Rutgers University names William Tate IV as new president

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The Rutgers University Board of Directors, with input from the Rutgers Board of Trustees, has approved William Tate IV as the school’s new president, concluding a nationwide search that began five months ago.

Tate, who has been the president of Louisiana State University since 2021, will take over as the 22nd president at Rutgers on July 1. He’ll succeed Jonathan Holloway, who served as president for five years.

“When the presidential search committee began the search for Rutgers’ next president, with community input, we sought a transformative leader who embodies Rutgers’ values and our multi-campus identity, someone who is intentional, collaborative and unafraid to think big,” Amy L. Towers, Board of Governors chair, said in a statement.

“Dr. Tate is that extraordinary leader, a scholar, an innovator and a transformative force whose vision will unite academic excellence with public impact,” she said.

“I am honored to join the Rutgers family, where the ‘Rutgers Edge’ is more than a concept,” Tate said in a statement. “It is reflected in a history of leading with outstanding research, clinical excellence, insightful pedagogy, innovative partnerships and storied athletic feats.”

“Together, we have an opportunity to align our efforts and push to greater levels of impact. We can compete and win at new heights if we work together,” he said.

Tate’s wife, Kim Cash Tate, is an author, Bible teacher, speaker and singer-songwriter. The couple has two children.

Towers praised Tate as an individual with a strategic vision and approach to leadership that makes him “very much the right leader at the right moment for Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.”

In addition to serving as president of LSU, Tate also serves as the chief executive and academic officer of both the LSU system and the LSU flagship campus in Baton Rouge. He holds faculty appointments in sociology, psychiatry and behavioral medicine, epidemiology and population and public health.

Before joining LSU, Tate served as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina. Before that, he worked at Washington University in St. Louis from 2002 to 2020.

In addition, he held the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professorship in Arts and Sciences. Before joining Washington University in St. Louis, he served as the William L. and Betty F. Adams Chair at Texas Christian University and as a tenured faculty member at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.