Nearly two weeks ago, faculty members narrowly passed a motion to replace President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 as the presiding officer of the University’s monthly faculty meeting. The role will now be assumed by the chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, Brown’s central steering body for faculty governance.
The Herald reported that some faculty members cited a desire to increase faculty participation as the motivation behind the motion. Professors expressed concerns about “lengthy reports from members of the senior administration” and meetings that felt like a “briefing to the faculty by the administration,” at the expense of addressing faculty issues. This frustration is highlighted by a clause in the motion that specifies “the FEC should ensure that … agenda items pertain to matters of shared faculty concern.” Although this issue deserves serious attention, the faculty’s adopted change will do little to address it. In ousting Paxson as presiding officer, the faculty has scapegoated the president for the failures of faculty representatives.
Replacing Paxson as the presiding officer with the chair of the FEC will not stop her from influencing the meeting agenda. It was not her position as presiding officer that granted her influence over the agenda and order of business, but her role as the University’s president. As stated in the Faculty Rules and Regulations, the agenda is set by the FEC “in consultation with the President,” and the order of business is set by the agenda committee, which includes the president. As such, taking away Paxson’s position as presiding officer will do nothing to affect her influence on the agenda and the order of business as the University’s president.
If meetings are being clogged up by administrative matters, it is the FEC’s role to advocate for faculty priorities. While the FEC must consult the president, they have the final say when setting the agenda. Likewise, the agenda committee, which sets the order of business, consists of four elected faculty officers, including the FEC chair and vice chair, and three administrators, including Paxson. As such, the faculty representatives have a majority on the agenda committee. If the faculty feel as though meetings are prioritizing administrative presentations, then this is due to faculty representatives not sufficiently representing faculty interests when drafting the agenda or the faculty members on the agenda committee not leveraging their majority when setting the order of business.
Since removing Paxson as the presiding officer will do nothing to change these processes, there is little reason to believe that the FEC and the faculty members on the agenda committee will start exerting their power over the administration. If Paxson was truly what stood between the faculty and their interests, then she would need to be ousted as president of the University to resolve these concerns about the meeting agenda — a move that we hope faculty members do not support.
Some might argue that, in addition to the administration’s influence over the meeting agenda, faculty members have been “afraid to speak freely at meetings” with Paxson as the presiding officer. While it is discouraging to hear reports of faculty members being reluctant to speak at faculty meetings, the motion will do little to alter this status quo — Paxson, as an ex officio member of the faculty, will still attend the monthly meeting. Additionally, when faculty members are awarded tenure — which is given at the departmental level — they can voice their opinions without retaliation. In 2022, The Herald reported that around 60% of full-time instructional faculty at Brown held tenure — the third-highest percentage in the Ivy League. It is clear that faculty members’ failure to speak is not out of a credible fear of consequence, but a lack of conviction. The very fact that the faculty was able to oust Paxson is proof of the freedom the faculty enjoys.
Paxson’s statement that the effort will be “perceived as adversarial” is undoubtedly correct. From the outside, it seems Brown has a faculty that does not trust its president or feels threatened by her leadership. The faculty’s vote is performative, needlessly hostile and blames Paxson for the faculty’s inadequate representation by FEC leadership and the rest of the agenda committee. Ultimately, this decision widens a rift between faculty and administrators that will last long after Paxson’s term as president, making it more difficult for the faculty to effect change at the administrative and Corporation levels. We urge the faculty to reinstate Paxson as the presiding officer and to push the FEC and faculty members of the agenda committee to more actively advocate on their behalf.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board, and its views are separate from those of The Herald’s newsroom and the 136th Editorial Board, which leads the paper. A majority of the editorial page board voted in favor of this piece. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
