RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY

UNIVERSITY SENATE

MINUTES: Regular Meeting of the University Senate

DATE: March 27, 2026

TIME AND PLACE: 1:10 p.m., Remote via Zoom

PRESENT: Afanador, Alam, K. Anderson, C. Anderson, Andrews, Apel, Asch, Askew, Baker, Barbarello Andrews, Bhuyan, Boison, Borie-Holtz, Borisovets, Boswell, Boxer, Campbell, Carney-Waterton, Carter, Chintala, Chiricolo, Clarke, Collick, Cooper, Cortez, Crooks, Dane, Davis, DeMatteo, Dinnall, Dock, Ebert, Economou, Emmons, Everett, Everts, Fang, Fatahzadeh, Fenker, Fine, Flynn, Fortuna, Foster, Friedman, Galego, Georgiou, Giraud, Gittelman, Gong, Gordy, Gower, Graham, Granadeiro, Green-Mercado, Greenbaum, Guo, Gurbuzbalaban, Gursoy, Haberl, Haley, Haviland, Hayes, Householder, Hussain, Javanmard, Jordan-McKinney, Kaback, Erin Kelly, Kettle, Khan, Kiss, Knievel, Kustka, LaMorte, Ladell, Lee, Lehman, Limata, Lobman, Luciano, Lutz, Maeng Brown, Maerhofer, Maliga, Markowitz, Mazurek, Mbadugha, McCarthy, Morales, Morton, Morton, Ntiwunka-Ifeanyi, O’Connor, Oberle, Oluwadare, Paris, G. Patel, S. Patel, Pichardo, Pichugin, Pierce, Pintar, Poylangada, Purcell, Quevado, Quincy, Rabinowitz, Ramachandran, Ramenzoni, Robles, Rodriguez, Rossman-Murphy, Russ, Salas-de la Cruz, Saleh, Saltzman, Samavat, Santos Mendoza, Schafer, Schwartz, Scott, Searcy, Sergel, Shah, Shaikh, Shinbrot, Salman Sirajee, Smith, Sorbat, Spiegel, Spiero, Suh, Szatrowski, Takhistov, Tewfik, Torres, Weiss, White, Wolfe, Yachimovicz, Zhou, Zwick, Özel

EXCUSED: Ardeshna, Bridgeman, Brown, Easley, Grachan, Hoffman, Horan, Mao, McKeever, Pentecost, Ramirez Polo, Sloan-Power, Stimson

ABSENT: Abdelfattah, Adya, Agyemang, F. Ahmed, B. Ahmed, Ameri, Amjad, Anderson Eloy, Anner, Arbuthnot, Bachmann, Barone, Behrmann, Berkowitz, Bond, Bredehoft, Brigham, Burkheimer, Choron, Conway, Cotter, Cuitiño, Curchitser, Dastjerdi, DiGiovanni, Dixit, Feldman, Godoy, Gould, Griffin, Halkitis, Hisham Hamawy, Hart, Hatefi, Hecht-Colsoy, Hennessy, Hussain, Ivasyuk, Johnson, Kaye, Kayyal, Keates, A. Patel, Khan, Khatal, Kilmurray, La Vigne, Lawson, Lei, Leibowitz, Lemish, Maganti, Mahajan, Mattis, McArdle, Moulton, Murphy, Murtha, Nickitas, O’Connell, Oliver, Parikh, Parna, V. Patel, Pontes, Pradhan, Reshamdalal, Reynolds, Robson, Rosa, Rosales, Rubin, Sarath, Sayde, Schroth, Scott, Shah, Shapiro, Simonds, Smith-Jackson, Sow, Span, Sriram, Starkweather, Stubin, Syed, Tate, Tillis, Tirino, Van Ryzin, Vuppala, Wade, Wagner, Wirtenberg, Yang, Zhang

CALL TO ORDER, DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM, AND CHAIR’S REPORT – Lucille Foster, Chair

Chair Foster called the meeting to order at 1:09 p.m.

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY – Taryn Cooper, Senate Executive Secretary

• Agenda: The meeting agenda was approved with the addition of one item for new business proposed by Senator Pierce to add the Resolution on Support of Education Without Intimidation.
• Minutes: The minutes of the February 20, 2026 Senate Meeting Minutes were approved as distributed by the Executive Secretary without objections.
  • Senate Social postponed to Friday May 1, 2026 from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. due to weather.
  • Staff elections have been completed and results will be posted on March 30^th. Lecturer elections will be underway next week.
  • Call for Nominations for 2026-2027 Senate Elections – due Fri. April 17. A position will be added for a one year term for NJ-MADC representative.
  • Reminder to complete USGC surveys – Senator Elections, Communication with Constituencies, and Pulse Survey to be taken today during meeting.
  • President Tate’s letter to the University Senate
  • Resolution on the Rutgers University Budget as passed by the Executive Committee on behalf of the University Senate
  • Senate Budget Update
  • 2026-27 Senate Calendar
  • Reminder to Senators log in to the website for attendance and access to voting.
  • Email Morgan Smith regarding attendance and committee activities.

BUDGET OVERVIEW AND DISCUSSION – Michael Gower, Chief Financial Officer & University Treasurer, Cathy Brennan, Vice President for Financial Planning and Analytics – Chief Budget Officer (1:20 – 2:05 p.m.)

President Tate gave introductory remarks prior to the budget overview. President Tate encouraged that if there is a program or activity deemed not compliant with federal requirements, then to have a conversation with the Office of General Counsel to figure out how to make it compliant and continue the work. President Tate then answered questions on the following topics:

• Support of fully funding students coming from local cities in the state and enrollment management strategies particularly at the Camden campus.
• Recent layoffs of Lecturers.
• How can students support President Tate’s initiatives?
• Is there better planning that can be done so that budget cuts can be more predictable and smooth, if needed at all?
• Did President Tate find any areas of concern at Rutgers that he needs to focus on?
• It would be helpful to have a narrative just for constituents about the budget so it’s easier to understand.
• What can faculty do if federal agents show up at their classrooms?

Mike Gower and Cathy Brennan presentation on budget. There were several questions asked in the chat feature, which were agreed to be sent to Mike and Cathy following the meeting so they can follow up with answers. After their presentation, Mike and Cathy answered questions on the following topics:

• How are revenue streams accounted for in the budget?
• Who owns the credit for the solar farms installed on campuses?
• Rutgers used to operate under an RCM system but now there seems to be a different system per the most recent BOG budget approval with a new set of categories- should the categories be thought of as what cost pools used to do?
• What is the 5% operating margin and what justifies this number?
• Why are Athletics not a larger part of the conversation to remedy the budget impacts?
• Does the state have incentive to give Rutgers less money?
• What does it mean when student support is listed as one of the risks?

NEWARK CAMPUS REPORT – Tonya Smith-Jackson, Chancellor, Rutgers Newark (2:05 – 2:35 p.m.)

Chancellor Smith-Jackson did a presentation about updates from the Newark camps. She then answered questions on the following topics:

• How can the university assist students who are impacted by economic issues such as the rising price of gas?
• How to increase graduation rates at Newark compared to New Brunswick.
• Parking space limitations and issues.

PRESIDENT TATE’S LETTER TO THE UNIVERSITY SENATE (2:35 – 3:05 p.m.)

Due to time restrictions of the meeting, Senator Pierce motioned to move the Resolution on Education Without Intimidation to be the next item on the agenda, which was passed unanimously without objection. The remaining agenda items of President Tate’s letter and the committee report will be moved to old business for the following meeting. The pulse survey for USGC will be emailed out to Senators to complete following the meeting.

A motion to extend the meeting to 4:15 p.m. was adopted by unanimous consent at 3:53 p.m.

USGC PULSE SURVEY – Vice Chair Wendy Purcell (3:15 – 3:20 p.m.)

COMMITTEE REPORTS/RESOLUTIONS: The report will be presented/summarized by the committee chair, then will be discussed, and acted upon by the Senate. Substantive amendments to these reports should be given to the Senate secretary in writing prior to or at the time the amendment is moved.

Committee Report and Recommendations (1:50 – 2:05 p.m.)

Research and Graduate & Professional Education Committee- Monica Mazurek, Enrique Curchitser (co-chairs)

S-2331: Research Trainee Compensation and Benefits Inequity

RGPEC was charged as follows:

Investigate current practices in postdoc and current doctoral student remuneration, in particular as it relates to inequality following fellowship funding and to develop solutions to reward talent.

OLD BUSINESS

NEW BUSINESS**

A motion to add the Resolution on Education Without Intimidation was adopted by unanimous consent. Senator Fine and Senator Pichardo presented the resolution to the Senate. An amendment motion was made to remove the line “Be it further resolved that Rutgers University end all contracts and arrangements with corporations that enable or facilitate ICE’s operations, including: Enterprise, the primary provider of ICE’s vehicles; Hilton, which houses ICE agents; Global X, which operates flights for ICE agents and the people they detain; and Target, which has legitimized ICE and allowed federal agents to detain its employees.” It was adopted.

An amendment motion was made to change the following statement: “Be it further resolved, that the University Senate supports the Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA-AFT) call to make Rutgers University a sanctuary campus; and to designate non-public zones of safety on campus that students, staff, and workers can access during the threat of external enforcement activity, and to work with all campus partners to communicate these safe zones to members of the Rutgers community and legal personnel in order to establish clear protocols for response to ICE and related activities;” to “Be it here resolved, that Rutgers University adopt clear, transparent, and protective institutional protocols6 that ensure the safety, privacy, and rights of all members of the Rutgers University community, and commits to work with all University stakeholders, including RUSA, UndocuRutgers, other student leadership and membership bodies at Rutgers Newark and Camden, and faculty and staff unions, to best craft measures in a way that serves and protects all.”. It was adopted.

The amended resolution was adopted.

SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT (3:30 – 3:35 p.m.)– Wendy Purcell, Vice Chair

Due to time restraints of the meeting, the report was not given.

REPORTS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES TO BOARDS OF GOVERNORS AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES (3:35 – 3:45 p.m.) 

Due to time restraints of the meeting, the report was not given.

REPORTS OF CAMPUS FACULTY AND STUDENT LIAISONS (3:45 – 4:00 p.m.)

Due to time restraints of the meeting, the report was not given.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 4:29 p.m.

Minutes prepared by:

Taryn Cooper, Executive Secretary of the University Senate

 

Committee Meetings

Academic Standards, Regulations & Admissions Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Budget & Finance Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Faculty Affairs & Personnel Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Information Technology Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Instruction, Curricula & Advising Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Research, Graduate & Professional Education Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

Student Affairs Committee Meeting

No location or time for this committee meeting

University Structure & Governance Committee

No location or time for this committee meeting