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Knives of March: Faculty vote targets NYU president

Beware the Ides of March, Mr. Sexton.

NYU President John Sexton, facing a no-confidence vote this week by the faculty at the university’s largest schools, is behaving like a Roman emperor as he mounts an aggressive growth plan, his critics said.

The weeklong vote will conclude tomorrow, March 15 — the calendar date when Julius Caesar was famously stabbed to death by his enemies.

“Everything bad that’s going on in academia these days, at NYU it’s on steroids,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies who has helped organize the uprising.

While NYU’s student financial aid is ranked among the worst in the nation, critics blast Sexton for pushing a 20-year expansion project in Greenwich Village that’s seen costing billions.

Some faculty likewise claim that Sexton has pressured them to teach classes overseas at the fast-growing “Global University,” which has opened campuses in cash-laden but autocratic venues like Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

“NYU is the most aggressive corporatizer of this whole experience,” according to Miller, who noted that Sexton’s $1.5 million salary is among the highest in the nation, even as faculty wages stagnate and tuition costs spiral.

Sexton’s backers, which include the university’s board of trustees, point out the former law professor has successfully raised billions of dollars to fund his initiatives. They argue the president’s growth plan is a must as rival schools pursue their own expansions.

“The trustees strongly and unanimously support John,” Chairman Martin Lipton said in a statement this week. “We are mindful of the concerns held by some faculty, but the trustees see a thriving, advancing university.”

Sexton himself issued a diplomatic statement, saying, “It is important to listen to those who criticize you because they tend to point out the opportunities for growth and improvement.”

While the vote is non-binding, similar votes at other universities have sparked high-profile departures, including that of Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary who was ousted from Harvard in 2006.