Long-time educator Jonathan Holloway is taking the helm July 1 as Rutgers University’s first African American president, at a time when the increasingly cash-strapped institution faces uncertainty over how students will return to the campus in September amid a global pandemic.

“Soon after my January introduction as Rutgers 21st president, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic made clear that the terms of my future presidency had changed,” Holloway, the former provost at Northwestern University, said in a Wednesday university-wide email.

“Because of these enormous setbacks, I will be focusing much of my initial energy as president on repair and rebuilding.”

Holloway arrives at Rutgers at a time when Black Lives Matter protests for racial equality and an end toward police brutality and misconduct rock the nation; and are likely to continue once college campuses welcome back students for the fall 2020 semester.

“We are also living in a moment of global racial reckoning—a development born of tragedy, willful ignorance, and grotesque violence,” said Holloway, who sits on a 21-member commission advising Gov. Phil Murphy on how the state’s economy can get moving once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

“These developments present us with an opportunity to work toward a world where phrases like ‘social justice’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ are understood not as assaults on the common good, but as declarations that we should be a country that lives up to the aspirations in its founding,” Holloway said.

Under a June 17 announcement from Gov. Phil Murphy, the state’s dozens of colleges and universities  have to submit a 10-point plan to the administration on how their fall reopenings will handle instruction, housing, computer labs, libraries, research and labs, student services, transportation, dining, study abroad programs and athletics – and how those plans might mingle with trying to contain potential outbreaks of the virus.

Days after, Rutgers – New Jersey’s largest college – said it would reopen its campuses at 35 percent capacity and require face coverings while indoors, that employees would return to the campus in phases, and many of them will continue to telecommute.

The university will implement large-scale testing and contact tracing to track down and isolate potential cases, and will implement social distancing measures such as physical barriers.

Departments and classes would be staggered to avoid large crowds of people from gathering on campus, and in-person classes would be capped at 50 percent of the room capacity.

The school’s $4.5 billion budget, which the university’s board of governors approved in mid-June, includes a freeze on any tuition and student fee increases. But, it anticipates a 43 percent drop in auxiliary revenue like parking fees, housing and dining—an overall drop of $135 million, a well as $67 million from tuition and student fees.