To The Editor:
On March 3, following a recommendation of the Faculty Executive Committee, the Brown faculty decided that future faculty meetings will be chaired not by the University president but by the chair of the FEC. I did not expect there to be significant opposition to the motion but, in fact, the vote was a close one, and a surprising amount of backlash has followed.
Many seem to think that the move was an expression of hostility toward President Christina Paxson P’19P’MD’20. The Herald’s coverage referred to the policy change in personal terms, repeatedly mentioning the president by name. The Herald’s March 15 editorial asserted that this decision “widens a rift between faculty and administrators.” And in a recent op-ed written by several faculty members opposing the decision, once again, you can see a faculty-versus-Paxson narrative being spun.
However, the move was not a vote of no confidence, and it was not personal. I voted in favor of the motion because faculty meetings are meetings of the faculty. I think we would get more out of these meetings if we had more responsibility — through the FEC — for organizing them.
The replacement of the faculty meeting chair is only one proposed change among many others in a report that was issued by the FEC last fall. The report was informed by many discussions with groups of faculty across the University. I see the whole package of proposals as representing an emerging desire on the part of faculty members to find ways for us to come together and play a more robust role in guiding the University to be its best self.
The president works with the FEC to set meeting agendas, and meetings usually include presentations by the president and other administrators. I do not believe that this will change. I hope that the FEC can now manage to improve the balance between time devoted to these presentations and time for questions and discussion.
Sincerely,
Tom Goodwillie
Tom Goodwillie is a professor of mathematics. He can be reached at thomas_goodwillie@brown.edu. Please send responses to this letter to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
