Rutgers Creates Chair in Water Resources, Watershed Ecology with $1.5 Million Gift for ‘Our Rutgers, Our Future’ Campaign

The Johnson Family Chair in Water Resources and Watershed Ecology will be funded by The Cape Branch Foundation, led by James L. and Gretchen W. Johnson. James L. Johnson is the son of John Seward Johnson. The Cape Branch’s commitment to the endowed chair will be supported by other Johnson family members though The River Branch Foundation (Jennifer Johnson Duke) and the John Seward Johnson 1963 Charitable Trust.

The chair will attract top academic research talent to lead a vital and compelling program to study the relationship between natural salt- and freshwater-based ecosystems and the influence of human activities in the Raritan River drainage basin and its estuary. The chair’s holder will conduct research that informs public policy in areas important to society, teaching that prepares the next generation to be effective advocates of the land and its watersheds, and outreach that empowers communities and their residents to be stewards of land and water resources.

“We’re delighted that family members have joined us in this important cause to study, preserve and utilize the Raritan River and its surroundings,” said Gretchen Johnson, trustee and co-director of The Cape Branch Foundation, who is a Douglass College alumna, and who, with her husband, is a longtime Rutgers benefactor. “I’ve spent my college and middle years along and on the river, and it’s wonderful that the Johnson Family Chair will help foster Rutgers’ interdisciplinary approach to stewardship of the Raritan River Basin.”

Rutgers already is heavily involved with the study, cleanup and preservation of the river and environs, perhaps most visibly through its stewardship of the Rutgers Ecological Preserve on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway (an historic Johnson family gift) and the Sustainable Raritan River Initiative. This initiative is led by faculty and students at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy and SEBS in collaboration with public and private sector stakeholders.  

The Johnson family’s generosity will be matched with an additional $1.5 million from an anonymous donor – part of a $27 million challenge grant to create 18 endowed faculty chairs in a range of academic disciplines across Rutgers, including environmental studies, business education and the sciences. For every $1.5 million raised for an endowed chair, the donor will match the gift to fund the $3 million needed to create an academic chair.

This gift creates the sixth endowed chair as part of the challenge grant, a top priority of Our Rutgers, Our Future, the university’s historic $1 billion fundraising campaign.

The endowed chair is the latest in a series of connections between the Johnson family and Rutgers that includes donations of much of the land comprising the Rutgers Ecological Preserve, parts of which lie within shouting distance of the Raritan. “The preserve represents a significant piece of woodland still in its natural state,” said James Johnson. “So much of the land around New Brunswick has been developed and paved over. I see this as a valuable place for the chair to undertake a baseline study to document the biodiversity of the preserve and to study best stewardship practices.

“The role the woodland plays in diminishing runoff into the river after rainstorms is vital,” he continued. “This is a living laboratory for the university and its students to quantify and qualify biodiversity. It’s a place where students and faculty can see how water gets recharged.”

The holder of the Johnson Family Chair also will be the faculty director of the Rutgers Ecological Preserve, thereby directly tying together two integral pieces of Johnson family philanthropy in and around Rutgers and the Raritan.

Robert M. Goodman, executive dean of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, said the focus of the chair would be in watershed ecology, anchored in the preserve and the entire Raritan River Basin, which is the largest river basin located entirely within New Jersey’s borders, covering approximately 1,100 square miles and including parts of seven counties and all or part of 100 municipalities.

The Spruce Run and Round Valley reservoirs and the Delaware and Raritan Canal are major potable water systems within the basin, which provides water to an estimated 1.2 million central New Jerseyans. This includes drinking water; irrigation water for farms, nurseries and golf courses; and processing water for industries. The basin also is used for recreational activities, such as boating, fishing and hiking, and provides habitat for aquatic and land organisms.

“Only about 3 percent of water on earth is fresh, most of it found in ice packs at the poles, and 70 percent of fresh water is used for agriculture,” said Goodman. “The amount of fresh water on which all human life depends is scarce, so the topic and focus of work supported by this endowed chair are essential for the future of civilization. The chair also enhances Rutgers’ stature in an area of our strength; we already are one of the top five ecology and evolution programs in the nation.”