William Tate IV, the current president at Louisiana State University, was announced as the next president of Rutgers University on Monday morning, following a joint meeting of and approval by the school’s Board of Governors and Board of Trustees.
Tate, 56, signed a five-year contract to lead the school. He will formally assume the position July 1, succeeding President Jonathan Holloway, whose last day is June 30.
While he will not be formally in the role of president, it is expected that Tate will be included in discussions involving three other open positions that are key to the university: chancellor at Rutgers-Newark and general counsel and athletic director at Rutgers-New Brunswick. It is unclear how quickly those jobs will be filled.
Tate’s past two jobs were in the South — he briefly served as provost at the University of South Carolina before heading to LSU — but he is not from the South.
Tate was born in the Chicago area, and earned degrees or worked at Northern Illinois University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin – Madison and Washington University in St. Louis.
His hiring will come as a surprise to many — for one simple reason: No one had any idea who was being considered as part of the school’s confidential (some would say “secretive”) search. In fact, when Tate was announced as the next president at 11 a.m., it was news to many key figures in the Rutgers community.
And, while Tate was not among the potential hires some had speculated about, it is clear from his résumé that he should have been, as he is one of the few people who could meet many of the Search Committee’s wants, including:
- Experience as a large school president: He has led LSU since 2021 — so nothing about the job and its duties will be new to him.
- Experience with a multicampus university system: Most are aware of LSU’s flagship school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; not as many realize LSU is an eight-campus system.
- Experience at a large public university: The LSU system has more than 55,000 students, including 12,000 graduate students and 2,000 professional students in its health centers. There are 3,000 full-time-equivalent faculty members, including 1,340 tenured or tenure-track.
- Experience as an academic leader: Before going to LSU, Tate served as the provost at the University of South Carolina. Prior to that, he served as a department chair and dean of the graduate school and vice provost for graduate education at Washington University in St. Louis.
- Experience in health care: At LSU, he had oversight of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. At South Carolina, he had oversight of the UofSC School of Medicine Columbia, and the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville.
- Experience in leading (and supporting) athletics: During his time at LSU, which competes in the powerful Southeastern Conference, the school made one of the highest-profile coaching hires in the country in recent years, bringing in Brian Kelly from Notre Dame to coach the football team.
- Experience as fundraiser: The money LSU raised from corporate and private donors, as well as the appropriations it received from the state, all increased during each of his four years at LSU.
The academic career of university presidents is often lost in the shuffle; here’s a look at Tate’s:
- B.S.: He earned a Bachelor of Science in economics with a minor in mathematical sciences from Northern Illinois University.
- Master’s: He earned a Master of Arts in mathematical sciences education from the University of Texas at Dallas.
- Doctorate: He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics education with a cognate in human development from the University of Maryland, College Park.
- Post-doc: He was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship to study social and public policy at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
- Post-doc: He completed a second post-doctoral fellowship at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned a Master of Psychiatric Epidemiology degree.
- Fellow: He is a fellow and past president of the American Educational Research Association and was elected a member of the National Academy of Education (2016) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022).
