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With Chancellor Kent Syverud set to step down after next spring, Syracuse University’s Board of Trustees now faces the task of choosing his successor.

Soon, we’ll welcome a new face of the university, a new narrative for families, donors and alumni. But even if SU is genuinely interested in restoration, looking back at years of disregard for the students’ voices doesn’t make me hopeful at Syverud’s departure – it only makes me relieved.

In the coming weeks, the Board will provide updates regarding the search for Syracuse University’s new chancellor. While the Board presented the transition as an opportunity to reaffirm the SU’s values, their administrative history raises doubt on how genuine this promise will be. Calls for transparency have often been met with carefully crafted campus-wide emails rather than meaningful change.

“That process will reflect our commitment to shared governance and include engagement with and input from faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the University,” said the Board of Trustees Chairman, Jeff Scruggs, in the official school-wide statement.

This may sound promising, but we students must ask whether our next chancellor will really be chosen in regard to the entire student body, faculty and overall community. The last decade of indifference doesn’t inspire much certainty.

Personally, I first questioned the catalyst for Syverud’s retirement: is it merely a change in leadership, or is it a conveniently timed rebranding effort?

After a 2019 wave of peaceful student-led protests exposed the active racism on campus, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York stated he didn’t believe Chancellor Syverud handled investigations “in a way that instills confidence.” With the governor himself publicizing doubts in the university’s leadership, we weren’t given much material to reinspire any other narrative.

“As Chancellor, I take very seriously these immediate priorities, and commit to promptly achieving them, as well as to supporting the other important measures in the responses,” Syverud said in a November 2019 campus-wide email.

During Syverud’s term, SU faced what he called a “rapid succession” of bigoted incidents, from the verbal targeting of a Black female student outside of one of the university’s prominent fraternities to the institution’s handling of a white supremacist manifesto being spread through campus.

Instead of swift and transparent leadership, the administration handled the issues with delay.

When racist graffiti targeting Black and Asian students appeared in residence halls, students said they were discouraged from recording meetings and the university failed to notify the campus community for four days. These delays were dangerous and ignorant, waiting days while students’ safety was compromised only to send a message that protects the school’s image more than them.

“It’s important for all of us to learn from what all of us have been doing so that we can do better the next time,” Syverud said in response. “I say ‘do better the next time’ with caution because, as the students have pointed out, they’ve heard that before.”

But when students attempted to advocate for themselves and others, they were met with direct resistance.

There’ve been countless peaceful protests where accountability was demanded but ignorance resulted instead. The last academic school year has seen SU students standing together to demand a Gaza ceasefire. Similar to schools across the nation, students partook in an encampment to protest for the voice of Palestine.

Initially, the chancellor publicly affirmed students’ right to free speech in a campus-wide email. In the mere few weeks following, the Student Experience Office threatened the peaceful demonstrators with disciplinary charges for refusing to relocate protests just as graduation neared and families prepared to visit campus. The contradiction was clear; student voices were supported only when out of sight.

Having witnessed four of Syverud’s 12 years as chancellor, these instances proved to me his priorities lay in whatever will cause the least amount of effort or best preserve the university image. What he failed to realize was how much his students were, and still are, sacrificing and struggling in the process.

Chancellor Syverud achieved many things during his term, roughly doubling SU endowment to $2 billion, growing student aid, increasing faculty numbers and initiating construction of new dorms.

But I don’t feel his financial endeavors properly address the more emotionally tumultuous issues we face.

The renaming of Manley Field House to Lally Athletic Complex is an example made possible from a $25 million gift commitment in 2019. This was one of the biggest discussion topics, just months after the chancellor addressed the increase in racism on campus. My peers and I have questioned how the renaming of an athletic center has gotten more traction from the chancellor than systemic and institutionalized racism.

These tendencies have left students feeling overlooked and underheard, further reinforcing the perception that our struggles are secondary to institutional politics and financial considerations.

The university declined The Daily Orange’s request for comment.

This is where the doubt in the Board of Trustees arises, a collective group that has often stood behind the chancellor’s decisions.

Will it truly honor its promise of shared governance? Will students be given a seat at the table when choosing the next chancellor, or are their “voices” going to be tokenized while the real decision lies in the hands of the 49 people that compose the Board?

“I encourage each of you to engage fully and thoughtfully with the Board of Trustees as they lead this important search,” Kent said in Tuesday’s message to the Orange community. “Your voices, perspectives, and aspirations for the future are vital to selecting a leader who will build upon our shared accomplishments and guide Syracuse University forward.”

A university’s leadership should reflect the values of the community. If SU truly wants to move forward, the role of the chancellor can’t be treated as a transition with simple passing of the torch.

The school must reckon its past failures, prioritize the safety and dignity of all students and select a leader who not only listens to donors or trustees, but one that accounts for the students whose lives and futures are the ones shaped by these decisions.

The chancellor may be stepping down, but the responsibility for real change has a new vacancy sign.

Saimun Uddin is a graduate student majoring in engineering management. She can be reached at sauddin@syr.edu.

Published on September 3, 2025 at 9:24 pm