A $40 Million Commitment to Faculty Diversity

President Barchi announces additional funds for hiring, mentoring and retaining diverse faculty

Rutgers President Robert L. Barchi announced that he will add an additional $20 million in strategic funding to extend the Rutgers Faculty Diversity 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.

“We are building on a program that is already making a difference,” Barchi said, noting the program, totaling more than $40 million, represents the commitment by the university to assist schools and departments in attracting and retaining an outstanding faculty that embodies Rutgers’ dedication to diversity and inclusion.

Under the initiative, the university has agreed to 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. The university brings on about 300 talented full-time faculty per year.

“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,” Barchi said. “We want to help ensure that our faculty better reflects the broad diversity of our students and the state of New Jersey.”

As one of the most diverse major public research universities in the nation, Rutgers is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion throughout the university, said Barbara Lee, senior vice president for academic affairs at Rutgers University.

“This initiative will help us continue to support efforts to attract more faculty from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds whose expertise and unique experiences will guide our students, provide exceptional health care and discoveries, and advance collaborative innovations that improve lives in our communities and around the world,” Lee said.

Read President Barchi’s letter to the Rutgers community about the expanded Rutgers Faculty Diversity Hiring Initiative here.