When most undergraduate students think of Brown, we think of our professors, the Main Green, dining halls and, of course, our fellow Brunonians. It’s rarer that we concern ourselves with the politics of the faculty, with whom we typically interact through class or research. But Brown harbors an expansive hierarchical network of administrators and deans, beyond the academic faculty we are exposed to, who govern the University’s decisions from their positions across a plethora of committees.
The Brown Corporation is a governing body led by President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and “a group of appointed and elected volunteers,” per the Corporation’s website. It holds an immense power to shape the future of the University in nearly every regard, from selecting the University president to approving faculty appointments and salaries. The Corporation effectively sits atop Brown’s food chain.
There are over 20 committees composed of faculty, administrators and sometimes students which report, through a trail of deans, to the president of the Corporation — Paxson. The committees lead initiatives concerned with everything from academic priorities to commencement.
This appears fairly democratic: Everyone — from faculty to student to administrator — seems to have a say in what is going on at Brown. The University claims to have “a commitment to openness and diversity of ideas, perspectives and experiences,” but does the work of these committees ever translate into action?
The reality is, the majority of these committees act as a cloak for the Corporation to shield itself from accountability, creating the guise of open dialogue. Yes, there are committees made up of different members of the University — but their recommendations all lead to the same individuals who have the final say. Effectively, they are bands of Brown community members who offer merely recommendations, and have no actual control over the decisions that are made.
The deeper issue is the illusion of democracy created by these committees. During clashes between the Corporation and students or faculty, Brown’s dialogue-based bureaucratic process is pinned on these committees. The faculty’s lack of power is often justified in this way, preventing campus issues from ever being appropriately addressed.
Only a week ago, professors of humanities graduate programs expressed confusion regarding admissions freezes on their programs, saying their input was either not solicited or misconstrued in the process of determining these changes. Administrators, on the other hand, stated that the “decisions followed a deliberative process led by our Academic Priorities Committee, which includes elected faculty members and senior academic administrators.” Whether you think these PhD programs are important or not, it’s disheartening that Brown’s faculty felt left in the dark.
I am not saying that Paxson should go through with every recommendation or that the faculty should be given unlimited control. But without transparency and serious consideration of their input from the president of the University, these committees will always remain a veil for a small group of unyielding leaders.
Times are only going to become tougher for Brown. With the Trump administration looking to undermine higher education, the idea of our own administration doing the same with our faculty is concerning. Now more than ever, Brown must truly make an effort to extend genuine opportunities for input from its community. Committees should not all be merely advisory — Brown’s governance needs to shift to allow for faculty to be more than pawns in the administration’s game.
Batisse Manhardt ’26 can be reached at batisse_manhardt@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
