DATE: APRIL 2013
TO: THE NYU COMMUNITY
FROM: Martin Lipton, Chair, NYU Board of Trustees

Dear Fellow Members of the NYU Community,

Over the past several months, the NYU community has been engaged in an active conversation about the governance of the university and, specifically, the role of the faculty. As noted in my email a few weeks ago, President Sexton now has encouraged the Board to help identify ways in which we might create better ways for the constituent voices at NYU to be heard.

As Chairman, I will be convening a special Board Committee that will meet with various stakeholders to listen and to seek the best ways forward in the evolution of our processes towards this end. These discussions are envisioned to be forward-looking; we intend to build upon, not supplant, the University Framework approved by the Board in 2008 after extensive consultation with the NYU community, the Faculty Senators Council and the University Senate.

NYU is in a fast-changing educational environment and it is vital that we find ways to act decisively; nonetheless, as we make major strategic decisions, we can benefit from as wide a conversation as possible, so that we can elicit the wisdom of the University's stakeholders. To that end, the Board Committee ultimately will issue a report that suggests improvements regarding NYU's governance.

The Committee will meet with various NYU groups (both school-based and university-wide) that exist to represent the elements of the NYU community. We will begin to set up meetings soon. Of course it is impossible to meet with everyone; therefore, if you have a view or perspective that you wish to share, please email me at mlipton@nyu.edu.

A fair amount of the debate over the past months has centered on differing views of NYU's progress to this point. From my perspective, one of the problems has been the degree of misinformation and lack of specificity in the claims that are made. To help lay the groundwork for this next phase, I am attaching a document that lays out various statistical facts about where the University stands now and how that position has changed over time. You can view this at: www.nyu.edu/nyubythenumbers.

I look forward to this process.

Sincerely,

Martin Lipton