Robert L. Barchi, president of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has recently announced that he will add an additional $20 million in strategic funding to extend the Rutgers Faculty Hiring Initiative through June 2024. Since the launch of the initiative in 2016, nearly $22 million has supported hiring 79 new diverse faculty members across the university and mentoring and retaining faculty from diverse backgrounds.
The program, now totaling more than $40 million, will provide half the salary support for the first three years of each newly hired faculty member’s service at Rutgers, along with additional funds to support mentoring and retention.
“While faculty within departments and schools ultimately make hiring decisions for individual faculty members, these funds provide the resources our departments need to recruit, hire and retain outstanding faculty from groups who have been traditionally underrepresented in their fields,” President Barchi said. “We want to help ensure that our faculty better reflects the broad diversity of our students and the state of New Jersey.”
President Barchi’s letter to the Rutgers community about the expanded initiative can be accessed here.