If approved, Dr. Holloway will be replacing Robert L. Barchi, the current president, who Ms. Devlin said will step down at the end of the school year. Mr. Barchi is credited with expanding the student body, spending billions of dollars in constructing new facilities and merging Rutgers with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

The news about Dr. Holloway’s impending appointment was first reported by NJ.com.

Before being named provost at Northwestern University in 2017, Dr. Holloway, 52, a scholar of African-American history and a former football player at Stanford University, was previously the dean of Yale College, holding one of the most prestigious positions in academia.

But during his tenure at Yale, the school faced student protests that attracted nationwide attention.

Dr. Holloway was at the center of a storm of student protests that were set off by an email in 2015 from a faculty member who suggested that students should be allowed to wear whatever Halloween costumes they wanted, regardless of whether they offended someone. Many students considered the email to be culturally offensive, and the controversy sparked debate about the university’s history and the way it has dealt with race.

Dr. Holloway, who became the first black dean of Yale in 2014, embraced some student demands, like calling for a more diverse faculty. But he was also criticized by some students who said he should have worked harder to address concerns about race on campus.