Drs. Darryll J. Pines, Jonathan Holloway and Gregory Washington, three Black leaders in higher education, now face the challenge of beginning their presidencies at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) during a time of two crises: the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and protests over racial injustice in the United States.
Holloway, president of Rutgers University, described this period of time as “mind-bending” but remains optimistic.
“No one’s written a playbook for this coming into the situation,” he said. “For me, I think this is a very special moment in higher education, especially as it relates to all the dynamics related to the inequities that this has exposed, whether it’s through health issues or racial issues or socio-economic issues. Now, we have a chance to actually do a much better job educating our respective communities about how we got to this kind of moment and what we can do on the other side of it.”
Especially at a PWI, Holloway emphasizes the importance of not maintaining “institutional innocence” by recognizing that “systemic racism as a phenomenon exists.” Additionally, he stresses the importance of understanding the past to ensure mistakes are not repeated.
“You start with a moment of recognition that an institution like Rutgers has benefited significantly through the structural inequities that are woven into the fabric of what we call the United States and the people who have attended here,” he adds. “That recognition is different than assigning blame. I am less interested in assigning blame because that feels like we are going to get stuck in a cycle of accusation. We are in this moment; what are we going to do now?”
As part of his visions for the fall semester, the current pandemic is driving his goals in terms of ensuring the safety of the university community as well as rebuilding Rutgers financially.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to maintain a healthy and safe environment where our faculty, staff and students are healthy and safe,” says Holloway. “And I mean, if we can’t do that, then my goals are kind of irrelevant.”
