We call upon WashU leadership to protect our students, staff, and faculty by committing to non-cooperation with ICE beyond the legal requirements of judicial warrants. 

On Friday, Biomedical Engineering (BME) professor Dennis Barbour sat down with Student Life for an interview about his role as Chair of the Faculty Senate Council (FSC). Barbour first became the chair in 2023 and will step down at the end of this year because he is going on academic leave next year.

Those of us whose relationships to power are more contingent, more conditional should wield those tools at our own risk or, perhaps, not at all. Instead, we should model for our students what it looks like to destabilize the truth claims made by those in positions of power — with deep respect, but rigorously.

I can only imagine the fear young Jewish college students felt when they were abruptly shaken from their studies to such violent chanting by unknown strangers who had descended upon their campus.

We look forward to getting back to business, but not business as usual. After a 65-year-old man was nearly beaten to death by WUPD cops, after a hundred of us were violently arrested at a peaceful protest on our own front lawn, after the Board of Trustees has made clear it will not respect the will of student and faculty democracy, there can be no more business as usual.

But it appears even with positive reviews and evaluations from students, strong teaching-track faculty can be let go without any clear rhyme or reason. We call on the University to extend a new contract to Dr. R and all other well-deserving TRaP faculty who are foundational to the excellent education that Washington University provides.

We must protect the value universities offer as spaces for mobilizing against injustice and critiquing ongoing forms of oppression. 

The University’s College of Arts & Sciences has hired 55 new professors for the upcoming academic year, an unprecedentedly large number of faculty compared to previous years. 

On April 19, over 100 members of the Arts & Sciences community gathered in Umrath Lounge for the Arts & Sciences Council’s annual Faculty and Staff Award Ceremony.

Here is my point: such a facility should not only be available and free to employees, there should be incentives in place to encourage its regular use. A healthy workforce is in the University’s best interest.