustrated by his administration’s delays and distractions, voted by 94 percent to authorize a strike, he threatened to seek a court injunction against us, claiming that strike action would be “unlawful”—when in fact there is no law barring public-sector strikes in New Jersey. Thousands of scholars from around the country signed an open letter protesting Holloway’s intimidation tactics.
Early in his presidency, Holloway attended a town hall meeting organized by our lecturers union, where he talked about his concerns with “adjunctification” at Rutgers—the university’s long-term shift to relying on contingent and precarious educators. But despite winning stronger job security in our new contracts, adjuncts are finding their positions more precarious than ever. Case in point: 30-plus lecturers in the New Brunswick Writing Program were laid off last spring by SAS Executive Dean Juli Wade, long before any first-years had a chance to sign up for classes. When Wade and SAS inevitably tried to hire back lecturers to meet the demand from what Holloway tells us is the largest and most diverse class in university history, it was done within weeks or days of classes starting—just-in-time hiring at its worst.
Similar stories are being repeated throughout the university: lecturers fired, class caps raised, the burden of teaching larger classes falling on full-time faculty and grad workers, lack of financial support for live-saving scientific research after the administration screwed up the fix our unions won for New Jersey’s inflated fringe rate. The Board of Governors approved a medical school merger against the wishes of physician faculty, students, and staff, leading to a vote of no confidence by the University Senate.
It is hard to take President Holloway’s rhetoric about a “beloved community” seriously when his administration ignores the wishes of everyone else and top officials demand that departments inflict cuts and austerity on the basis of budgetary concerns that have repeatedly been overblown—all without regard for the long-term harm to so many in the Rutgers community.
We were glad to see Holloway make a strong statement in support of academic freedom early in his presidency—and more recently, that our university was one of the few to negotiate an agreement meeting some of the demands of protesting students last spring without mass arrests taking place at the encampments. Yet rather than stand by and build on this example, the Holloway administration instead bowed to external pressure and in late August imposed draconian limits on free expression and protest rights.
In his letter to the Rutgers community and in press interviews, President Holloway expressed frustrations with the difficulties of the job in an era when higher education is under attack across the country. Our unions have the same frustrations with the decades of underinvestment (though we have repeatedly worked with our legislative allies to keep state funding strong at Rutgers) and the current right-wing assault on higher ed. It was for this reason that, when Holloway was called to testify before the Republicans’ witch-hunt committee in Washington in May, dozens of our members mobilized to protest the new McCarthyites and their attack on academic freedom and protest rights.
That record makes it all the more disappointing to learn that President Holloway claims his concerns for his and his family’s safety stem from our strike. If police insisted that Holloway needed round-the-clock protection because of our pickets, that is absurd. Our strike was completely peaceful—we know of no arrests during those five days. Wherever it took place on university property, including outside the president’s residence in Piscataway, picketing was nonviolent and conformed with all laws. It is ironic that Holloway is making this charge against our unions when he was the one to threaten to go to court for an injunction against the strike, raising the possibility of police being used against us—the people who make the university work.
We feel the need to set the record straight publicly on these questions, in the hope of setting a tone for a more constructive relationship with a future president and their administration. We hope the Board of Governors will listen to the whole Rutgers community in filling this position. And we look forward to working with a future president in achieving our strongly held vision of a public university dedicated above all to its main missions: teaching, research, and service.
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Bryan Sacks, President, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
Rebecca Givan, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Amy Higer, Vice President, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
Miguel Rodriguez, Secretary-Treasurer, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Howie Swerdloff, Secretary, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
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