Rutgers University President Robert Barchi is stepping down after this school year and will formally announce his decision at Tuesday’s Board of Governors meeting, he told NJ Advance Media in an exclusive interview Monday.
Barchi, 72, confirmed reports that the upcoming school year with be his last after eight years as president. He will then take a year-long sabbatical, which is stipulated in his hiring agreement, before returning as distinguished professor.
“I am very excited about where Rutgers is right now,” Barchi said, adding that he was under no pressure to leave. “We are on an enormous roll. I think things are going very well, and I fully expect that they will continue to.”
Barchi oversaw a period of historic growth that raised the national profile of New Jersey’s state university, including the largest higher education merger in American history with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
He also endured a series of athletic scandals that once threatened his joband has faced constant criticism of Rutgers’ money-losing foray into the Big Ten Conference.
Reflecting on his tenure, Barchi noted a few regrets, including his handing of the 2013 Mike Rice controversy. But he said he achieved his goal of changing Rutgers’ reputation as a fall-back school for New Jersey students.
“We wanted to change Rutgers, change how it was viewed at the national level,” Barchi said. “That, to me, is a major goal. I think it’s a major accomplishment."
Barchi never planned to be Rutgers president for this long and has remained on the job at the request of the Board of Governors, he said. He made a two-year commitment last fall with the full intention of stepping down in 2020, he said.
Barchi will make a base salary of $726,464 this school year with incentives to earn more, and he will receive his presidential salary during his sabbatical. He expects the Board of Governors to identify a replacement by the spring semester, he said.
“I have never had a better job than this one," Barchi said. “If I was 10 years younger, I wouldn’t be stepping down.”
A board-certified neurologist and former president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Barchi was lured out of retirement in 2012.
Rutgers merged with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2013, and Barchi oversaw the largest higher education mergerin American history. Despite several bumps along the way, it went off without any major disasters, arguably one of the biggest accomplishments of Barchi’s tenure.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said Monday. “It went well because we paid attention to all 3,000 details that had to be done, every single day. We just made it happen.'
Rutgers 20th president, Barchi also oversaw a transformation of the New Brunswick campus with a series of sparkling new buildings, including a residential honors college.
The university’s endowment surged as it made in-roads with its long-detached alumni base. Funding for research increased. More out of-state students chose Rutgers, and the university moved up in popular college rankings lists.
In 2016, Rutgers landed President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker as the university celebrated its 250th anniversary.
“There are not many (universities) that can say President Barack Obama came and gave a commencement address,” Barchi said. “I don’t have many pictures on my wall, but that is up there."
However, Barchi’s administration was also rocked by multiple athletics scandals, including one that threatened to derail his presidency in its early days.
In April 2013, ESPN broadcast a series of now infamous videos showing men’s basketball coach Mike Rice screaming at players, hurling balls toward them and using homophobic slurs on the practice court. Rice was fired the following day and all hell broke loose at Rutgers, where officials knew of the videos and initially chose to suspend and fine Rice instead of firing him.
Athletic director Tim Pernetti was forced to resign, though he said his instinct had been to fire Rice on the spot when he first saw the videos months earlier. Barchi, however, had initially declined to watch the videos under the advice of university legal counsel and allowed an outside investigator to review them — a decision that later came under fire after EPSN broadcasted the tapes.
“My big mistake was not looking at something that now I would look at instantly,” Barchi said Monday when asked of his biggest regrets.
Some faculty members accused Barchi of orchestrating a coverup and called for his resignation. But Barchi survived with the backing of then-Gov. Chris Christie, who supported Barchi and said the new president made mistakes but did not deserve to be fired.
Three years later, Barchi fired athletic director Julie Hermann and head football coach Kyle Flood following another scandal, this one involving Flood asking a professor to change a player’s grade. Rutgers was then hit with NCAA sanctions for a series of infractions, ranging from Flood’s misconduct to improper oversight of football recruiting hostesses (female Rutgers students who have direct contract with high school players).
Meanwhile, Rutgers suffered through years of blowout defeats on the football field and struggled to compete in men’s basketball until recently. Along the way, the university continued subsidizing a money-losing athletic department still waiting for the full financial benefits of joining the Big Ten.
During Barchi’s tenure, Rutgers athletics operated at a combined $193.2 million deficit, making it one of the nation’s most heavily subsidized college athletic programs, according to an NJ Advance Media review of university documents.
Barchi expect that financial picture to improve once Rutgers begins collecting its full share of revenue from the Big Ten this school year, he said. And he believes Rutgers is set up to succeed in athletics under athletic director Pat Hobbs, he said.
Though he acknowledged his tenure wasn’t perfect, Barchi thinks his time as president has been a success, he said.
“You have to look at what you did overall,” he said. “What’s your average? How are you batting at the end of the day? Have you done more help or more harm? I think we have come out ahead of the game.”
