Editor's note: All opinions, columns and letters reflect the views of the individual writer and not necessarily those of the IDS or its staffers.
In February, the IU Board of Trustees voted to give President Pamela Whitten a contract extension and a raise of nearly $200,000 more per year. The decision ignores the IU community’s overwhelming dissatisfaction with her administration. University leadership’s deafness to our concerns reveals their true commitment to political and business interests.
Whitten’s appointment followed an untransparent process, leading some to question her qualifications for the job. Her tenure, too, has been mired in controversy. Refusing to bargain with the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition resulted in academic disruptions to the spring 2022 and 2024 semesters.
In April 2024, her administration created an apparent pretext to quash the Dunn Meadow encampment. In a targeted, capricious, and sudden move, the administration changed the university’s policy on protesting in Dunn Meadow the night before deploying the Indiana State Police, resulting in the arrest of 57 protesters. The Monroe County Prosecutor labeled the rushed adoption and enforcement of the new policy “constitutionally dubious,” and thus declined to charge the vast majority of arrested protestors. The controversial policy also landed IU a first amendment lawsuit from the Indiana ACLU when the Board of Trustees officially updated the policy.
Weeks before the arrests, faculty added their voice to the chorus of dissent, voting in unprecedented near-unanimity to declare “no-confidence” in her administration and calling for her and other top administrators to resign. In naked defiance of the will of the university community, and without deliberation, the IU Board of Trustees published a statement unequivocally supporting Whitten.
The distance between the administration’s actions and their professed values of transparency, shared governance and free speech creates the impression of an unrepresentative university leadership, unconcerned with public accountability. This distance is owed to a leadership structure designed to be responsive to state and industry politics, not to be democratic.
Pamela Whitten ultimately answers to the IU Board of Trustees, a body bound by political and business pressures. As most trustees are appointed by the Indiana Governor, the board and its president are constrained by the political process. Voters nominally dictate that process, but the influence of corporate funding is often the decisive factor in elections. The better-funded candidate almost always wins in elections, incentivizing those in power to wield it for the benefit of their donors. As one of the largest employers in Indiana, IU is an asset to be leveraged for political gain, and thus corporate gain. The agenda to wield this power is outlined in the university’s long-term strategic plan, IU 2030, which aspires to center IU in an academic-industry ecosystem.
A slew of announced industry partnerships provides a potential explanation for Whitten's support from the Board, as she delivers on stated metrics in the plan. The new IU Launch Accelerator for Biosciences facility at the Indianapolis campus, among other recent industry collaborations, satisfies a few IU 2030 aspirations like expanding “partnerships with business and industry” and the number of “IU graduates hired to Indiana-based industry sectors.” Made possible by a $138 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, the non-profit arm of the Indianapolis-based Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, IU LAB is a leap forward in realizing the IU-industry ecosystem. This fact is made explicit in an official press release and from the mouth of new IU LAB CEO David Rosenberg.
"We really want to be the front-door where academia meets industry, to really have a sandbox for all the incredible assets. It’s really the right time and the right place, the right corridor, where we really can find that next discovery, commercialize that next product, and train the life-science leaders of the future," Rosenberg told Inside Indiana Business.
Comments like Rosenberg’s illustrate that industry partnerships like those from the Lilly Endowment are not charity; they’re investments bearing fruit. Eli Lilly & Co. donated nearly $200,000 to Indiana candidates and committees in 2023 and 2024, both directly and through their PAC. That included a $10,000 donation to Gov. Mike Braun and an additional $25,000 to fund his inauguration. The university-business industrial complex Whitten is realizing offloads the labor of research and development onto undercompensated students while allowing Lilly to “commercialize that next product.” The “partnership” is more of an incestuous relationship in which industry bribes politicians with campaign contributions to have the public subsidize their input costs.
As outrageous as the above dynamic is, the situation is nuanced. These investments will undoubtedly bring economic development and prosperity to Southern Indiana and the entire state. IU 2030 initiatives like IU Innovates and the aforementioned partnerships will bring thousands of high-paying jobs to the region, making the state a more attractive place for affluent professionals to call home. These new, wealthier Hoosiers pay property taxes into our schools and spend money at local businesses, pumping vitality into the state economy.
Economic prosperity and popularly supported university leadership should not be mutually exclusive. It never used to be; while political influence over trustees is not new, past IU presidents were able to oversee unprecedented growth in IU’s reputation and scope while enjoying community support. Herman B Wells ushered in IU’s golden age while navigating a fraught and conservative social climate. History adores Wells for his brave and politically inconvenient actions like the desegregation of campus and supporting Alfred Kinsey’s sexual research. For skirting accountability and caving to political pressure, it’s doubtful that history will be as fond of Whitten.
Eivin Sandstrom (he/him) is a senior studying political science and Spanish.
