Dive Snapshot:
- Brown University President Christina Paxson, who has led the Ivy League institution since 2012, plans to depart at the end of the 2026-27 academic year, she announced Monday.
- Her contract extension was originally slated to end in June 2028. But she told the university’s governing board that she believed it was the right time for a new leader to step in, according to Brian Moynihan, chancellor of the board, the Corporation of Brown University.
- Paxson has led Brown through tumultuous moments, including the coronavirus pandemic, a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, and federal funding freezes and disruptions.
The impact: Moynihan said Monday that Brown plans to involve Brown’s community in the nationwide search for Paxson’s replacement, who will become the university’s 20th president. The institution is also preparing to begin a strategic planning process for the future — one of the major reasons Paxson is stepping down, according to Moynihan.
“It is her strong belief — and the Corporation and I agreed — that it is the right time to find a new president who will lead this multi-year effort for Brown and be in place to implement their vision for the next generation,” Moynihan wrote.
The average tenure of college presidents has shrunk over roughly the past two decades to 5.9 years, according to a 2023 report from the American Council on Education.
In contrast, Paxson will have served 15 years at the helm of Brown when she steps down. She called that “a significant tenure for any president” in her Monday message.
The background: Although Moynihan praised Paxson, she hasn’t always been popular with undergraduate students, according to annual student polls conducted by the Brown Daily Herald, the student newspaper. Her rating hit its highest recorded level in fall 2017, when 62% of surveyed undergraduates said they either approved or strongly approved of Paxson.
Brown had launched an initiative that semester to eliminate loans from financial aid packages for undergraduate students beginning with the 2018-19 academic year. Moynihan lauded that effort Monday, along with other affordability measures, such as eliminating tuition for families earning $125,000 or under in 2021.
But Paxson’s approval rating sank deeply, to 16%, by spring 2024.
That academic year, protests erupted across the nation over the Israel-Hamas war. At Brown, students erected an encampment to call on university leaders to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Brown’s leaders agreed to consider a divestment proposal to end the encampment, though the university’s governing board ultimately rejected the plan in October 2024.
The next year, the Trump administration reportedly planned to suspend over $500 million of Brown’s federal research funding over allegations related to campus antisemitism. Paxson agreed in May 2025 to extend her contract past the previous end date of June 2026 to help the university navigate the funding freeze, she said in a letter to the campus community Monday.
Brown ultimately struck a deal to restore its federal research funding access, including agreeing to pay $50 million to workforce development programs in Rhode Island and provide the Trump administration with detailed admissions data, among other measures.
Her most recent approval rating, in spring 2026, jumped back up to nearly 38%, according to the Herald.
“While the federal landscape remains volatile for all colleges and universities, Brown is receiving major grants for pioneering research that will lead to tremendous innovation for this country,” Paxson said in her Monday letter to the Brown community.
What we’re watching: The job of college president has grown more complex in recent years, with leaders having to navigate a politically fraught environment. That’s especially true at top-ranked universities like Brown, which have come under the microscope of the Trump administration.
Whoever takes over the university may have to deal with some of the same political hurdles as Paxson, including government investigations and student protests.
Natalie Schwartz
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