Emory University President Gregory Fenves is no stranger to controversy.
As the face of Emory, Fenves’ name is often on the line when something goes wrong on campus. This came to fruition last spring when Fenves decided to end a pro-Palestinian encampment on April 25, which resulted in law enforcement officers arresting 28 protesters. Fenves has faced a large wave of backlash in the past five months, prompting Emory community members to call for his resignation and vote no confidence in his ability to fulfill his role.
Despite his noteworthiness, most students will graduate without getting the chance to meet the president. The Emory Wheel sat down with Fenves to ask him the questions on students’ minds, including his perspective on the protest arrests and the upcoming presidential election.
Fenves, who students mainly know through heavily edited University communications emails, was prepared to answer certain questions, mentioning early in the interview that he expected us to ask him about open expression. He deflected a question on whether he believes charges should be dropped against protestors arrested during the April 25 encampment.
When asked if he would leave his role, Fenves did not hesitate: “No, I’m not considering resigning.”
However, as we sat together in his office on the second floor of Convocation Hall, Fenves also shared glimpses of his life outside Emory. He discussed mornings starting at 5 a.m. every day and evenings with his wife, away from the stress of his job. Hailing from a family of academics, Fenves is the only one in an administrative role.
“Both my brother and my father don't understand where I went wrong,” Fenves said. “Why did I stop being an active professor every day, to take on leadership roles? They don't understand.”
Below is a record of our conversation.
The Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.
TEW: This is your fifth year at Emory. Are there any specific goals you had coming in that you think you have achieved in the past few years?
Fenves: One of the things I noticed about Emory coming in … was that for a private institution that's very selective, … the retention and graduation rates for Emory were low compared to peer universities. … An important factor in looking for the next leadership which we have with our deans is, ‘How do we support students in staying at Emory and graduating from Emory?’ So I think we've made a lot of progress in that area. … Our first-year retention went from … 93% to 95, almost 96%, but those are real students who come down and don't stay the first year. … Our graduation rates have improved. That's important for students, and it's important for the institution.
TEW: Do you ever regret going from teaching into a more administrative role?
Fenves: No, I do not regret it because universities are so important to society. I loved being a teacher. I was an active researcher for more than two decades. I accomplished a lot, and I keep in touch with my students and former students. … It was an important part of my academic career, but maintaining what we do as an institution and research, the mission service is just so important. I feel I'm accomplishing as much, if not more … than my more than two decades as an active teacher.
TEW: You came from the University of Texas at Austin, and you were there during the 2016 election. This is your second election year in another politically contentious state. How does Georgia compare? How does Emory compare? How do the elections feel different between these two locations?
Fenves: The University doesn't take a stand on any election, any candidate or any particular issue. But I think all universities … we want, especially students, to be civically engaged and actively involved. And I'm very proud of what we're doing at Emory with the Emory Votes Initiative to make sure students have information or are educated about the issues, about the election process and how to vote and where to vote. And one of the things that I did learn from University of Texas is the importance of an on-campus polling site. … We’re so pleased that we have a site on campus at 1599 Clifton. My wife and I voted on Election Day in the 2022 cycle, and it was about over an hour wait to vote. It was so popular. To me, that was a community experience, talking to folks that are committed to our democracy and having their voice heard through their ballot.
TEW: Which political or social justice issues do you choose to speak on? You’ve put out statements on rhetoric during a protest and on Black Lives Matter. How do you decide when to put out a statement versus when to follow the rules of nonpartisanship?
Fenves: I have spoken out on affirmative action and the importance of it for our educational mission. … We're obligated to follow the law, and we do follow the law, but … when the Supreme Court issued that ruling a little over a year ago, I felt an obligation to speak because it's core to the mission. … In general, the concept is, the University speaks on issues that are important to the mission. … We have very broad open expression. ... But just because something can be said, doesn't mean it should be said, and part of our role as an institution is the education of how we work together as a community and the impacts of language on a community. But we also have an obligation to be an environment that's free of harassment and discrimination, and so those are all judgment calls about when and how to speak to the community. It's very hard to reduce it to a policy … on when to speak or when not to speak.
TEW: We've reported on both instances of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. We're curious about what you think about the presence of this on campus, and how you approach mitigating those issues well.
Fenves: Hateful speech is just unacceptable. … While hateful speech may be protected under free speech and under open expression, that doesn't mean it's a speech that should be spoken. It again is an educational environment that hateful speech does have impacts on people. How we balance the free speech rights, open expression rights, with having a community that can debate [and] discuss difficult issues is the challenge that society faces, and we should try to model that behavior at the University.
TEW: Last semester, there was an encampment that was shut down. When do you decide when to foster dialogue and when to prevent the dialogue from happening?
Fenves: In general, we should always try to foster dialogue. And I've spoken publicly about encampments. I don't think encampments help dialogue. Encampments say ‘This piece of the University is mine,’ from my point of view. And as I've spoken also, encampments have a safety concern.
TEW: The April 25 protest is still a discussion among students and faculty members. People are talking to us about expression, policy and treatment of student protesters continuing on campus, months later. Several were arrested during the protest. Do you regret any of the decisions that you and the administration made that day? Would you do it again if there was an encampment on the Quadrangle today?
Fenves: I didn't want the events of last spring to take place. Nobody at Emory wanted those to take place. But there was a concern — and it wasn't just my concern — about safety. Seeing the experience at other universities, the encampments can go on for an indefinite period of time. They do present safety issues. They have caused issues related to harassment and discrimination, and the practice at Emory is not to allow them on campus. So that was the decision I made, and I don't want to repeat it, and I hope we don’t repeat it at Emory.
TEW: What were the safety issues presented by the encampment on April 25?
Fenves: Tents and encampments can be problems because you don't know who's in it, you don’t know what’s in it. I want to remind the campus community that that week had begun with an unprecedented level of vandalism to buildings with materials that [the Emory Police Department] had recovered. We had concerns about the safety that week that the encampment was later established.
TEW: Following that, students voted they have no confidence in your role as president, and some have called you to resign, recently, during a University Senate meeting. Have you ever considered resigning?
Fenves: No, I'm not considering resigning.
TEW: How do you cope emotionally with students and faculty opposing your decision-making?
Fenves: My wife might be able to answer. Part of it is understanding it’s part of the role, it’s part of the job [and] recognizing that any decision is going to make some people happy and make some people unhappy. It's not a counting exercise. It's trying to ground a decision in what's best for the University. … But when I go home, I like to catch up with my wife, catch up with my kids and grandkids and try to have some boundaries.
TEW: I know there was a task force looking to revise the Respect for Open Expression Policy now, and we recently had the addition of officially prohibiting encampments. What do you hope to see from future revisions, if any, for the Open Expression Policy?
Fenves: Last year, the University Senate started a process to look at the open expression policy. The open expression policy is posted, was modified in 2018, but the last time the Senate voted on an open expression policy was 2015. Every policy, especially ones as important as open expression, will need a periodic review if necessary, with the Senate making recommendations for updating it. So they started a process at the end of last semester that was supposed to take place over the summer, and — for reasons that I'm not able to speak to — there was no outcome from that process. And as we were beginning this current academic year, because of the events of last year, I felt it was important for campus safety to codify what has been longstanding practice of prohibiting encampments and occupation of buildings. I understand why many people were upset that I did that without consultation, but I'd like to point out what was on the agenda for the University Senate committee over the summer, which did not take place. I'm very pleased that the current Senate leadership, with President of the Senate George Shepherd, is now starting a process for this semester to look at revisions of the open expression policy. I fully expect and encourage that that includes what is now part of a policy on prohibiting encampments, camping and building occupation.
TEW: A lot of people have been calling for you to drop charges for the students and other protesters who were arrested on April 25. Is that something you're considering doing? What's the status of that process?
Fenves: It's now in the Office of the Solicitor for DeKalb County to make a determination … about whether to continue with the charges. So my position is that we're going to let the solicitor go through that, complete that process and make the decision.
TEW: Being here on April 25 and seeing what you saw, do you think the charges should be dropped?
Fenves: That's a decision for the solicitor.
TEW: You don't have any pull over it?
Fenves: No, it's in the solicitor.
TEW: So, when people call for you to drop the charges, that's not an actual thing that you can do?
Fenves: We don't make the decision. That's a decision by the solicitor.
TEW: A lot of people are concerned about the mental health status at Emory, especially at Oxford College. There's a belief that there's a higher suicide rate there. What are your thoughts on that? What steps are you and the administration taking to address that concern?
Fenves: We're deeply concerned about student well-being and student mental health. … It became clear at Emory, especially coming out of COVID, that we needed to address … mental health. And that was the reason we created a new position that Dr. James Raper is now leading, where we're integrating and coordinating all the student well-being services, including camps and student health, and creating a new position on student well-being that was recently announced. We want to make sure students have access to the information, they know where to go to get help if they feel that they need it. There shouldn't be a stigma attached to it. And our goal … is that every student can get the help that they need and through a system of tiered support services.
TEW: You've been here for going on five years. What are your future goals for Emory?
Fenves: Eight out of our nine deans at Emory are new. … My goal now is to make sure our deans, and especially the relatively new ones, are getting the support that they need from the provost office, the president's office and the University, to develop their strategies and develop their goals.
TEW: What are your goals or plans to lead Emory through this eventful semester?
Fenves: My goals for leading Emory through these next couple months is to make sure that we have our policies in place. One of the reasons I issued the addendum is to make sure that we're communicating with all members of the community, especially with students working through campus life and the dean of students, to make sure that students are having the information and getting the support. Student well-being is something at the top of our attention, and then working through the governance body of the University Senate, we're keeping open lines of communication.
TEW: If students have any concerns that they want to share with you, what's the best way they can do that?
Fenves: Students can always email president@emory.edu. I get lots of emails, and that's the importance of the student governance organizations. We're gonna have some additional meetings with the SGA leadership [and] graduate SGA leadership.
TEW: You're a public figure on this campus, and at the end of the day, most students never meet you. Is there anything you want to tell the students as president?
Fenves: I am so proud of Emory students. … Emory students have this just special combination of ambition and heart. They're ambitious for their own personal goals. They have a sense that they have a purpose in life that really has a heart in the middle of it. So I've just been so impressed with Emory students.
