Open Letter

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September 2022

Dear President Rowe:

We write to you today to express our deep concern for the increasing distance between the faculty of William & Mary and your administration. We believe that our tradition of active, informed participation in the governance of the University is being eroded. During William & Mary’s history, change and adaptation have been central to our ability not just to survive but to thrive. It is fair to say, and crucial to understand, that positive change depends on the enthusiastic involvement of the faculty. We will, after all, be responsible for implementing many innovations, and our engagement is necessary for plans to succeed. If you truly want faculty to be “All In,” you must give us a meaningful voice.

Over the past few years, William & Mary has faced enormous challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic, concern over financial stabilization, and changes in public attitudes toward higher education have all created the need to rethink the missions and values of William & Mary. During this time, we have seen a disturbing tendency to centralize decision-making and exclude meaningful faculty participation in setting the direction of the institution.

The faculty have seen our elected representatives marginalized, our perspectives dismissed, and our involvement in university governance largely eliminated. For example, the release of the strategic plan, Vision 2026, was publicly announced without any opportunity for the Faculty Assembly or the individual faculties to develop the final plan, to review it, or even to read it prior to announcement at Charter Day and publication in the local media. Even today, many faculty do not comprehend how “Data,” “Water,” “Careers,” and “Democracy” constitute a compelling set of guiding stars, nor how these four parts are supposed to form a coherent vision for William & Mary.

Consider a second example. As faculty began to wonder about the process of evaluating senior administrators, we discovered that the policies on evaluation have changed, and the process leaves questions unanswered about how the evaluation reports will be produced. The apparent decision to turn the process over to outside consultants and to remove faculty representatives from a role in determining the scope of the review and the production of the report is a radical departure from previous practice. As we understand it, thirty individuals will be interviewed by representatives of Korn Ferry, the outside consultant, including some faculty members. But we have no indication that a committee will be appointed to oversee the process, which is still required by university policy.

Another example of the lack of faculty involvement in critical decisions was the development of the Faculty Hiring Pilot, which was developed without consultation with the faculty, and presented only to the Faculty Assembly, which does not have a role in the hiring policies of Arts & Sciences and the Schools.

Our concerns have been heightened by the seeming exodus of your administrative team. One of the most important ways that the faculties communicate with the President and Provost is through their deans. We were surprised to learn of the impending departure of Maria Donoghue Velleca, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. When a dean decides that it’s time to go after only two years on the job, that is not a good sign. But to learn only a short time later that the Chief Operating Officer was also leaving, and in very short order, raises alarms.

With the departures this Spring and Summer by our Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and our Chief Human Resources Officer, along with the recency of all academic deans, we deserve to have better insight into the status of our administration. We also assert that the continuing faculty, who have served and will extend their role in the university beyond any single administration, must play an even more important role in setting the sights for our future.

We are beginning this academic year with an understanding that we should be returning to the normal operation of William & Mary. This must include a return to genuine, substantial faculty involvement in the governance. Tightly restricting decision-making to a small circle of administrators will no longer be seen as a necessary exigency. We must all share the same commitment to the success of our great institution and the values that we commonly embrace.

Specifically, we call on you to:

Acknowledge the legitimate role that faculty through our elected representatives must play in policymaking, resource allocation, and administrative evaluation. Senior administrators and others with significant responsibility must be subject to review that includes both faculty representation (as recommended by the Faculty Assembly Executive Committee) and general opportunities for faculty comment on the performance of these administrators.
Fully engage faculty in reviewing the Strategic Plan for its alignment with the best interests of William & Mary, and an accounting of the allocation and/or redirection of resources required to meet the plan’s provisions.
Facilitate significant faculty involvement in discussions about the admissions goals of the university, and the faculty resources necessary to teach the increased numbers of undergraduates we have already admitted.

As faculty members, we hope you understand that we are not obstacles to finding solutions to the challenges facing the University, but can offer perspectives that will make us stronger. We want to work in concert with the administration to find effective ways to move forward. We know that working together will produce a truly sustainable path, one that will endure beyond any particular administration.

We all acknowledge that William & Mary faces significant challenges. If the road ahead is daunting, all of us must work together in ways that move us forward without losing our essential character. We hope you will accept this message as both a challenge and an opportunity to work in common purpose.

Respectfully,

No.	Name	Title	Department/Program
1	John McGlennon	Professor	Government
2	Susan Peterson	Reves Professor and Chair	Government
3	Matthew Haug	Associate Professor and Chair	Philosophy
4	Arthur Knight	Associate Professor and Chair	English, American Studies, and Film & Media Studies
5	Christopher Howard	Harriman Professor	Government
6	Amy Oakes	Associate Professor	Government and International Relations
7	Tuska Benes	Professor and Department Chair	History
8	Frederick Corney	Professor	Department of History
9	Chandos Michael Brown	Assoc. Prof.	History
10	Joshua Piker	Professor	History Department
11	Hiroshi Kitamura	Associate Professor and Program Director	History and International Relations
12	Simon Middleton	Associate Professor	History
13	Christine Nemacheck	Associate Professor	Government
14	Lu Ann Homza	James Pinckney Harrison Professor of History	History
15	Adrienne Petty	Associate Professor	History
16	Francesca Sawaya	Professor	English/American Studies
17	Ronald Schechter	Professor	History
18	Suzanne Hagedorn	Undergraduate Program Director & Associate Professor	Department of English
19	Julia Gaffield	Associate Professor	Department of History
20	Fabrício Prado	Associate Professor	History
21	Thomas J. McSweeney	Professor	Law School
22	Robert D. Pike	Professor and Chair	Chemistry
23	Mike Jabbur	Associate Professor and Chair	Art and Art History
24	Kathrin Levitan	Associate Professor	History
25	Patton Burchett	Associate Professor	Religious Studies
26	Robyn Schroeder	Asst. Dir., National Institute of American History & Democracy / Adj. Prof. of History	NIAHD / History
27	Eric Han	Associate Professor	History
28	Andrew Tobolowsky	Associate Professor	Religious Studies
29	William Hutton	Professor and Director of the Postbaccalaureate Program	Classical Studies
30	Molly Swetnam-Burland	Professor	Classical Studies
31	Rani D. Mullen	Associate Professor	Government & AMES
32	Sibel Zandi-Sayek	Associate Professor	Art and Art History & AMES
33	Barbette Spaeth	Professor	Classical Studies
34	David Grandis	Associate Professor	Music
35	Elizabeth Mead	Professor of Art	Art and Art History
36	Maurits van der Veen	Associate Professor	Government
37	Jack Martin	Chancellor Professor	English and Linguistics
38	Jennifer Putzi	Professor	English and Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies
39	Jonathan Glasser	Associate Professor	Anthropology
40	Marc Sher	Professor	Physics
41	Terry L. Meyers	Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus	English
42	Lisa Landino	Professor	Chemistry
43	Elizabeth Moran	Associate Chair	Art and Art History
44	Pamela Hunt	Professor and Chair	Psychological Sciences
45	Laurie Koloski	Associate Professor	History
46	Jaime Settle	Associate Professor	Government, Data Science
47	Gerard Chouin	Associate Professor	History
48	Stephen Sheehi	Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies	Modern Languages and Lit/AMES
49	Jessica Paga	Associate Professor	Classical Studies
50	Deborah Denenholz Morse	Inaugural Sara E. Nance Professor of English	English
51	Charles Palermo	Professor	Art & Art History
52	Annie Blazer	Associate Professor	Religious Studies
53	Peter McHenry	Professor	Economics and Public Policy
54	Erin Webster	Associate Professor	English
55	Christopher MacGowan	William R. Kenan Jr. Professor	English
56	Michael Gaynes	Lecturer	Art & Art History
57	Shantá D. Hinton,	Professor	Department of Biology
58	Gexin Yu	Professor and Chair	Mathematics
59	Brad Weiss	Professor	Anthropology
60	Michelle Lelievre	Associate Professor	Anthropology and American Studies
61	Kristin Wustholz	Associate Professor	Chemistry
62	Helen Murphy	Associate Professor	Biology
63	Leah Shaw	Professor	Mathematics
64	John Lombardini	Associate Professor and Associate Chair	Government
65	Greg Conradi Smith	Professor	Applied Science, Neuroscience, CAMS Biomath
66	Daniel Maliniak	Associate Professor	Government
67	John Lopresti	Associate Professor	Economics
68	Lizabeth Allison	Chancellor Professor and Chair	Biology
69	Chi-Kwong LI	Ferguson Professor of Mathematics	Mathematics
70	Kim Wheatley	Professor	English
71	Leisa D. Meyer	Professor	AMST/HIST
72	Cristina Stancioiu	Associate Professor	Art and Art History
73	Jennifer Stevens	Associate Professor	Psychological Sciences
74	Nate Throckmorton	Associate Professor	Economics
75	Kate Conley	Professor of French & Francophone Studies	Modern Languages & Literatures
76	John Riofrio "Rio"	Associate Professor	Modern Languages and Literatures
77	Kevin Vose	Walter G. Mason Associate Professor	Religious Studies
78	Elizabeth Losh	Duane A. and Virginia S. Dittman Professor of American Studies and English	American Studies/English
79	Jennifer Taylor	Associate Professor	German Studies and Film and Media Studies
80	Mainak Patel	Associate Professor	Mathematics
81	Michael Gibbs Hill	Associate Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures, AMES
82	Francie Cate-Arries	Kenan Professor / Chair of MLL	Hispanic Studies, Modern Languages & Lits
83	Deborah Lee-ferrand	Lecturer	MDLL
84	Maria Galmarini	Associate Professor	History
85	Aiko Kitamura	Senior Lecturer	Modern Languages & Literatures
86	Michael P. Cronin	Associate Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures
87	Nicole Santiago	Professor	Art & Art History
88	Caroline Hanley	Associate Professor	Sociology
89	Magali Compan	Associate Professor	MLL
90	Amy Quark	Professor	Sociology
91	Robin Ellis	Assistant Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures
92	Daniel Cristol	Professor	Biology
93	Hannah Rosen	Associate Professor	History and American Studies
94	Michael Tierney	Professor	Government
95	Peter M. Vishton	Associate Professor	Psychological Sciences
96	Carol Sheriff	Professor	History
97	Timothy M. Costelloe	Professor	Philosophy
98	Ayfer Stump	Associate Professor	History
99	Deenesh Sohoni	Professor	Sociology
100	Giulia Pacini	Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures
101	Mary Lynn Weiss	Associate Professor	English and American Studies
102	Xin Conan-Wu	Margaret Hamilton Associate Professor	Art and Art History & AMES
103	Andrea Wright	Associate Professor; Program Director, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies	Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
104	William H. Fisher	Associate Professor	Anthropology
105	Laurie Sanderson	Professor	Biology
106	Clay Clemens	Chancellor Professor	Government
107	Richard Turits	Associate Professor	History/Africana/Latin American Studies
108	Simon Joyce	Cloud Professor	English
109	Kristin Conradi Smith	Associate Professor	Curriculum & Instruction
110	Konstantinos Orginos	Professor	Physics
111	Katherine Guthrie	Associate Professor	Finance
112	Monica Seger	Associate Professor	Modern Languages and Literatures
113	Vassiliki Panoussi	Professor	Classical Studies
114	Eric Swartz	Associate Professor	Mathematics
115	Anne K. Rasmussen	Professor; Bickers Professor of Middle East Studies	Music / AMES
116	Diane Shakes	Professor	Biology
117	Catherine Levesque	Associate Professor	Art & Art History
118	Jorge Terukina	Associate Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures
119	Jonathan Scheerer	Professor	Chemistry
120	Emily Wilcox	Associate Professor and Program Director	Modern Languages and Literatures/Chinese Studies
121	Chris Abelt	Chancellor Professor	Chemistry
122	Chinua Thelwell	Associate Professor and Program Director	History, Africana Studies, and APIA Studies
123	Paula Pickering	Professor	Government
124	Joshua Erlich	Professor	Physics
125	Jennifer Kahn	Associate Professor	Anthropology
126	Chuck Bailey	Professor and Chair	Geology
127	Anya Hogoboom	Associate Professor	Linguistics/English
128	Ronald St. Onge	Professor Emeritus	Modern Languages & Literatures
129	Jennifer Bickham Mendez	Professor	Sociology
130	Marcus Holmes	Associate Professor	Government
131	Kate Slevin	Chancellor Professor Emerita	Sociology
132	Thomas L. Heacox	Emeritus Professor of English	English Dept
133	Varun Begley	Assoc. Prof.	English
134	Adam Potkay	William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities	English
135	Thomas J. Linneman	Professor	Sociology
136	Martin Gallivan	Professor	Anthropology
137	Brent Kaup	Professor	Sociology & ENSP
138	Vladimir Atanasov	Professor	Business
139	Erin Minear	Associate Professor	English
140	Nicholas Popper	Associate Professor	History
141	Sarah Stafford	Professor and Chair	Economics
142	Brian Kreydatus	Professor	Art and Art History
143	Melanie Dawson	Professor	English
144	Paulina Carrion	Lecturer	Modern Languages & Literatures
145	Tomoyuki Sasaki	Associate Professor	Modern Languages & Literatures
146	Audrey Horning	Forrest D. Murden Jr. Professor	Anthropology
147	Pieter Peers	Associate Professor	Computer Science
148	Saskia Mordijck	Associate Professor	Physics
149	Jamie C. Bartlett	Associate Professor	Music
150	Thomas B. Payne	Professor	Music
150	Thomas B. Payne	Professor	Music
151	Liz Barnes	Professor	English
152	Ross Iaci	Associate Professor	Mathematics
153	Maryse Fauvel	Professor Emerita	French and francophone Studies, Dept of MLL
154	Bruce B. Campbell	Professor emeritus	German Studies
155	Michael Iyanaga	Associate Professor	Music and Latin American Studies
156	David Dominique	Associate Professor / Glenn Faculty Fellow	Music
157	Ken Kambis	Professor Emeritus	Health Sciences
158	Berhanu Abegaz	Professor	Economics
159	Doug Young	Associate Professor	Chemistry
160	Elyas Bakhtiari	Assistant Professor	Sociology
161	Kathleen Jenkins	Professor	Sociology
162	Richard Marcus	Assistant Professor	Music
163	Rex Kincaid	Chancellor Professor	Mathematics, COR
164	Shi Qi	Associate Professor	Economics
165	Charles F. McGovern	Assoc Professor	American Studies & History
166	Matthias Leu	Associate Professor	Biology
167	Jennifer Mellor	Professor	Economics and Public Policy
168	Bill McNamara	Associate Professor	Chemistry
169	Alan J. Meese	Ball Professor of Law and Dean's Faculty Fellow	Law School
170	Virginia Torczon	Chancellor Professor	Computer Science
171	Robert Michael Lewis	Associate Professor	Computer Science
172	Tyler Meldrum	Associate Professor	Chemistry
173	Iyabo O Obasanjo	Associate Professor	Kinesiology
174	Oliver Kerscher	Associate Professor	Biology
175	Victor Haskins	Adjunct Lecturer	Music Department
176	Junping Shi	Professor	Mathematics
177	Matt Wawersik	Associate Professor	Biology
178	Robert Hicks	Professor	Economics
179	Ryan Vinroot	Professor	Mathematics
180	Bella Ginzbursky-Blum	Senior Lecturer	Modern Languages & Literatures
181	Alan C. Braddock	Ralph H. Wark Associate Professor	Art & Art History
182	Philip Roessler	Associate Professor	Government
183	Paul Manna	Hyman Professor of Government & Director of Public Policy	Government Department & Public Policy Program
184	Harmony Dalgleish	Associate Professor	Biology
185	Gayle Murchison	Associate Professor	Music
186	Sophia Serghi	Professor of Music	Music
187	Sarah Day	Professor	Mathematics and CAMS
188	Ariel BenYishay	Associate Professor	Economics
189	Michael Daise	Judaic Studies Professor	Religious Studies
190	C. Lawrence Evans	Newton Family Professor	Government
191	Margaret Saha	Chancellor Professor	Biology
192	GuanNan Wang	Associate Professor	Mathematics & CAMS
193	Talbot Taylor	Cooley Professor	English/Linguistics
194	Jennifer Gully	Senior Lecturer	MLL
195	Robert Leventhal	Professor of German Studies, Emeritus	MLL
196	John Poutsma	Professor	Chemistry
197	Ulrich Rittmann	German International Fellow	MLL
198	Michael Deschenes	Chancellor Professor of Kinesiology	Dept of Kinesiology
199	Megan Tschannen-Moran	Professor	Educational Leadership
200	David E. Kranbuehl	Emeritus Professor	Chemistry
201	Robert J. Scholnick	Professor Emeritus	English and American Studies
202	Susan Grover	Professor Emerita	Law
203	Joshua Gert	Leslie and Naomi Legum Professor	Philosophy
204	John Eisele	Associate Professor	Modern Languages and Literatures
205	M. Drew LaMar	Associate Professor	Biology
206	Cynthia V. Ward	Professor	Law School
207	Susan V. Webster	Professor Emerita	Art History and American Studies
208	Alan Wallach	Professor Emeritus	Art and Art History/American Studies
209	Ronald B. Rapoport	John Marshall Professor Emeritus	Government
210	William D Barnes	Professor Emeritus	Art and Art History
211	Ed Pease	Senior Lecturer, Emeritus	Art & Art History
212	Miles Chappell	Chancellor Professor of Art & Art History Emeritus	Department of Art & Art History
213	Dana Lashley	Senior Lecturer	Chemistry
214	Kelcie Foss	2022 Alumni	Neuroscience
215	Holly Barbaccia	Alumna, class of 1995	English
216	Kyle Lopez	Alumnus, Class of 2017	English & Interdisciplinary Studies
217	Georgia L Irby	Professor	Classical Studies
218	Patricia Wesp	Professor emerita	Theater, Speech, and Dance
219	Paul Davies	Professor	Philosophy