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Rutgers President Robert Barchi introduces former Syracuse President Nancy Cantor as Rutgers-Newark's new chancellor last June. Cantor took over the Rutgers-Newark campus last month and started a "listening tour," meeting with groups on campus.

(Ed Murray/The Star-Ledger )

NEWARK — Nancy Cantor didn't have to do this.

When she stepped down as president of Syracuse University last year, the veteran college leader could have followed the lead of most former presidents and taken a job on the faculty to teach a few classes and quietly finish out her academic career.

Instead, Cantor accepted an unlikely job — chancellor of Rutgers-Newark.

By all accounts, the post is a step down for Cantor. She took a big pay cut to move to a less prestigious school in New Jersey. After a decade in charge at Syracuse, she is second in command to Rutgers President Robert Barchi.

Even Barchi seemed surprised Cantor took the job. "I don’t know how we did it, but we convinced Dr. Nancy Cantor to join us," Barchi said, announcing her appointment last year.

Sitting in her brand new office at Rutgers-Newark last week, Cantor paused when asked why she decided to start over at a new school at age 61.

"That’s a good question," she said, with a weary smile, after a month on the job.

The Rutgers-Newark post was too exciting to resist, she said. The 12,000-student campus, Rutgers’ second-largest, is filled with first-generation college students and immigrants earning degrees in the center of the state’s largest city.

"The American Dream has to be reinvented every generation," Cantor said. "I think this is the place that’s reinventing the American Dream."

It’s a story that resonates with the New York City-born Cantor. Her father was a "poor Jewish boy coming out of the tenements of Brooklyn" when he took the subway to the City College of New York as the first in his immigrant family to go to college.

New Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor in her office on campus. Cantor is a former president of Syracuse University and is in her first few weeks as the new chancellor of Rutgers-Newark.

"It gave him a life and a future and life of the mind that changed everything for not only him, but obviously all of us in the family," Cantor said. "That story is being told everyday on this campus, in this city."

Cantor, a social psychologist, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and earned her doctorate at Stanford University. Before taking over the presidency at Syracuse in 2004, she served as chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and provost at the University of Michigan.

At Syracuse, she is credited with heading a $1 billion fundraising campaign and forming successful partnerships between the private university and the city. She also made a name for herself in higher education circles, participating in national boards and projects focused on education reforms.

But Cantor’s term at Syracuse wasn’t without controversy. She was criticized for her handling of molestation accusations against Syracuse men’s associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine. In retrospect, Cantor said she wished she called in law enforcement to investigate the allegations against Fine as soon as she heard about them.

At Rutgers-Newark, Cantor has a new set of challenges. She takes over as the university is trying to give its Newark and Camden campuses more autonomy over finances and other decisions. Some at Rutgers-Newark have long complained the campus gets second-class treatment in favor of the main Rutgers campus in New Brunswick-Piscataway.

Cantor has spent her first weeks in Newark on a "listening tour," meeting with faculty, staff, student groups and community officials.

"Everyone was excited to meet her and get her on board," said Divij Pandya, president of Rutgers-Newark’s student government association. "You could definitely feel the energy. You can feel the passion she has. It’s refreshing."

Cantor arrived as Rutgers-Newark was beginning a strategic planning process, mapping out a new long-term plan.

"The faculty was very excited when she was appointed and continues to be excited ... There are so many new things happening," said Jyl Josephson, an associate professor of political science and women and gender studies who is co-chairing the campus strategic planning oversight committee.

In her free time, Cantor and her husband, sociology professor Steven Brechin, have been settling into a rented apartment in an upscale building on Raymond Boulevard and attending performances at the nearby New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The couple left their dog, Ruby, behind with friends at a larger house in Syracuse.

They will eventually move into a new chancellor’s residence on the top floors of Rutgers’ former law school building on Washington Street, which is being renovated into student housing.

The residence is one of the perks of Cantor’s job, which includes an annual base salary of $385,000. She is also eligible for up to $38,500 in annual bonuses and an additional $150,000 in deferred compensation if she stays in the job five years, according to her hiring agreement.

At Syracuse, Cantor’s total compensation package was nearly $939,000 in 2011, including a base salary of $648,000, according to the private university’s tax records.

At her first Rutgers Board of Governors meeting earlier this month, Cantor sat far down the table as Barchi, her new boss, lead much of the meeting. The group discussed the university’s new strategic plan, a settlement in Rutgers’ lawsuit against the former Big East athletic conference and other issues.

Not being in charge was a bit of a relief, she admitted.

"I’m actually delighted to have someone else to do that, frankly," Cantor said. "I came here to be very focused on Rutgers-Newark."

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