President Barchi Honored for Transformative Tenure

President Robert Barchi leaves the Rutgers presidency after eight years confident the university will meet unprecedented challenges in its 254-year history.

“It is with sadness but with more feelings of optimism for the university that I bid you and the university community farewell for now,” Barchi said Tuesday at his final Board of Governors meeting.

Barchi, who arrived in 2012 at a university on the verge of one of the largest integrations in the history of higher education and entrance into the Big Ten athletic conference and academic consortium, said he is certain the Rutgers community will respond to and help lead the societal changes demanded by the social unrest following the deaths of African American citizens by police around the country while recovering from the financial emergency wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is an unprecedented tsunami coming from all directions and it’s going to require a huge amount of creative thinking,” Barchi said. “I feel comfortable in the knowledge that Rutgers will be in the extraordinarily talented and experienced hands of our new president, Jonathan Holloway. He is an individual who is ideally suited for the times and he will be ably assisted by four of the best chancellors in the nation and one of the strongest senior leadership teams in the country.”

Board members praised Barchi for navigating Rutgers’ rise as an academic health system and overseeing $2.5 billion in new construction across campuses, the formation of the Rutgers-New Brunswick Honors College, record fundraising and the transformation of the university IT structure and business systems.

“President Barchi guided the university on a trajectory that would place Rutgers among the top of all public research institutions, reaching many milestones not seen before in the history of the university,” board member Greg Brown said, reading a resolution honoring Barchi and naming him president emeritus.

The 20th university president’s “astute planning and transcendent vision” led to the first strategic plan for the university in 20 years, which created new institutional landmarks on all Rutgers’ campuses and provided faculty and staff “the tools needed to educate the students of today and well into the future,” Brown said.

Barchi will step down as president on June 30. Here is a look at the president’s legacy and accomplishments during his eight years at Rutgers’ helm.