By The New York Times (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-25 18:08:18 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:30:21
4 days ago
U.S.|Brandeis President Steps Down Amid Budget Issues and Protests
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/us/brandeis-university-president-resigns.html
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The university has seen major drops in enrollment, even as the president invited students concerned about protests and antisemitism on other campuses to transfer.
Sept. 25, 2024, 1:55 p.m. ET
Brandeis University said on Wednesday that its president of eight years, Ronald D. Liebowitz, will step down. The announcement by the university’s board of trustees followed a vote of no confidence in Dr. Liebowitz by the faculty senate, which accused him of “damaging errors in judgment and poor leadership.”
In taking the vote, members of the faculty had cited budget and fund-raising shortfalls as well as what they viewed as an overreaction to pro-Palestinian student activists last year. Enrollment at the university had declined by about 9 percent in the past five years.
The faculty vote was adopted last week by a margin of only 10 votes, 159-149, and publicized on Tuesday, calling on the university’s board of trustees to “act.” On Wednesday morning, the trustees announced the resignation of Dr. Liebowitz, effective Nov. 1.
His departure marks at least the fifth major university president who has stepped down due, at least in part, to campus conflict over the war in Gaza.
Brandeis, a historically Jewish university in Waltham, Mass., was founded at a time when elite universities discriminated against Jewish applicants. The university, with a total enrollment of about 5,500 students, regards itself as secular, but the student body remains about one-third Jewish. It is also one of the smallest research universities and is known for its low faculty-to-student ratio.
Last fall, as protests over the Israel-Hamas war appeared on college campuses around the country, Brandeis cut ties with the campus chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine. A pro-Palestinian demonstration also led to the arrests of seven people last fall, a surprising development on a campus known for its vibrant history of campus dissent.
