Rutgers University is in the process of hiring a new president to replace outgoing Jonathan Holloway who served as the University's president since July 20120 he came on during a global pandemic marked with online learning and he left in the wake of protests and social unrest on his campus and campuses around the country sparked by the war between Israel and Palestine it's now the job of the Rutgers Board of Governors to replace him but that's proving to be a challenging task as the role of college presidents has come under intense National scrutiny due to the protests earlier this year I'm joined Now by Amy Towers chair of the Rutgers Board of Governors to help us understand what the process looks like and who their ideal candidate would be Amy so good to have you here thank you for having me so tell us who would your ideal candidate be what would be the characteristics that you are looking for well right now we're in the process of listening to campus leaders students faculty um other people in the state of New Jersey Community to find out what's important what are the qualities and the characteristics that are important for the next leader but certainly the Board of Governors is looking for somebody who has defined leadership experience who's an excellent Communicator who's willing to embrace our multicampus environment and see all of those differences and diversity as a strength and pull it together we really want to be a unified uh University we have so much great faculty so much great students and somebody who can provide an inspiring vision to pull all of that together is that also what you're hearing during these Town Halls are you hearing anything different that's actually exactly what we're hearing I'm more impressed every time we meet with people we've actually heard the analogy that we have all the puzzle pieces on the table and we just need somebody to put them all together and bring it all together which is exciting is it hard to find that person are and are you finding that the candidate pool right now is perhaps a little smaller than it's been in the past we have heard from the search firm that candidate pools are smaller but what they're saying is the candidate pools are more intentional in the past people may have thrown their hat in the ring to just look at the opportunity of college President and now they're being far more intentional we're not at the point of interviewing candidates yet um but I suspect we'll have a lot of great candidates we have to talk about the protest that um really we saw H take place at Rucker University and across the country how would the Board of Governors like to see a new president handle those protests if they happen again we'd like to see them handled quite similarly we were very proud of the way that our Administration handled this in a calm and thoughtful manner these are our students we care about them we want everybody to feel safe on the campus and we want a leader who can work through and think through thoughtfully and Lead through the challenges this is not going to be smooth sailing we know that but there are plenty of people with excellent skills in talking to people managing through challenges with success we've seen a real focus and a shift in Focus I should say um towards social emotional learning we see it in uh lower classrooms but it's also playing out on college campuses across the country and here in New Jersey has that uh required a different skill set now from presidents who understand that students come you know with a lot more needs than perhaps colleges were looking to meet in the past I think that's fair I think it's a great observation and we we use the phrase dialogue through difference and we believe really strongly in that and we want to support our students educate our students on how do you have difficult conversations how do we work through dialogue through difference um we have the Miller Center that's been doing this for years it offers our students an opportunity to learn how to do this and to actively demonstrate those skills in doing that in addition with faculty and other leaders so it's a challenge but I agree with you that's that's where we need to be and I believe that Rutgers is in that place and just quickly you touched on the different campuses and that is what makes Rutgers unique uh how important is it to have someone who does kind of unite all the different campuses throughout the state it's critically important we're the State University of New Jersey we're proud of being the State University we intend to lead as the State University and that involves all three campuses and understanding the value and the commitment of different types of research different types of Faculty different types of students that all bring a richness to our campus and allow our students to go between the campuses and learn it with different experiences so I think that it will be somebody who um understands all of those strengths and brings them together and of course you're hoping to have someone in place by June when President Holloway leaves Amy Tower's chair of the Rutgers Board of Governors thank you so much and good luck on your search thank you so much thanks for having me