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Board of trustees co-chairs back Shafik in response to Washington Post article on University leadership

The article described a decision-making process at the University that “became centralized and shrouded even to high-level administrators as the crisis intensified.”

By Gabriella Gregor Splaver / Senior Staff Photographer
The board had previously backed Shafik in a public April 24 statement, expressing support for the president “as she steers the university through this extraordinarily challenging time.”
By Shea Vance • May 18, 2024 at 1:59 AM

Board of trustees co-chairs Claire Shipman, CC ’86, SIPA ’94, and David Greenwald, Law ’83, issued a Wednesday response in the Washington Post supporting Shafik after a recent article in the publication that investigated the decision-making process at the University throughout the past several weeks.

The article, titled “‘Bunker mentality’ at Columbia lit protest spark that spread nationwide,” reported on how “decision-making at Columbia became increasingly centralized and shrouded even to high-level university officials as the crisis intensified,” according to interviews with administrators, trustees, and donors. At least two University trustees spoke to the Post anonymously.

Shipman and Greenwald wrote that they “do not recognize the version of events and decision-making at Columbia University depicted” in the article, which appeared on the paper’s front page in the Sunday edition. The article reads that several trustees “supported Shafik’s move to call police onto campus, but some did not, according to a person familiar with those deliberations.”

A trustee told the Post that “Shafik listens patiently and seeks consensus but is a decisive leader who understood that the decision was ultimately hers,” according to the report.

“One of the principal reasons we hired Minouche Shafik as president is because a hallmark of her leadership style, in every organization she has run, is collaborative decision-making,” Shipman and Greenwald wrote. “She consults, she listens and she shares responsibility. Her leadership style at Columbia has been just that. She relies on a council of deans, a university leadership team and her board, all of which are consulted regularly and were consulted throughout this crisis. We have witnessed this over and over.”

Shafik has faced criticism for her handling of the University Senate consultation process in her decisions to authorize the April 18 and April 30 police sweeps of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and occupied Hamilton Hall, respectively, across which the New York Police Department made over 200 arrests.

Shafik consulted the University Senate’s executive committee—pursuant to Section 444f of the University Statutes—prior to her authorization of the April 18 sweep, but the committee “unequivocally” disagreed with the decision, Jeanine D’Armiento, chair of the executive committee, told Spectator in April. Shafik proceeded to authorize the NYPD to enter campus.

Shafik did not consult the committee prior to the April 30 sweep, according to James Applegate, professor of astronomy and member of the executive committee.

“No organization of our size runs based upon the agreement of every member, but Ms. Shafik listened and consulted broadly in recent weeks, holding multiple meetings with trustees, deans, faculty and students and made tough decisions based on that consensus,” Shipman and Greenwald wrote. “Leadership in a crisis is a burden, and it’s one she has borne with great wisdom and moral clarity. She is trying to navigate a path that is in the best interests of the institution and all those who love it. It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that in a time of crisis, the voices of critics tend to be the loudest.”


The board had previously backed Shafik in a public April 24 statement, expressing support for the president “as she steers the university through this extraordinarily challenging time.”

“The board supports her leadership and feels she is the best leader for Columbia,” the co-chairs concluded in their Wednesday response.

The statement came one day before the Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced the passage of a vote of no confidence in Shafik with 65 percent of participating faculty in favor. The motion was brought to the body by the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

University News Editor Shea Vance can be contacted at shea.vance@columbiaspectator.com. Follow her on X @SheaVance22.

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