Moffitt, Steffes: To improve shared governance, faculty must work with the administrators with whom we’re sharing governance

By Susan Moffitt and Tracy Steffes | April 6

Brown’s faculty has long shared authority and responsibility for University rules, policies and practices with the administration through a history of shared governance. At this moment of peril and budget constraints in higher education, it is more critical than ever that we review and rejuvenate ...

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Davis MA’97 PhD’11, Joyrich PhD’90, Roberts, Steinberg: Brown needs to relearn how shared faculty governance works

By Michael Steinberg, Denise Davis, Lynne Joyrich and Timmons Roberts | April 3

In a March 30 op-ed, several of our colleagues argued against the recently passed motion to have an elected faculty member chair faculty meetings. The authors are among a group of faculty who seek to repeal the vote. Unfortunately, their letter is one in a series of misconstruals of the March 3 decision, ...

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Bittker ’27, Marcus ’26: Don’t dismiss The Brown Spectator’s arguments — engage with them

By Gray Bittker and Ben Marcus | April 2

In her March 18 column, Herald Staff Columnist Arya Vishwakarma ’29 refused to respond to two recently published Brown Spectator articles about anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Providence. Instead, Vishwakarma chose to attack The Spectator’s editorial standards, baselessly ...

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Blumstein: Replacing Paxson as the presiding officer of the faculty meetings is a mistake

By Sheila Blumstein | April 2

On March 3, the faculty voted to remove Paxson from her post as presiding officer at University faculty meetings. The chair of the Faculty Executive Committee will now run faculty meetings rather than the University president. This change ends a longstanding tradition at Brown — one that I have witnessed ...

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Dolan, Frickel, Leinaweaver, Nummedal: Restore the president as presiding officer at University faculty meetings

By Jessaca Leinaweaver, Emily Dolan, Scott Frickel and Tara Nummedal | March 30

On March 3, faculty members voted to replace the University president with the Faculty Executive Committee chair as the presiding officer at faculty meetings. This motion was brought to the faculty without substantial prior discussion, and there was not yet a robust, shared understanding of the proposed ...