The First African American President of Rutgers University in New Jersey

Jonathan Holloway, a historian and provost at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, was appointed the 21st president of Rutgers University in New Jersey. When he takes office on July 1, Dr. Holloway will be the first African American president in the university’s 253-year history.

The main campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick enrolls about 36,000 undergraduate students and 14,000 graduate students. African Americans make up 7 percent of the undergraduate student body.

“I was drawn to the opportunity at Rutgers University because of its amazing history, its foundation of excellence in teaching and its ambition to continue conducting life-changing research that improves our communities, our country, and our world,” Dr. Holloway said.

Before becoming provost at Northwestern University, Dr. Holloway was dean of Yale College and the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History and American Studies. He joined the Yale faculty in 1999 after teaching at the University of California, San Diego.

Professor Holloway is the author of Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1941 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) and Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2013).

Dr. Holloway is a graduate of Stanford University, where he majored in American studies. He holds a two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

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