Outgoing Board of Trustees Chair Grace Speights said she believes she fulfilled her responsibility as the top officer of the University’s oversight body by using her leadership to forge a sustainable path for GW and leave the University better off than when she started. 

Throughout her seven years at the Board’s helm, Speights has navigated GW through consequential decisions like changing the University’s moniker, divesting from fossil fuels and weathering the COVID-19 pandemic, but she also faced community criticism for decisions like the arming of GW Police Department officers and the rejection of demands for divestment from weapons manufacturers and companies with ties to Israel. With her tenure as chair ending May 31, Speights said in a sit-down interview with The Hatchet all her decisions have left GW with a “foundation” she is proud of and has solidified the legacy of her leadership at the University. 

“I do hope that my tenure is remembered for steady leadership, a commitment to thoughtful governance and a focus on guiding GW through some pivotal moments, but preparing it for a strong future and a successful future,” Speights said.

Speights said she has approached her tenure as chair with a “deep commitment” to collaboration with University stakeholders, despite community members repeatedly expressing frustrations that the Board, as a non-public-facing body, is insulated from student and faculty desires and has not adequately sought community input in some of its most consequential decisions. 

Speights said she understands the complaints that the Board has not engaged with the community on certain decisions and needs to be held more accountable, but the community has to understand the Board’s responsibility is not to manage the day-to-day operations of the University, but to exercise its fiduciary duty to GW. She said trustees’ responsibilities entail a lot of “very confidential” information, preventing them from sharing the full rationale behind certain decisions. 

Speights said University President Ellen Granberg “in essence” speaks on behalf of the Board when she sends out community-wide messages. She said since Granberg has a seat on the Board she is in the position to explain the body’s decisions to the broader community. 

Granberg has sent the community messages regarding major University decisions, like GW’s sale of the Virginia Science and Technology Campus in late February and the launch of the strategic framework, as the University grapples with a budget deficit, messages on topics the Board was involved in, but not featuring Speights’ signature. The Office of the Board of Trustees’ website does not have a section where they post messages from the Board, unlike other officials‘ office websites.

“The Board doesn’t send out community wide announcements, we just don’t,” Speights said. “But what we decide and what we do does get out to the community through, as I mentioned, communications from President Granberg.”

Speights pointed to the Board’s 2023 decision to arm about 20 University police officers with 9mm handguns in response to recent shootings on college campuses in the United States as a decision that was solely the Board’s responsibility, only involving community input once it reached its implementation phase. The decision was met with widespread student protests, dissenting letters from faculty, criticism of the lack of community input from staff and demands for the University to publicize the data that backed their decision.

Speights said the Board didn’t make the decision alone, but rather with the consultation of experts and University leadership. She defended the idea that the decision was the Board’s responsibility because the body would be legally liable in the event someone at GW was injured or killed due to gun violence. 

“We do stand by that the decision was a Board decision,” Speights said.

A third-party investigation of the GWPD’s arming rollout confirmed in March 2025 The Hatchet’s reporting of firearm safety violations and turnover within the department from September 2024, which came weeks before the resignation of the force’s chief, James Tate. The report states that University officials chose not to seek community feedback before the Board directed GWPD to arm officers because they expected community opposition to the decision.

Speights said the Board was not responsible for the implementation of the arming, saying that it was an “administration decision,” but is not rethinking the decision — a stance Granberg has communicated several times.

“Sitting here, I can’t say that I have any, or we as a Board, have any regrets,” Speights said of the Board’s decision to arm GWPD. “But having said that, having made the decision and moving forward, as I said, we are constantly reviewing how it is implemented.”

Speights, during her tenure, also faced widespread campus protests after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, where students called on GW to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to Israel. In April 2024, students staged a 13-day encampment in University Yard, demanding the Board of Trustees to disclose and divest its endowment and investments from companies tied to Israel and protect pro-Palestinian student groups — demands officials rejected.

Officials during the encampment met with student organizers and rejected their divestment demands, explaining the University wasn’t considering changing its endowment investment strategy. In a sit-down interview with Granberg months later, she reiterated the University’s position that GW is not considering divestment. The Board manages the University’s endowment and must approve divestment decisions.

“We understand that there are strong feelings about this issue,” Speights said about students’ divestment calls. “We hear it. I mean, we don’t have our heads in the sand. We listen and we do hear it.”

Speights said the Board does not “typically” make investment decisions based on external political considerations, and the Board’s decision to divest from fossil fuels — a goal GW made in 2020 after years of student protests and met at the end of 2025 — isn’t comparable to students’ requests to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies with ties to Israel because it’s a political issue. She said the Board’s focus, rather, is on their fiduciary responsibility and the long-term health of GW’s endowment. 

“If that were the case, we’d be doing something every other month probably, because of different things that we hear about that somebody wants us to divest from,” Speights said.

Speights added she doesn’t think community members “quite understand” the ways the Board has tried to increase engagement during her tenure, like meeting with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, the Student Government Association president and Staff Council president a couple of times a year. She said she thinks the Board has made “great progress” with collaboration and shared governance, adding that the “best outcomes” come from inclusive and thoughtful processes, though she said there’s always room for improvement. 

The Board of Trustees, under Speights’ leadership, in May 2022 unanimously approved a set of principles to improve shared governance and collaboration between faculty, trustees and University officials, which states that faculty should have a meaningful role in “key decision making” at GW and have primary authority over “specific areas” of academic policy. The approval came after the Faculty Senate in April 2022 overwhelmingly endorsed the principles following a monthslong initiative led by a task force of faculty, officials and trustees and brought about by the end of former University President Thomas LeBlanc’s tumultuous tenure, aimed at moving past mistrust between decision-making groups.

“It’s not perfect, and there’s probably more that can be done, but I think we’ve come a long way in terms of trying to move the communication and the transparency forward,” Speights said.

Looking ahead, Speights said the Board’s greatest focus needs to be on the University’s financial sustainability amid budget cuts, adding that the Board will also be focused on academic excellence and the student experience. She said the Board has done so already by aiding in the development of the new budget model and selling VSTC for $427 million in late February.

The Board’s current Vice Chair Mark Chichester will take the helm as chair effective June 1. The Board voted last March to extend Speights’ and Chichesters’ terms as chair and vice chair, respectively, for an additional year, made possible by a 2024 bylaw amendment that permits trustees to extend an officer’s term for a year under extraordinary circumstances.

A University spokesperson in November 2025 said GW faced “extraordinary circumstances” since 2020 that prompted the Board to extend Speights’ tenure, citing financial pressures affecting higher education broadly and unsustainable losses at the Medical Faculty Associates — which sits $444 million in debt to GW and other lenders — along with disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic and leadership transitions.

Speights said GW will also continue to build on its strength as a leading institution in the nation’s capital, and will hopefully accomplish implementing its strategic framework in the coming years along with focusing on its financial stability.

“Our Board needs to be adaptable because things change so quickly, and the whole higher education landscape is evolving, and we need to be flexible and willing to change when we need to, quickly, because a lot of times you got to be quick.”

Former SGA President Ethan Lynne said Speights has been an “incredibly thoughtful” and “steady” leader, adding that he has appreciated the opportunity to work with her during his tenure in the SGA. He said she was responsive, engaged and willing to listen, and her leadership helped strengthen the relationship between students and the Board, particularly when reinstating the Board’s Student Affairs Committee — which is not yet listed as a committee on the Board’s website — which he said will provide a “dedicated space” for the body to address student concerns.

“I always felt that she genuinely cared about hearing student perspectives and took student advocacy seriously,” Lynne said in a message. 

Faculty senator Phil Wirtz said Speights moved GW in a “very positive” direction regarding shared governance. He said she set a path for her successors to follow to show that performance and principles can go “hand-in-hand” within an appropriate governance structure.

“She initiated a Shared Governance Task Force which more carefully articulated the important role of faculty in key decision making,” Wirtz said in an email. “She held direct discussions with student leaders to include them in the University’s strategic planning.”

10 current and former Faculty Senate Executive Committee Members, senators and Staff Council executive officers during Speights’ tenure declined to comment on how they viewed her leadership and how she engaged the community in her decision-making.

The Board of Trustees passed a resolution at their annual May meeting Friday recognizing Speights’ leadership, which stated she guided the University through unprecedented challenges while ensuring the continuity and strength of GW’s academic mission. 

“Grace Speights has cultivated a Board culture of collegiality, mutual respect and shared purpose, leaving an endured imprint on the institution defined by engagement, civil discourse and thoughtful governance in recognition of her extraordinary legacy,” Trustee Donna Hill Staton, who presented the resolution, said.

Amelia Nelson and Tyler Iglesias contributed reporting.