New RU Prez Preaches Fiscal Responsibility, Promotion of University

Fundraising, reasonable tuition and an increased marketing presence are among the tasks on the table for the new administration at Rutgers University, said president Robert L. Barchi on Tuesday.

Barchi, 65, who has been the university's official president for less than a week, spoke before a room of reporters in the Old Queens building on the first day of classes.

He discussed his plans to serve the university and its 60,000 students, the effect of a merger and reorganization of Rutgers University, and his plans for academics.

Barchi, the former president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a former provost at University of Pennsylvania, said the school's academic offerings were paramount, and would be a focus of his administration going forward.

Addressing a recently passed bill that will merge UMDNJ with Rutgers University, and change the organization of Rutgers Camden, Barchi said he saw the biggest picture as Rutgers being a support system for the entire state - not as three separate campuses.

Under the new law, Rutgers Camden is to partner with Rowan University for research, but will still remain a part of Rutgers. Barchi said that that plan is what Rutgers should be doing anyway - supporting other education entities in the state.

He said the reorganization of Rutgers does not mean a tuition increase for students.

Fundraising is one of the university administration's top focuses at the moment, with the continuation of the $1 billion fundraising campaign "Our Rutgers, Our Future" launched by former Rutgers president Richard McCormick in 2010.

22 percent or less of the University's budget comes from state funding, Barchi said, which necessitates a "Public/private hybrid" of fundraising.

Barchi said he was involved with fundraising efforts at the University of Pennsylvania, which brought in $350-$400 million a year.

His priority areas to benefit from fundraising are endowed faculty chairs and scholarship funds, he said.

Barchi was appointed the university's 20th president on April 11. He is paid $650,000 annually, and is employed year-to-year, until the Board of Governors terminates his contract.

He and his wife, Francis Harper Barchi, a senior fellow at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, plan on utilizing the university president's home on campus by furnishing it with all their own furniture and artwork, and welcoming members of the Rutgers community there, he said.

Barchi said he plans to make a committment of at least five years.

"When I'm through, (the goal is that) people will say "I'm glad he was here," he said.