Last month, Brown announced the cancellation of ongoing faculty searches amid ongoing federal threats. In the face of a $46 million budget deficit, the University previously announced it would restrict faculty headcount growth to 1%.
Searches were canceled in the Classics, East Asian Studies, History of Art and Architecture, Modern Culture and Media and Urban Studies Departments, according to Dean of the Faculty Leah VanWey.
In interviews with The Herald, faculty and department chairs expressed disappointment about the recent pause on faculty searches.
VanWey explained that the impact of these pauses varies depending on the department.
In some cases, departments were searching for new faculty to fill “a critical teaching need” of the position of a retiring professor when ongoing faculty searches were paused, VanWey wrote. She noted that this was the case in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, which was seeking a scholar in European art history.
The faculty searches being conducted by the East Asian Studies, Urban Studies and Modern Culture and Media Departments were looking to fill instructor roles for courses that had been previously taught by adjunct or visiting faculty, VanWey added.
“In some of these cases, we will continue to offer courses with the adjunct or visiting faculty,” she wrote, “and in others, fewer courses will be available.”
Beverly Bossler, the chair of the East Asian Studies Department, said she was informed on Feb. 24 that the department’s search for a lecturer in Chinese language would have to be paused.
“At the time, we were waiting for approval to bring our short-listed candidates to campus,” Bossler wrote in an email to The Herald. “We are working with the Dean of the Faculty to try to avoid having to limit the core courses being offered next academic year.”
Bossler added that the department was “of course very disappointed to have the search canceled,” but understands the “financial constraints” that the University is currently facing.
In some cases, the searches were not urgent: Some departments hoped to fill positions in specialty areas that “had been open for a number of years so the department had not been teaching in the area for a while,” VanWey wrote. “This was the case in the search in Classics for a scholar of Byzantine Greek.”
Mukesh Jain, senior vice president for health affairs and dean of medicine and biological sciences, said two searches aimed at expanding research programs were paused in the Division of Biology and Medicine.
The searches were being conducted to “expand research programs,” rather than fill open faculty positions, Jain wrote in an email to The Herald.
“The only impact on current students would be a loss of opportunity for undergraduate and graduate student research training in the labs. These faculty would have certainly mentored students at all levels,” he added.
Jain was unsure when the pause would end, but that faculty and department chairs have been “very understanding.”
“I think we all can understand that we have to do our part as a community to sustain our mission of research and teaching as well as ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the University,” Jain wrote.
VanWey emphasized that timing of the cancellations was especially difficult for departments.
“We had to cancel searches that were already well underway, in which people had invested a lot of effort already. In all cases, search committees had reviewed applications. In many cases, they had conducted initial Zoom interviews,” VanWey wrote.
Usually, departments submit proposed searches to their deans in the late spring. The searches are then approved by the dean and provost and launched in the fall of the next academic year.
“This year, we are asking departments to submit their requests in May and anticipate approving searches in July to recruit faculty to start in July 2026,” VanWey wrote. “We don’t yet know how many searches we will approve, but we do not expect to have a complete pause in hiring.”
Samah Hamid is a senior staff writer at the Herald. She is from Sharon, Massachusetts and plans to concentrate in Biology. In her free time, you can find her taking a nap, reading, or baking a sweet treat.
