Over the last four months, Provost Francis Doyle has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the state of the University’s finances. In December, he announced a series of “community actions” that aim to tackle Brown’s 2025 $46 million structural operating deficit. Notably, these actions include reductions in both PhD admissions and staffing, holding growth in unrestricted staff that are not funded by external gifts and grants to “a maximum of 0%.”
Most recently, the provost availed himself of a metaphor: “We’re going to do more with less — whether it’s staff or PhD students. ... We’re navigating some tough waters.” However, if there is anything Brown can “do more with less” of, it is the guidance of a small group of well-compensated administrators who cannot seem to balance a budget despite tremendous advantages in fundraising and endowment performance. In these “tough waters,” a better crew ought to assert itself and take the wheel. What better crew than those of us who work and study here?
President Christina Paxson’s P’19 P’MD’20 recent touting of the success of BrownTogether raises questions about the competency of the administration’s management of Brown’s financial affairs. How is it that a $4.4 billion fundraising campaign has managed to leave the administration in a place where it demands that workers “do more with less”? The market value of Brown’s endowment has risen more than 70% since 2019. These fiscal resources should benefit those who actively support the University’s teaching and research mission. Instead, the University spent $150 million on a rebranding deal for Brown University Health with one of this year’s most insipid Super Bowl ads
The University needs to start leveraging its endowment to ease its operating deficit. If the administration continues to insist upon cost-cutting, however, they might consider taking a closer look within University Hall. An analysis of Brown’s audited financial statements from 2018 to 2022 found that the fastest growing category of University expenses in that period was institutional support, which includes “central executive-level activities concerned with management.” These expenses saw an increase of 62.9% from 2018 to 2022. By comparison, expenses associated with “instruction and departmental research” rose by a relatively modest 12.5%.
It is true that this year’s operating budget includes an increase of the endowment withdrawal rate from 4.8% to 5.5%, a rate which the provost has deemed “the upper limit of the fiscally responsible range.” However, the now-reached “upper limit” on endowment withdrawal is seemingly self-imposed. Rhode Island law says that the upper limit of responsible endowment expenditure is 7%. That is to say it is in the Corporation’s power to raise the withdrawal rate a further 1.5% without creating an assumption of fiduciary imprudence. Further, if we are in a crisis of such remarkable magnitude, one would expect that the University has grounds to rebut the claim that an annual withdrawal rate greater than 7% would, at least on a short-term basis, be imprudent.
In light of these considerations, workers and students should advocate for inclusion in the budgetary decision-making. The University Resources Committee, charged by the Office of the Provost with “recommending the annual operating and capital budget to the President,” should be reconstituted to better reflect the prerogatives of people who carry out and directly support the work of the University. At present, the number of administrators on the URC is exactly equal to representatives of faculty and students combined. A staff of 3,805 in 2023 were only allocated two seats.
Ultimately, it is the Corporation that sets the University’s budget. Here too there is ample scope for increased student and worker representation. Graduate workers, contingent faculty and staff representatives would undoubtedly bring more recent practical experience with budgeting than the Corporation’s current chancellor, whose personal compensation in his role as the chief executive officer of Bank of America amounted to $35 million last year. Even if Chancellor Brian Moynihan ’81 P’14 P’19 can claim financial expertise, these new representatives could better account for where investment of resources is needed.
Of course, realizing a more democratic vision of the University’s budgeting process will be no easy feat. Among other things, it will require coordination between undergraduate students pushing for real self-governance and organized labor. Staff workers now told they must “do more with less” for a 1% “base” cost of living raise may well decide they prefer to form a union and collectively bargain for better terms, as grad workers have done. If campus workers as a whole come to the conclusion that the administration’s mismanagement of finances is no longer tenable, they may well consider grinding Brown’s operations to a halt as an unfortunate but necessary measure. It may be that they prefer this to the course now charted for them by the provost.
Michael Ziegler GS is the president of labor union Local 6516. He can be reached at michael_ziegler@brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
