GPSG and GSAs Join IGWC in Voting No Confidence in IU Admin

THE GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENT GOVERNMENT VOTES NO CONFIDENCE IN IU PRESIDENT WHITTEN, JOINS THE INDIANA GRADUATE WORKERS COALITION AND EIGHT GRADUATE STUDENT ASSOCIATIONS IN EXPRESSING NO CONFIDENCE IN INDIANA UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.—On Friday, March 1, the Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG), the representative body of approximately 10,000 graduate students at the Indiana University Bloomington campus, held a unanimous vote of no confidence in the administration of President Pamela Whitten. The GPSG resolution faults the Whitten administration for violations of shared governance, a lack of transparency, and a failure to address the living and working conditions of graduate students. The resolution calls on other organizations and associations to initiate votes of no confidence in the administration.

Katharina Schmid-Schmidsfelden, a GPSG representative for the Department of Germanic Studies, presented the resolution at Friday’s vote. Schmid-Schmidsfelden criticized Whitten’s administration for its failure to listen to graduate workers and its role in cultivating an unproductive atmosphere. 

“President Whitten’s administration repeatedly refused to engage in collegial dialogue on topics including the graduate workers’ union or even meet with the chosen representatives of the majority of graduate employees,” Schmid-Schmidsfelden said. “Undermining these values of academic freedom and shared governance has produced a tense campus climate and cultivated a culture of strike as opposed to conversation.” 

The GPSG joins the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition, which voted no confidence in Whitten at its last general assembly on February 5, 2024. That vote was also unanimous.

Since then, the GPSG and eight graduate student associations (GSAs) have passed votes of no confidence. GSAs represent students in many departments where they address student concerns and organize events to elevate the department’s academic culture. Departments that have passed no confidence resolutions include History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine, Germanic Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology, History, the Media School, Political Science, and Philosophy. 

Citing the administration’s contempt for graduate students, Sam Smucker, Chair of the Media School Graduate Association, explained why his department voted no confidence in President Whitten. 

“Graduate students on our campus have lost all confidence in this administration,” Smucker said. “Their disdain for the opinions of faculty and graduate students is palpable. The recent attack on tenure, the backbone of academic freedom, should have resulted in a considerable mobilization of resources at all levels to stop it.The minimal response from the administration is alarming to us all.”

Echoing Smucker, the Co-President of the Political Science Graduate Student Association Jonathan Aker calls attention to Whitten’s disregard for graduate workers and emphasizes the gravity of her failures as the leader of the institution.  

“There is an urgent need to stand up against President Whitten’s hostility to collective bargaining and academic freedom,” Aker said. “By suspending Professor Abdulkader Sinno on trumped-up charges, her administration threatens the shared governance principles core to Indiana University and caused significant setbacks for many students in our department. Her hostility toward graduate worker unionization undermines the success of graduate students in the political science department.”

Zara Anwarzai, a member of the Graduate Association of Students in Philosophy, stressed that President Whitten and her administration have deviated from core university values. Anwarzaiencourages other university organizations to vote no confidence in President Whitten.

“We passed this vote because the graduate workers in the Philosophy Department are committed to promoting the educational mission of IU,” Anwarzai said. “We need university leadership who prioritize the principles that make that mission possible, like democracy, dignity, and freedom. We are proud to follow other bodies on campus who have made a stand, and we hope others will follow suit to show that there is widespread care for our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions.”

Department resolutions cite concerns for academic freedom, the refusal to allow a vote for unionization for graduate employees, and the mishandling of the Kinsey Institute. You can view the votes of no confidence by each GSA here. 

More than 10 additional GSAs around the university are planning votes of no confidence. 

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Comments from Other GSA Leaders on Departmental Votes of No Confidence

“We believe that Pamela Whitten's administration has been structurally damaging to IU. While we are understandably concerned about her administration's effect on graduate education and representation, we are also extremely supportive of faculty authority, representation, and freedom at IU. The faculty suppression which has resulted from her administration is unacceptable.” — Matthew Rodriguez, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine. 

“As a union and as grad students, we’re invested in the health of the university. Not only has President Whitten neglected to respond to the thousands of graduate students demanding union recognition, but in the last several months, we’ve seen several instances of her administration’s failure to practice shared governance. This administration is unable to engage in critique from students, the community, and faculty. We aren’t only concerned about her negligence toward graduate students but also other members of our university community. A vote of no confidence recognizes that these are not singular events but a pattern of poor administration that must be addressed.” — Moriah Reichert, Department of Religious Studies.

“We should vote no confidence in Whitten as graduate students for multiple reasons. Whitten’s actions have been very clear about her intentions for the university moving forward. The university will not be a space for free speech, not when it comes from anything from Palestinian genocide to American abortion rights. There will be no right to fair representation as she refuses to acknowledge the IGWC. Not even tenure offers the protection it has in the past. This is not an academic space I feel safe to teach or conduct my research in as a sociologist. We need to be able to protest genocide, we need to be able to organize, we need to be able to demand better of our university and maintain job security. We are strongest when our voices are heard together, I encourage other graduate students to vote no confidence in Whitten. ” — Anjali Biswas, Department of Sociology.