CPS Faculty Member Challenges Higher Ed to Rethink Who’s in Charge
As federal pressure on universities intensifies, a fundamental question is coming into focus: when a crisis hits, who is actually accountable?
Ron Liebowitz, visiting research professor at the College of Professional Studies and president emeritus of both Brandeis University and Middlebury College, takes that question head-on in a new op-ed published this week in Inside Higher Ed. Drawing on decades of leadership experience, Liebowitz argues that the current moment — marked by funding freezes, Title VI enforcement actions, and direct pressure on institutions like Harvard — has exposed a structural weakness hiding in plain sight: shared governance models that diffuse authority so broadly that no one can be held responsible for outcomes.
His argument is not a case against faculty participation or academic freedom. It’s a call for realigning authority with accountability — and for universities to govern themselves before reform is imposed from the outside.
Read “Rethinking Shared Governance” in Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2026/05/14/rethinking-shared-governance-opinion
