Dear colleague,
The Fall semester hasn’t even started, and President Holloway’s administration has sparked anger at their undemocratic and insulting behavior.
Many of you will know about the latest example: Holloway has forced out Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor despite her strong support on campus and from Mayor Ras Baraka and the Newark community. Twenty-seven of our faculty members have signed an op-ed article published today at NJ.com calling on Holloway to “radically change his approach, or barring that, leave Rutgers.” Please read the article (click here to read a non-paywalled version) and share it with your colleagues and friends on social media.
Last week, our Newark chapter issued a statement “denouncing the sudden and unjustified ousting of Chancellor Nancy Cantor. The dismissal of Chancellor Cantor reflects a continuing dismissal of issues of racial justice and campus equity that have characterized President Holloway’s administration. It is precisely these problems that Chancellor Cantor and the Rutgers-Newark community remain deeply committed to addressing.” We hope you read and share this statement as well, if you haven’t already.
The ousting of Chancellor Cantor joins a list of administration outrages this summer:
- A cruel, cynical, and completely unnecessary tuition increase that will place new burdens on our students and their families.
- Chief Financial Officer J. Michael Gower’s attempt to push the cost of our salary increases onto departments and schools, in violation of the administration’s contractual responsibility to centrally fund raises for grant-based faculty, postdocs, and grad workers.
- Rejections of a majority of applications for COVID funding extensions for graduate students, also in violation of our contract.
- Another failure to properly implement the faculty salary equity program we won in our 2018–22 contract, with Camden faculty once again disproportionately harmed.
Enjoy the last week and a half of your summer break! When the semester starts in September, we’ll need to work together to respond to these outrages.
In solidarity,
Todd, Becky, and Miguel
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Miguel Rodriguez, Secretary-Treasurer, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
Follow us on Twitter @ruaaup and Instagram @rutgersaaup
Freedom School YouTubeChannel: https://rutgersaaup.org/YouTube