As GW nears the three-year anniversary of its commitment to their shared governance principles, faculty say involvement in key decisions, like the arming of the GW Police Department and the handling of the pro-Palestinian encampment has been insufficient.
Faculty leaders said officials need to give faculty the opportunity play a more prominent role in the creation of University policy, especially in the wake of controversies in recent years regarding the University’s decision to arm GWPD, the Medical Faculty Associates’ financial struggles and their handling of the encampment. Faculty acknowledged the University has taken strides in increasing transparency surrounding their decision-making since the approval of shared governance principles in 2022 but pushed officials to further enhance faculty involvement in policy development.
The Board of Trustees ratified the principles in May 2022 after a task force consisting of faculty, trustees and administrators found that faculty should play a role in “key decision making” and have primary jurisdiction over “specific areas” of academic policy at the University. The principles were created in the aftermath of widespread distrust in former University President Thomas LeBlanc’s leadership.
The principles also call for the establishment of “formal mechanisms” to increase collaboration between faculty and administration, which includes enforcing a policy that requires trustees review the University president’s performance annually to ensure they are adhering to shared governance. The principles also require that the Board meet with the Faculty Senate twice a year in an effort to increase transparency between the two bodies.
Arthur Wilson, a professor of finance and the chair of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee during the development of the principles, said the idea of shared governance at the University gained traction with faculty following the unveiling of LeBlanc’s 20/30 strategic plan in 2019.
LeBlanc’s plan aimed to reduce undergraduate enrollment by 20 percent while bolstering enrollment in STEM programs at the University to 30 percent over the course of the next five years, but it was later rendered obsolete in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wilson said faculty lost faith in LeBlanc’s plan after he “refused” to say how he would supplement the University’s shrinking revenue following lower enrollment in a Faculty Senate meeting in October 2019. At the meeting, Wilson asked LeBlanc where he would allocate cuts to make room for the drop in revenue, but LeBlanc did not address his question.
Wilson also said the senate’s meeting with trustees as part of the principles meant data alerted faculty about the MFA’s rising financial headwinds. The MFA, a group of physicians and faculty from the GW Hospital and the School of Medicine & Health Sciences, has steadily lost more than $400 million since 2020. Faculty senators have consistently pressured the administration to provide a timeline for improving the MFA’s financial status at meetings.
“They know that the faculty care,” Wilson said. “They know that the faculty are aware and that it is their job, that it is the trustees’ job and the administration’s job to solve the problem that they concealed from the faculty for so long.”
Shaista Khilji, a professor of human and organizational learning and a member of the task force charged by the Faculty Senate in drafting the University’s shared governance principles in 2022, said shared governance was a “necessary” step for the University to reassert faculty’s role in decision-making following LeBlanc’s tumultuous tenure.
Khilji said many recent University decisions — including trustees’ decision to arm some GWPD officials in April 2023 and the handling of last year’s encampment — were still made with minimal faculty consultation. Khilji said officials’ handling of these decisions show GW leadership has not “genuinely sought” shared governance, despite pledging to do so when ratifying the principles.
Faculty criticized the officials’ decision to arm GWPD officers after trustees waited for two months to inform the community after their vote and did not consult with community members before voting to arm. A third-party investigation into the GWPD arming process in March found that the trustees did not seek community feedback before arming because they expected opposition from community members to the decision.
“The trustees decide, the admin implements with a façade of faculty involvement, and faculty are mostly surprised; they make a little noise but are largely ignored or unheard,” Khilji said in an email.
Khilji said she hopes the University will take an “honest look” at the past three years to improve shared governance.
“Shared governance is never a one-off effort,” Khilji said. “It should be constantly assessed to strive towards a more collaborative and meaningful practice.”
Faculty senator Guillermo Orti, the chair of the biological sciences department, said shared governance “evolved” following the University’s encampment last spring, adding that officials managed their response to communication with students “without” faculty input.
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee convened for an emergency meeting on the first day of the encampment in spring 2024, writing a letter urging the administration to take a “deescalatory approach” and stating that senators were willing to help communicate with student protestors. Orti said this offer was not “picked up” by the administration, which was a “nonstarter” for upholding shared governance.
The Faculty Senate later criticized officials’ lack of communication throughout the encampment during a meeting last May, wishing for more transparency and faculty consultation regarding decision-making, and Granberg said in September she regrets not consulting with more University community members before acting.
Orti said the Faculty Senate passed a resolution in September, calling on University leadership to “meaningfully” consult faculty on all policies that affect faculty and students, not just academic ones.
Orti said the University implemented a policy review process in January that allows community members to provide feedback on policy drafts before being finalized, which he said covers “most of” the resolution’s requests, although it does not give faculty a voice in the creation of policy. The University implemented after GW entered voluntary settlement with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to resolve two Title VI complaints from 2023 that alleged antisemitism and anti-Palestinian discrimination on campus.
“It’s a good thing,” Orti said. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
Ivy Ken, a professor of sociology, said shared governance is “weak” at the University as faculty are invited to watch administrators make decisions rather than have an active role. Ken said the University’s consideration of institutional neutrality is an example of officials acting unilaterally, as there is “no evidence” faculty support the policy.
“The administration now engages in some performative attempts to involve faculty, staff and students in their decision-making processes, but too often this simply means they organize a lecture for us over Zoom and won’t let us turn our cameras on or chat with the whole group,” Ken said in an email.
Provost Chris Bracey announced at a Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month that the University is weighing its stance on institutional neutrality, which is the idea that colleges should not take positions on political issues. Bracey and two law experts also discussed institutional neutrality during a Zoom panel last week, which he said was the beginning of “additional engagement” with the University community.
Bracey said further steps will “likely” include the formation of a task force to “study the issue” and a presentation to the Board.
Dwayne Wright, an assistant professor of higher education administration, said although shared governance has been “improving” over the past three years, it has moved at “a snail’s pace.”
Wright said trustees’ decision to arm GWPD officers and the pro-Palestinian encampment were campus “crises” because of how “unprecedented” they were, making shared governance more difficult in those situations. He said the situation’s circumstances demanded officials to make quick decisions, which could have been hampered by the slowness of consulting with faculty.
Wright said he thinks the administration should treat faculty less like “employees” and more like “partners” when decisions are made at the University. He said if faculty had more control over “academic” issues, the handling of other affairs could be left to the trustees and administration.
“I do believe if the administration were to let go a bit and give faculty true authority, true partnership, like I said, a marriage, or true veto rights in the sphere of academic control, faculty would understand and care less about the nonacademic issues,” Wright said.
