Don’t Replace Rutgers-Newark Chancellor, 14 Community Leaders Plead

NEWARK, NJ — Several community leaders and elected officials are asking Rutgers University to rethink its decision to “replace” Nancy Cantor as chancellor of the school’s Newark campus.

On Wednesday, Mayor Ras Baraka wrote a letter to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway in support of Cantor, whose tenure at the head of the Rutgers-Newark is set to end on June 30, 2024 (read the full letter here).

The letter was also signed by Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz, Assemblywoman Shanique Speight, Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin, New Jersey Performing Arts Center president and CEO John Schreiber, Newark Public Schools Superintendent Roger Léon, Newark Museum of Art director and CEO Linda Harrison, Newark Opportunity Youth Network founder and CEO Robert Clark, public policy consultant Richard Roper, Victoria Foundation executive officer Craig Drinkard, BBC Associates LLC.com founder Barbara Bell Coleman, Newark Community Development Network chairperson Richard Cammarieri, Newark Museum of Art director emeritus Mary Sue Price, and University of Michigan James V. Campbell Professor of Law Elise Boddie.

Baraka said Cantor’s leadership strengthened the college-going culture in Newark with scholarships, free counseling to Newark youth on the college application process, increasing Newark resident enrollment by 60 percent, and research on housing affordability.

“To discard Chancellor Cantor is taking two steps backwards,” Baraka wrote. “It disrupts a long and hard-fought progress that Newark is journeying on. It flies in the face of the collective work that we have been doing many times with Chancellor Cantor’s insistence, her commitment, and sheer will.”

“Therefore, I, along with the following group of leaders dedicated to improving our city, implore the university to reconsider its decision to replace Chancellor Cantor,” Baraka said. “It would be a grave error.”

RUTGERS: CELEBRATING NANCY CANTOR

When asked to comment on the letter, a Rutgers spokesperson gave Patch the following reply:

“In June 2024, Nancy Cantor will conclude her second term as chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark for a total of more than 10 years of service, including an extension of her second term. As a part of her contract, following her tenure as chancellor she will have a one-year sabbatical at her current salary and then will have the option of returning to the faculty as university professor. University professors have lifetime tenure and are among the most revered members of the faculty … Chancellor Cantor set a standard for community-university partnerships and maintaining those relationships will certainly be among the important qualifications in choosing her successor.”

Holloway issued a statement about Cantor’s tenure as chancellor at Rutgers-Newark on Wednesday.

“With enduring admiration and gratitude for Rutgers University–Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s leadership, I am writing to inform you that, at the end of her second highly successful five-year term on June 30, 2024, her service as chancellor will conclude,” Holloway wrote.

The university will soon launch a nationwide search for her successor, he noted.

“In my time at Rutgers, I have been inspired by Nancy Cantor’s deep commitment to the Rutgers–Newark community, energized by her national leadership on issues of social justice, and enlightened by her wise counsel on any number of issues related to the welfare of our university,” Holloway said, sharing a long list of Cantor’s accomplishments at Rutgers.

View the full statement here.

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