Rutgers University-Newark President and social psychologist Dr. Nancy E. Cantor will soon begin a new journey leading Hunter College, the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system.
A seasoned higher education leader, he will become Hunter's 14th president this summer, adding another leadership position to his already impressive resume.
“I’m almost at the end of my tenure here at Rutgers-Newark,” Cantor said. various In an interview Wednesday. “And Hunter has always been a true beacon of everything I believe in.—Social mobility, scholarships that actually solve pressing problems in the world, and a very clear footprint in New York City.”
This will be Cantor's fourth term as a leader in higher education. Before coming to Rutgers-Newark, she led Syracuse University as president and chancellor for more than nine years and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as president for three years.
She blazed a trail in both, becoming the first woman to hold the office of prime minister in all three.
During Cantor's long career in higher education, he served as department chair at Princeton University and provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan.
When it was announced that Rutgers President Dr. Jonathan Holloway had declined to renew Cantor's contract, which expires this summer, the decision drew fierce criticism from faculty, students and city officials. In particular, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said he: He said he was “very disheartened and disturbed” by Holloway's decision.
Dr. Timothy Eatman, founding dean of Rutgers-Newark's Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC), said Cantor had an innate skill in bringing people together: scholars, community members, industry experts and legislators. HLLC is just one of the efforts Cantor helped create.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for Hunter College,” Eatman said. “Nancy is an effective leader committed to the most powerful uses of the Academy, the ivory tower imaginable. “She is a truly outstanding international leader.”
Eatman first met Cantor at the University of Michigan, and the two worked closely over the years, first at Syracuse and later following her at Rutgers-Newark. He said it was bittersweet for her to leave Rutgers-Newark, adding that her school and the city of Newark were losing a phenomenal leader.
“But in the tradition she personally taught and modeled for me, leadership means that your legacy and influence must breathe,” Eatman said. “I think what President Cantor has been able to do here is kind of breathe and be resilient, and I believe Newark will be up to the task of moving the ball forward.”
Cantor, who grew up in New York City, said she always felt connected to the City University of New York. Both her parents are CUNY graduates. Her father graduated from City College of New York and her mother graduated from Hunter College.
“Then this person is my family.” Cantor said. “I’ve always seen Hunter and CUNY as places that care about the public good, and that’s why I do this job.”
As head of Hunter College, she said she plans to work closely with the Manhattan school's faculty and shared governance group to think about how to work toward the ideals she has championed throughout her career: student success and collaboration with the community. , equity, and a “sustainable and just society.”
Cantor also said Hunter plans to look at how it can collaborate with other CUNY schools in the system.
“I strongly believe that it’s not about individual accomplishments, it’s about the collaborative teams that operate now,” she said. “So everything I’m proud of or excited about here is very much the collaboration not only with the university but with the city. [and] “Community partnerships.”
She said she is proud of the work she has done with her faculty, working with the community to create the Center for Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity and the Newark Public Safety Collaborative.
“We have incredible work going on that I think will continue because there are so many collaborative efforts in Newark to really create social justice, racial equity and economic prosperity,” she said.