Town Hall Tonight

Please come. NB: It's on the Manhattanville campus

Register here for tonight’s town hall at Lee Bollinger Auditorium.

The town hall comes in response to the ongoing crisis at Columbia and to Acting President Claire Shipman’s most recent letter announcing a “review” of the University Senate. The (student) chairs of the Student Affairs Committee had the following to say in announcing the town hall. See you tonight!

Dear Columbia Community,

We write to you as the Co-Chairs of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) of the University Senate to express the concerns of our constituents regarding the recent events demonstrating that shared governance is under threat. We are organizing a University Town Hall on Wednesday, April 23, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM open to all CUID holders. We are formally requesting that the Trustees, including Acting President Claire Shipman, participate in this town hall.

Columbia’s governance structure resembles a triangle, with each side representing the Trustees, the President, and the University Senate, respectively. These entities work in tandem; Trustees shape long-term strategy and budgetary issues; the President manages operations; and the University Senate provides a deliberative platform for students, faculty, and staff to legislate on matters of academic freedom, campus policy, and university-wide affairs based on broad consensus across constituents.

That triangle is now collapsing.

For the first time in the University’s history, a member of the Board of Trustees occupies the Office of the President. The recent announcement that there would be a review conducted of the University Senate, just 12 days into Acting President Shipman’s tenure, is part of a wider effort to marginalize student and faculty voices and to centralize and consolidate power in the hands of the currently 21-member Board of Trustees.

The Acting President has questioned whether the Senate is adequately representative of our University. The Senate draws its 111 members from democratic elections in every school at the University. Its membership is proportioned according to the student population and tenured faculty population of each school. Our members must submit to reelection every two years and many of our student members—the Senate’s second largest constituency—serve only one-year terms given the length of their programs. This means that the Senate’s membership turns over on a regular basis, ensuring that new perspectives constantly refresh our debates and may shift policymaking priorities.

The University Senate has responded to every moment of crisis the past two years. We formally requested an independent external review of the University’s response to Hadden. We opposed the University’s event policy in a widely supported plenary resolution in November 2023. We spoke out against doxing, suppression of speech, and threats to student safety. We meticulously documented and analyzed campus events in the Sundial Report, providing the community with a starting point for reflection. We raised concerns about ICE’s presence on campus before a student was abducted. The Senate is not a passive advisory group—it is an active part of University governance, with a public record of action and accountability.

This much needed organ of self-governance and bulwark against excessive executive power at Columbia is under assault. Columbia is facing what is perhaps one of the most difficult moments in our history. If our community is to survive the attacks we face, we must lean on rather than eviscerate faculty and student leadership. Ours is a remarkable community of scholars and our University has served as one of the great incubators of democracy throughout its 271 year history. Our inheritance of this history obliges us to defend these democratic values and traditions against the threats they currently face. But, if we are to join with many of our peer institutions in defending the academy from the current governmental assault on its independence, we must first defeat the specter of authoritarianism on our own campus and defend the independence of shared governance at our University.

The Trustees, a self-perpetuating body, remain unelected and unaccountable. Their operations occur behind closed doors. Their membership lacks transparency. It also lacks first-hand experience of academia. Their bylaws are not accessible to the public or to the University community. And their recent actions—including this internal review of the Senate—signal a broader campaign to eliminate independent oversight altogether.

For too long, the actions of the Trustees have remained unchecked, allowing critical issues to persist. These include the concealment of Hadden’s records for 20 years, irreparably harming thousands of lives and costing the University almost $1 billion; misrepresentations regarding Columbia’s national rankings; conspiracy against students who required financial aid; and a refusal to implement significant improvements in facilities and address the urgent need to expand our teaching faculty. Furthermore, the independent review of the Hadden case is six months overdue. There is clear evidence of systemic failures.

Columbia has always prided itself on its commitment to academic freedom, democratic governance, and civic responsibility. We cannot uphold those ideals while removing elected student leaders from positions of influence, undermining faculty input, and violating the foundational documents that govern this University.

We urge you to stand with us. Speak out. Share this with your peers, professors, deans, alumni and friends at other schools. Demand that our leadership respect the Statutes, our voices, and our right to shape the future of the institution we all belong to.

Demand that our leadership submit itself to meaningful measures of accountability. And take ownership of Columbia. It is those of us who live, study, and work in this community who breathe life into Columbia’s core mission. As the frieze of Low Library reminds us, this is a great institution because great scholars have “maintained and cherished [it] from generation to generation for the advancement of the public good.” Let us be good stewards of Columbia and fight for the future of our University.

With Gratitude,
Bruce, Jaxon, and Maria
Student Affairs Committee Co-Chairs