On April 14, Derek Peterson was elected the 2025-26 chair of the nine-member Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, as well as the 77-member Senate Assembly and the Faculty Senate.
His term began May 1 and will continue through April 30, 2026.
The Faculty Senate includes all tenure-track professorial faculty, librarians, research faculty, clinical professors, lecturers, archivists, curators, executive officers and deans.
Peterson, Ali Mazrui Collegiate Professor of History and African Studies, associate chair of the Department of History, and professor of Afroamerican and African studies in LSA, has taught at the University of Michigan since 2009.
He’s a historian of eastern Africa and author of a new book titled “A Popular History of Idi Amin’s Uganda,” published earlier this summer. He was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2017, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust.
Peterson provided the following answers to questions about topics that the central faculty governance system will address this year, as well as its role in the university’s decision-making process.
What topics or issues will SACUA prioritize this year?
First: the search for a new university president. We in the faculty government have made it clear that we want to be directly involved in the search process. We have not been given a seat on the search committee. Nonetheless, we look forward to working with the regents in identifying a strong candidate who will lead us forward.
Second: freedom of inquiry. Like most everyone here at Michigan, we are alarmed at the Trump government’s intrusion into the intellectual and organizational life of our universities. In the coming year, we’ll work to buttress and expand space for dissent. We’re putting together a series of eight free-speech events on the Diag, where faculty, staff and students will be given the opportunity to argue over some of the most pressing and controversial matters confronting the institution.
Third: research funding. We’ll be working with the administration to dramatize the stakes in the shrinkage of federal funding for scientific and medical research. I am alarmed that for many colleagues, whole lines of scientific and humanistic inquiry have been summarily taken off the table, and in the coming year, faculty government will put together events that call the public’s attention to the consequences of these changes.
What challenges do you foresee for SACUA and central faculty governance?
There are serious pressures on faculty government to pull back from advocacy around racial and social justice and to adopt a narrowly technical approach. A few weeks ago I sent a newsletter to the Faculty Senate, advocating for the rights of pro-Palestinian student protestors who are, in my view, being treated unwisely by our university’s administration. In the wake of my email opinionated people sent thousands of emails — generated from a form letter on the internet — accusing me of anti-Semitism. At last count upper administrators had received 2,588 emails along these lines. It is hard to know what effect this and other instances of internet-based activism have upon those who make decisions at our university.
It is clear, though, that the basic principles that uphold high education in this country — the right to free speech, the pursuit of justice and truth — are under assault. All of this places profound pressures on faculty government, and makes it hard for us, as individuals and as a collective, to act as we ought: as arbiters of the university’s public culture, as defenders of liberal education.
That is why we have recently formed a Protections for Faculty Working Group, which will work with the provost to identify and develop mechanisms to protect faculty who are facing doxxing and other forms of internet-based harassment.
What does SACUA do well now, and what are areas that need improvement?
What we need — more than anything — is the recognition and respect of our university’s leaders. Faculty government has no power other than to represent the interests of the faculty to administration (who are the ones who actually hold power). We don’t make policy, we don’t make appointments, our budget is small.
Our role is to make representations on behalf of the faculty. That means — among other things — that we are obliged to take positions. It is not our place to be neutral about matters which affect the running of our university.
We are meant to persuade those who do hold substantive power to adopt a view that accords with the faculty’s interest. We hope that the administration will deal with us in good faith.
How do you view SACUA’s role in developing and guiding university policy, and what is your plan for conveying faculty voices to decision-makers?
Over the past 12 months the University Senate — that is, the whole body of the faculty — has made their sentiments known about a whole range of important matters. We want the university to respect the rights of our students, and we want to be involved — as we have historically have been — in adjudicating student discipline.
We want the university to take gender-based violence far more seriously. We are not pleased about the summary closure of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and we want the university to continue to pursue DEI programs that are consonant with the law. We want the university to protect our international students, staff, and faculty.
We want the university to join a Mutual Defense Compact to ensure that we and other Big Ten universities act in concert to defend our shared interests. In the coming year SACUA will pursue these broad principles, working with our administration to ensure that faculty objectives are at the core of what we do.
My early interactions with President Grasso and individual members of the Board of Regents have been positive and affirming, and I hope to be able to move forward with them in a spirit of shared endeavor.
How has expanding faculty governance to include clinical professors, archivists, curators and lecturers changed the focus or conduct of central faculty governance?
It seems to me that the expansion of the Faculty Senate was guided by Providence, for it came just in time. Having clinical faculty as part of the structure of faculty governance makes it clearer what we all share, and what we all must therefore rise now to defend.
Many of the newly empowered clinical faculty are based at the Medical School, and it is particularly excellent therefore that the new SACUA vice chair is Dr. Soumya Rangarajan, a clinical geriatrician.
Clinical faculty are feeling — even more than tenure-track faculty — the pressures around federal funding that we all face; and having them directly engaged in faculty government allows us to form a common front.
How do you plan to engage more people in faculty governance?
We’re in a stronger position than we have been in recent memory. At the most recent meeting of the Faculty Senate more than 3,000 members of the faculty cast votes. That is far more U-M faculty than have ever before voted in a faculty government election.
In faculty government as in other areas of public life people are looking for leadership that will define and defend the values for which we have historically stood. It is our job in SACUA to give force and direction to the objectives that the Senate have set out. That is how mandates work.
Building solidarity among faculty across disciplinary, political, and organizational lines is not easy. U-M is a huge place, and it is sometimes hard to see what we share. We’re putting together a series of half-day faculty work retreats — including one on North Campus — which are meant to help colleagues get to know other colleagues in a relaxed and convivial environment.
There’s the Innovate Brew program, which links up faculty on a one-to-one basis. And there are mixers, public lectures, and other such events.
I see faculty government — among other things — as arbiters of the public square: it is our role to help us build connections and reinforce solidarity, so better to act together to protect our institution.
Anne Pitcher
Thank you to the SACUA Chair for eloquently expressing the concerns that many faculty share regarding …greater involvement in university governance including the selection of the next President, the free expression of ideas on campus, and protection of students’ right, and the precipitous decline of federal funding for cutting edge research. His statement demonstrates both courage and integrity.