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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Jonathan Alger
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Rutgers and Michigan are very similar – both are large, multicampus state research universities. What are some differences between the two schools?
It’s actually a remarkable parallel. The University of Michigan also has three campuses - the largest campus in Ann Arbor and campuses in two urban areas - Flint and Dearborn. I would say one significant difference is the institutions’ histories and how that affects the relationship with the state. The University of Michigan has been the state’s public university since its very beginnings in the early 1800s, whereas Rutgers was private for most of its history until the mid-20th
century. That means that there has been a little more of a challenge, not just in terms of funding, but also getting the state to embrace Rutgers fully as its flagship public research university.
I very much have the sense here at Rutgers of an institution that is striving. There is a lot of energy and momentum. There is willingness here with the leadership of the institution to think creatively about what it means to be a public university in the 21st century. That’s a very healthy dialogue we’re having here at Rutgers. That sense of striving, that Rutgers as an institution sees itself as going somewhere, is part of what makes it distinctive.
How did diversity become a priority for you?
I had grown up in a very homogeneous environment in upstate New York and so I really wasn’t exposed to significant diversity until I went away to college. But legally, the significance of the issue didn’t fully hit me until I was at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education in the early 1990s. When I got to OCR, one of my first assignments was to work on policy on race-targeted scholarships and financial aid. That had become a major national controversy back then and OCR had been asked to develop policy on the subject. Well-funded groups were attacking so-called affirmative action programs across the country. It was a very tense time for higher education, and we had to sort these issues out at the national level. While it was a great opportunity to work on these issues, the experience also brought me face to face with the continuing inequities we still have in our educational system. It also made me realize that diversity has educational benefits for all students. That became the core of the University of Michigan’s defense in its landmark Supreme Court lawsuits. Developing that educational argument evidence to support it was something I realized was necessary and important in the early 1990s.
What types of evidence support the case for diversity?
A lot of people take diversity for granted based on their own life experience, but many of us began to realize we would need more than personal anecdotes if the Michigan admissions cases were to go to the Supreme Court. We needed and helped encourage research about the student experience both in and outside the classroom – the impact of diversity on the quality of class discussions, the questions that are raised, the kinds of things students write about and think about, and the ideas to which they are exposed by their classmates. When I was at the national office of the American Association of University Professors, we also conducted a national faculty survey about the impact of diversity in the classroom – what did faculty see happening when they had more diverse classrooms in terms of the quality of the discussion, the types of issues raised, and the ways in which students engaged with each other. Still other research has considered the alumni perspective – what benefits did alumni see after they had a chance to reflect on their own academic careers, and how they were prepared for participating in a global economy and a diverse democracy.
Other research also has looked at the perspective of corporations and employers, and what impact exposure to diversity had on students becoming employees in terms of being able to work on teams and solve problems with people from different backgrounds.
AT A GLANCE:
Jonathan Alger, vice president
and general counsel
EDUCATION: Swarthmore College, B.A., political science (high honors), 1986; Harvard Law School, J.D. (cum laude), 1989
PREVIOUS POSITIONS: University of Michigan, assistant general counsel and
faculty member, 2000 to 2004; American Association of University Professors, counsel, 1996 to 2000; U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, attorney-advisor,
1992 to 1996; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, associate, 1989 to 1992. Alger also serves
on the board of directors of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.
FAMILY: Married to Mary Ann Alger, a business and finance consultant. They have
a daughter, Eleanor, a 7-year-old first grader and avid Rutgers basketball fan. The family lives in Belle Mead and enjoy church activities as well as traveling to destinations such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Canada and the Caribbean.
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