BREAKING: Tisch Faculty Vote No Confidence In NYU President John Sexton

By Zoë Schlanger

After some deliberation, the faculty of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts voted no confidence in President John Sexton’s leadership this week. The results of the electronic poll were tallied Tuesday morning. Of the 169 professors who voted, 93, or 55%, voted in agreement of the following statement:

“I, as a member of the full-time faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts, have no confidence in the leadership of the Sexton Administration.”

An image of the results of the electronic poll are below.

Seventy-six, or about 44% of the voting faculty, voted in disagreement with that statement. Sixteen faculty abstained from the vote.

This vote of no confidence comes on the heels of several others: the College of Arts and Science faculty began the wave of votes, passing a motion of no confidence in March (the anti-Sexton faculty celebrated after). Gallatin faculty voted no confidence in President Sexton earlier this month, and Steinhardt did the same a few days later. The results of the Silver School of Social Work’s no-confidence vote are expected in the upcoming days.

Martin Lipton, the chair of NYU’s board of trustees, issued this statement of support for President Sexton following Tisch’s vote.

“The Board of Trustees fully supports John Sexton; has confidence in his leadership; and believes that the strategic course he has set for the University will benefit NYU and all its schools, very much including the Tisch School of the Arts.

Past, as they say, is prologue. During John Sexton’s presidency and with support from his administration, Tisch has thrived. It has established important and distinctive new programs and been able to recruit and retain outstanding faculty. Under John, Tisch’s pressing space needs — which must be addressed to keep its programs at their current level of excellence — will be answered with tens of millions of dollars of University resources.

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For all these reasons, the Board finds today’s vote by the Tisch faculty disappointing. It is our hope that in the aftermath of the vote, the focus will return once again to sustaining NYU’s academic momentum and continuing the school’s drive for artistic and academic excellence.”

We’ve reached out to Tisch Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell, and we’ll update you as we hear more.