Shared Governance: What Would Oscar Schalm Have Said? (#745)
Updated: Oct 1
Oscar Schalm died in 1982.
I never met Oscar Schalm.
I arrived at UC Davis in 1978, and although I do not recall meeting him, his reputation and contributions were on display in every corner of the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
Anyone who has spent much time at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine knows his name.
Schalm Hall carries it. The annual Oscar W. Schalm Lectureship carries it. Veterinary clinical pathology carries his intellectual imprint.
Oscar William Schalm was one of the founding faculty members of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. He became an internationally recognized authority in hematology, mastitis and clinical pathology and helped establish the Department of Clinical Pathology, which became a model for veterinary schools everywhere.
UC Davis continues to honor him for his scholarship, service and commitment to veterinary medicine.
Recently, I have found myself wondering about another part of his legacy.
What would Oscar Schalm have thought about shared governance?
More specifically, what would he have thought about the faculty's role in a decision as consequential as changing the name of the Veterinary School he helped create?
We cannot know.
And we should not pretend that we can.
It would be unfair to recruit a man who died more than forty years ago into a contemporary university discussion and place words in his mouth.
But we can look at the institution that Oscar Schalm and his colleagues built.
And that history is revealing.
A School Built by Its Faculty
The UC Davis veterinary school admitted its first class in 1948.
There were only 24 faculty members in those early years.
They were not simply employees of an already mature institution. They were building one.
They developed the curriculum. They established disciplines. They created departments. They built research programs. They developed clinical services.
They helped determine what kind of veterinary school UC Davis would become.
Oscar Schalm was part of that generation.
In the 1950s, faculty began organizing the curriculum into disciplinary groupings.
By 1960, Clinical Pathology, with Oscar Schalm as department chair, was part of the School's formal departmental structure. UC Davis credits him with establishing the first veterinary department of clinical pathology in the world.
That history matters.
The academic identity of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine was not handed down fully formed from an administrative office.
Faculty created much of it.
And Then There Was the Executive Committee
Something else happened during those formative years.
In 1952, only four years after the first veterinary students entered the School, the faculty elected its first Faculty Executive Committee (FEC).
According to UC Davis's own historical account, that FEC would thereafter appoint the other committees of the faculty.
That is more than an interesting historical footnote.
It tells us something about the conception of a university, and of a faculty, that existed during the period in which Oscar Schalm and his colleagues were building the School.
Faculty were not simply expected to teach, conduct research and treat patients.
They had an institutional role.
They participated in governing the academic enterprise they were creating.
That principle remains embedded in the university today.
UC Davis's Academic Senate has itself described election to an FEC as one mechanism by which faculty can ensure that faculty interests are maintained.
Which brings us to the present.
What Does It Mean to Have a Voice?
In 2025, UC Davis negotiated an extraordinary philanthropic gift.
Ultimately, Joan and Sanford Weill committed $120 million to the School of Veterinary Medicine.
It was a remarkably generous gift.
It was also associated with a decision of unusual permanence:
The School would be renamed the Joan and Sanford I. Weill School of Veterinary Medicine.
I have written extensively about the process by which that occurred, and I recently sent an open letter to the School's Faculty Executive Committee asking a series of questions about shared governance.
My concern is not whether faculty members would ultimately have supported the gift or the name.
Perhaps most would have. Perhaps they would have supported it overwhelmingly.
We do not know.
And that is the problem.
I have spoken with many faculty members since the renaming was announced. A number have told me that they were surprised - even shocked - when they learned that the name of their School was being changed to reflect a donation.
They had not known that the change was under consideration.
They had not been invited to discuss it.
They had not been asked what they thought.
Many of those faculty members now support the questions I have asked about the process.
I do not claim that these conversations constitute a faculty survey.
Quite the opposite.
We do not know what the faculty thought because the faculty was not broadly asked.
Representation Is Not the Same as Consultation
The Faculty Executive Committee did consider the proposal.
Its eight members ultimately supported it unanimously.
That is important and should not be dismissed.
But it raises a deeper question about representative governance.
What does it mean to represent people who do not know that the issue is being considered?
What does it mean when the Faculty Executive Committee decides to keep its deliberations “strictly confidential”?
An elected representative must exercise independent judgment. Every decision cannot be sent to the entire faculty for a referendum.
But surely there is a difference between approving a routine administrative matter and changing the identity of an entire professional school.
For decisions of exceptional consequence and permanence, representation should involve some connection with those being represented.
Tell them what is being considered. Give them the relevant information. Invite them to express their views. Listen. Then deliberate.
That seems to me to be the essence of meaningful shared governance.
When Was the Decision Still a Decision?
The documents I recently obtained from the UC Davis Office of Public Records make this question more troubling.
They show that on August 18, 2025, UC President James B. Milliken approved naming the School for Joan and Sandy Weill, contingent upon fulfillment of the pledge.
The School's Faculty Executive Committee was not formally presented with the proposal until November 7, 2025.
It unanimously endorsed the proposal on November 10, 2025.
By then, the proposed name had been associated with an extraordinary philanthropic commitment, senior university administrators were seeking expedited review, and the developing agreement was moving toward a year-end deadline.
So, I have asked a simple question:
When was the decision still a decision?
Was the Faculty Executive Committee being asked what the School should do?
Or was the Faculty Executive Committee being asked whether it would approve what senior administrators had already substantially arranged?
Those are not the same thing.
More Than a Name
There is another reason that this matters.
The agreement was about more than changing the name above the door.
It designated how the $120 million would be used.
It established continuing recognition and branding commitments.
It imposed a timetable for approval.
And it established an advisory committee that includes representatives of the Weill Family Foundation and is expected to consider matters including strategic direction, programs, projects, budgets and implementation of the Master Plan.
That committee is advisory. There is no evidence in the documents I have reviewed that the donors were given authority over curriculum, faculty appointments, research findings or clinical decisions.
That distinction is important.
But so is another one.
Advisory influence is not governing authority.
But neither is it nothing.
When outside representatives are given continuing access to senior university leadership and discussions concerning strategy, programs and budgets, faculty have a legitimate interest in understanding how that relationship will interact with their own governance structures.
That question belongs not merely to today's faculty.
It belongs to tomorrow's faculty as well.
A Public University
There is another element that should not be forgotten.
UC Davis is a public university.
The veterinary school itself exists because Californians - farmers, veterinarians, legislators, citizens and university leaders - spent years arguing that the state needed such an institution.
UC Davis's history explicitly recognizes the role of legislators, agricultural communities, public agencies and other Californians in bringing the School into existence.
That history gives philanthropy an important place in the School.
But it also places philanthropy in context.
A donor may give extraordinarily generously to a public university.
The university may appropriately honor that generosity.
But the institution remains public.
Its history, identity and governance belong to a community larger than either its administrators or its donors.
Transparency therefore matters.
Full disclosure matters.
And shared governance matters.
Not because faculty should control every university decision.
Not because administrators should be prevented from negotiating major gifts.
And certainly not because philanthropy should be discouraged.
They matter because decisions affecting a public academic institution acquire legitimacy through processes that allow the people entrusted with its mission to participate meaningfully in shaping its future.
So, What Would Oscar Schalm Have Said?
I don't know. No-one knows.
Perhaps he would have supported the Weill gift enthusiastically.
Perhaps he would have thought $120 million for a new hospital and research represented an extraordinary opportunity that the School could not afford to lose.
Perhaps he would have supported naming the School for the donors.
Perhaps he would have disagreed with every concern I have raised.
Perhaps he would have been in total agreement.
We cannot ask him.
And we should resist the temptation to manufacture his answer.
But we can ask a different question.
What kind of institution did Oscar Schalm and his generation of faculty help create?
The historical record gives us part of the answer.
They built departments. They built disciplines. They built curricula. They built research programs. They built a veterinary school.
And within four years of admitting its first class, the faculty had elected a Faculty Executive Committee as part of the structure through which faculty participated in the academic life of their School.
That tells us something.
The founders apparently understood that a great veterinary school was not simply a collection of buildings, budgets and administrators.
It was an academic community.
And faculty were participants in that community, not merely its employees.
Seventy-five years later, perhaps the important question is not:
What would Oscar Schalm have said?
Perhaps the better question is:
Are we still listening to the principles Oscar Schalm's generation built into this School:
That faculty should have a meaningful voice in its governance?
Buildings change. Deans change. Donors change. Names, apparently, can change too.
But some principles should endure.
An Open Letter to the Faculty Executive Committee
Shared Governance, Faculty Representation, and the Weill Gift
Dear Members of the Faculty Executive Committee,
I have approached the Faculty Executive Committee previously concerning the naming of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (hereafter referred to as “the School”) and, more particularly, the process of shared governance through which that decision was made.
I am writing again.
There is an important reason for doing so.
When I first raised these questions, much of the process by which the decision had been reached was not publicly available. I subsequently submitted a request to the UC Davis Office of Public Records seeking documents relating to the gift, the naming agreement, and the associated approval process.
After waiting approximately three months, I am now in possession of those documents.
They do not establish corruption, illegality, donor control of academic decisions, or bad faith on the part of administrators or members of the Faculty Executive Committee.
But they do establish something extremely useful.
They establish a chronology.
They also reveal details of the gift agreement that raise questions extending considerably beyond the naming of the School.
The documents therefore allow the questions I raised previously about shared governance to be asked with considerably greater specificity.
My purpose in writing again is not to challenge the generosity of Joan and Sanford Weill's $120 million gift. It is an extraordinary contribution, and the resources it provides may benefit veterinary education, research, and clinical service for decades.
Nor am I asking that the School’s renaming be reversed.
My questions concern something more fundamental:
What role did the Faculty Executive Committee actually play in this process, what was it asked to approve, and what responsibilities does an elected faculty body have when a major philanthropic agreement affects not only the name of the School, but potentially its future strategic direction, programs, budgets, facilities, and institutional relationships?
The documents now available make these reasonable questions to ask.
The Chronology Matters
Shared governance cannot be evaluated simply by establishing that committees eventually considered and approved a proposal.
Timing matters.
There is an important difference between participating in the formulation of a decision and being asked to endorse a decision after its essential elements have already been established.
The documents provide the following chronology.
August 18, 2025 - Presidential Approval
UC President James B. Milliken wrote to Chancellor Gary May approving acceptance of what was then a $100 million pledge from the Weill Family Foundation.
In the same letter, President Milliken approved naming the School the Joan and Sandy Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, contingent upon fulfillment of the pledge.
This occurred almost three months before the proposal was formally presented to the School's Faculty Executive Committee.
The amount subsequently increased to $120 million, and the formal name became the Joan and Sanford I. Weill School of Veterinary Medicine.
However, the essential proposition was already explicit in August, 2025: a major financial pledge was linked to naming the School for the donors.
The documents I received identify this as the earliest explicit approval of the naming in the available record.
October 26, 2025 - Accelerated Review Was Being Organized
University personnel circulated provisions governing the academic "simple name change" process and accelerated review.
By this stage, the available records indicate that attention had turned toward moving the proposed name through the remaining institutional approval procedures.
November 5, 2025 - The Reason for Urgency Was Stated
Associate Chancellor Karl Engelbach wrote that UC Davis anticipated a very large gift from a donor for whom it wished to name the School.
He stated that the University needed to move quickly "to appease the donor" and discussed obtaining expedited review through the Davis Division and systemwide Academic Council.
One phrase in one email should not be asked to prove more than it can.
Nevertheless, the email is relevant because it demonstrates that donor expectations and timing had become factors in the University's governance timetable.
November 7, 2025 - The Proposal Reached the FEC
Dean Mark Stetter and Assistant Dean Lee Ann Jansen presented the proposed renaming to the eight-member Faculty Executive Committee.
Their memorandum stated that the proposal followed a "thorough campus consultation process."
It also informed the FEC that President Milliken had already approved the naming.
Those two statements deserve consideration together.
The faculty's representative body was being asked to consider a proposal while simultaneously being informed that the President of the University had approved the donor naming almost three months earlier.
November 10–12, 2025 - The FEC Endorsed the Proposal
Seven of the eight committee members attended a specially called meeting.
Dean Stetter and Assistant Dean Jansen participated in approximately 50 minutes of questions and answers.
They then left.
The FEC deliberated privately for approximately ten minutes and unanimously endorsed the proposal. The absent eighth member was subsequently contacted and also expressed support. The committee's memorandum was transmitted on November 12, 2025.
I want to be precise about this.
This was documented faculty participation through the School's representative body. The Dean was not present during the private deliberation.
Nothing in the documents justifies questioning the sincerity of the committee members' decision.
But the chronology raises a different question:
What, at that point, remained genuinely open for the Faculty Executive Committee to influence?
The records document FEC participation.
The records do not demonstrate that the faculty at large was invited to a meeting, surveyed, provided the proposal for comment, or asked to vote.
November 13, 2025 - The Gift Agreement
Three days after the FEC meeting, the formal gift agreement recorded a commitment of $120 million and the parties' agreement to change the School's name.
It required binding University approval of that name, certified by the President, by December 31, 2025.
The agreement therefore makes clear that the name and the timetable were not incidental features of the gift. They were incorporated into the negotiated arrangement.
December 2025 - The Remaining Approvals
The Philanthropic Naming Board recommended approval, Chancellor May approved the philanthropic naming, the Davis Division Academic Senate endorsed the academic name change, and systemwide Academic Senate review followed.
The Academic Council approved the change on December 17, and subsequent approval materials record completion of presidential approval on December 18.
The formal approval process had therefore been completed before the contractual December 31 deadline.
Consultation, Advice, Ratification, or Notification?
Perhaps part of the difficulty lies in terminology.
There are several different ways in which faculty representatives can participate in institutional decision-making.
Consultation asks: What should we do?
Advice asks: What do you think of what we propose to do?
Ratification asks: Will you approve what has already been arranged?
Notification says: This is what has been decided.
Each may have a legitimate place in university administration.
But they are not the same thing.
A process does not become shared governance merely because ratification is described as consultation.
The central question is therefore not whether the FEC voted.
It clearly did.
Nor is it whether its members supported the proposal.
They clearly did.
The question is:
Was the FEC participating in making the decision, or was it being asked to approve a decision whose essential direction had already been established elsewhere?
One way of testing that question is to ask what would have happened had the committee voted “no”.
Would the administration have returned to the donors and proposed another form of recognition?
Would the President's earlier approval have been reconsidered?
Would the agreement have been renegotiated?
Would the proposal have proceeded despite faculty opposition?
Would the $120 million gift have been placed at risk?
The released documents do not answer those questions.
But the answers are fundamental to understanding whether the committee's role was formative, advisory, or essentially ratifying.
What About the Faculty the FEC Represents?
There is another question.
The Faculty Executive Committee is a representative body.
But representation is more than election or appointment. Representation requires some continuing relationship between representatives and those they represent.
The documents I have received describe the eight-member FEC meeting. They do not document a faculty-wide meeting before the vote, a survey, circulation of the proposal for faculty comment, solicitation of written opinions, or a faculty-wide ballot.
That does not prove that no informal consultation occurred.
It means that the documentary record provided to me does not demonstrate it.
My concern about this is not based solely upon the documents.
Since the renaming was announced, I have spoken with many faculty members about what occurred. A number have told me that they were surprised - even shocked - to learn that the School was being renamed and that they had been unaware that such a consequential change was under consideration. They have told me that they were given no opportunity to discuss the proposal or express their views before the announcement.
Many of these colleagues share my concerns about the process and support the questions I am now asking of the Faculty Executive Committee.
I do not claim that these conversations constitute a survey of the faculty, nor do I presume to speak for the faculty as a whole.
That is precisely the point.
We do not know what the faculty as a whole thought because, so far as the documents provided to me demonstrate, the faculty as a whole was never asked.
For routine matters, broad faculty consultation would plainly be unnecessary.
But renaming an entire professional school is not routine business.
Nor is accepting a philanthropic agreement that establishes continuing obligations and relationships potentially affecting the future direction of the School.
This is, after all, a public university - one that embraces the principle of shared governance.
On matters of unusual permanence and institutional consequence, shared governance should involve more than obtaining the approval of a representative committee. It should provide a reasonable opportunity for representatives to hear from the people they represent before speaking on their behalf.
An eight-member committee may legitimately exercise delegated faculty authority.
But its unanimous decision should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that the faculty itself had been consulted or that the wider School community had expressed support.
Those are different claims.
And that distinction matters because subsequent approval materials relied upon the FEC's unanimous endorsement as evidence of support within the School.
The question therefore becomes very simple:
If faculty members did not know that the renaming was being considered, were not given an opportunity to express their views, and learned of the decision only when it was announced, in what meaningful sense had they participated in shared governance?
The Agreement Was About More Than a Name
The documents raise an additional issue that I did not fully appreciate when I first approached the FEC.
The agreement was not simply about putting the Weill name on the School.
The $120 million gift contained both restrictions and conditions.
There is an important distinction.
A restriction specifies what donated money may be used for.
In this case, $80 million was designated toward a new small animal hospital and $40 million toward the School's research mission.
A condition concerns what the University agrees to do - or continue doing - in association with the gift.
The specified donor name required binding University approval by a defined deadline.
The donor name was to become part of the School's continuing institutional identity, including its programs, communications, branding, and facilities.
And the agreement established an ongoing advisory relationship involving representatives of the Weill Family Foundation.
The documents therefore describe something substantially more consequential than a plaque on a building.
They describe a negotiated, continuing institutional relationship.
This leads me to a question that I believe deserves an answer from the FEC:
Was the Faculty Executive Committee asked to consider the implications of the entire gift agreement, or was it asked only to endorse the proposed change in the School's name?
The Weill School Advisory Committee
This question becomes particularly important because the gift agreement established a Weill School of Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee.
According to the documents, its membership is to include two representatives of the Weill Family Foundation, together with the Dean, the Provost, and other members.
It is expected to meet at least three times each year.
Its discussions may include matters concerning strategic direction, programs, projects, budgets, and implementation of the Master Plan.
Precision is essential here.
The documents do not establish that the Weills or their representatives were given seats on the Faculty Executive Committee, the Academic Senate, or the UC Board of Regents.
They do not establish donor authority over curriculum, faculty appointments, research findings, or clinical decisions.
The committee is described as advisory.
But advisory authority and irrelevance are not the same thing.
Regular participation with senior University leadership in discussions concerning strategy, programs, projects, budgets, and implementation of the School's Master Plan provides an ongoing institutional role.
Each of those subjects can have direct or indirect consequences for faculty.
They can affect programs.
They can affect allocation of resources.
They can affect research priorities and infrastructure.
They can affect clinical services.
They can affect faculty recruitment.
They can affect teaching.
And they can influence the long-term direction of the School.
The agreement therefore raises a governance question that extends far beyond November 2025:
How will this donor-inclusive advisory structure relate to the established structures of faculty governance?
Will its recommendations be communicated to the FEC?
Will faculty representatives participate when recommendations affect academic programs or priorities?
If the advisory committee makes recommendations involving budgets, programs, strategic direction, or the Master Plan, at what point will the FEC become involved?
Who ultimately determines whether a matter belongs within administrative discretion, donor consultation, or faculty shared governance?
These are not accusations of donor interference.
They are governance questions created by the structure of the agreement itself.
Whose Deadline Was It?
The documents also clarify the importance of timing.
The November 13, 2025, gift agreement required binding University approval of the specified name, certified by the President, by December 31, 2025.
Subsequent correspondence explained that the donor wanted the necessary approvals completed before the end of the calendar year so that philanthropic payments could begin.
The University therefore pursued an accelerated approval process.
Again, there may have been entirely legitimate reasons for doing so.
Financial planning, taxation, estate planning, or the personal circumstances of elderly donors might provide understandable reasons for urgency.
But I want to distinguish what the documents establish from what they do not.
The documents establish the deadline and the desire to complete the approvals before year-end.
The materials I have reviewed do not, as far as I can determine, establish that the deadline was specifically imposed because of the Weills' advanced age.
If their age or personal circumstances contributed to the accelerated timetable, it would be useful for the University to say so.
More importantly, however, the governance question remains the same regardless of the reason:
When an external timetable compresses the time available for faculty consultation, whose timetable takes precedence?
A donor may reasonably have deadlines.
A university may reasonably wish to accommodate them.
But an external deadline should not quietly become a reason to diminish the deliberative processes of a public institution.
The documents show that donor timing became the University's timetable and reduced the period available for reflection, broader consultation, and disagreement.
That should itself be part of the shared-governance discussion.
What Was the FEC Actually Asked to Consider?
I therefore return to the role of the Faculty Executive Committee.
Was the committee asked simply:
Do you support renaming the School?
Or was it provided with the complete gift agreement - or otherwise fully briefed on its terms - and asked to consider the broader institutional commitments associated with the gift?
Did members examine the binding deadline?
Did they consider the continuing branding and recognition requirements?
Did they consider the proposed donor representation on the advisory committee?
Did they discuss how that committee's responsibilities might intersect with those of faculty governance?
Did they consider the implications for future faculty members who will operate within structures established by an agreement they did not negotiate?
And, importantly, did the FEC have an opportunity to suggest modifications to any of these arrangements?
If it did, that should be documented.
If it did not, then we should be careful about describing the FEC's endorsement of the name as faculty participation in the broader agreement.
Questions I Believe the FEC Should Answer
With the documentary record now available, I respectfully ask the Faculty Executive Committee to address the following questions:
What involvement, if any, did the FEC have in the proposed naming before President Milliken approved it on August 18, 2025?
What constituted the "thorough campus consultation process" referred to in the November 7, 2025, memorandum, and did that consultation include faculty members outside the FEC?
When the proposal reached the FEC in November, 2025, what substantive aspects of the proposed arrangement remained open to modification?
Was the FEC provided with the complete terms of the gift agreement, or briefed on those terms, before endorsing the renaming?
Did the FEC consider the longer-term governance implications of the Weill School of Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee and the inclusion of two Weill Family Foundation representatives?
How will recommendations from that advisory committee concerning strategic direction, programs, projects, budgets, and the Master Plan interact with established faculty-governance processes?
Was the FEC informed of the reasons for the December 31, 2025, deadline and the consequences if the University did not meet it?
Did the committee consider requesting additional time for broader faculty consultation?
What would have happened if the FEC had declined to endorse the proposal?
What changes, if any, does the FEC believe should be made to ensure that faculty representatives are involved earlier when future philanthropic agreements have significant implications for institutional identity or academic life?
These are questions about process and institutional governance, not the personal motives or integrity of individual committee members.
Shared Governance in Form and in Substance
The documents demonstrate that UC Davis followed an extensive formal approval process.
The FEC participated.
The Davis Division Academic Senate participated.
The Philanthropic Naming Board participated.
The Chancellor participated.
Systemwide Academic Senate committees participated.
The Academic Council participated.
There was, unquestionably, procedural governance.
But substantive shared governance asks different questions.
When were faculty representatives involved?
What information did they possess?
Whom did they consult?
What alternatives were available?
What could they change?
Could they realistically say no?
The University's naming policy itself calls for the "widest possible counsel" and a consultation process providing a broad campus perspective. The documents demonstrate formal review by representative bodies; what they do not demonstrate is broader School consultation before the naming direction had already received presidential approval and entered the gift negotiations.
A university can satisfy procedure while leaving important questions about participation unanswered.
A university can accumulate approvals without necessarily sharing in the formation of the decision.
That distinction is particularly important when subsequent documents cite unanimous FEC approval as evidence of support within the School.
Looking Forward
The Weill gift has been accepted.
The School has been renamed.
The purpose of this letter is not to undo either.
But the governance issues have not disappeared.
Indeed, because the gift agreement creates continuing relationships and commitments, some of the most important governance questions lie ahead.
Future faculty members will work within the institutional arrangements created by these agreements.
The donor-inclusive advisory committee will meet.
Strategic priorities will evolve.
Budgets will change.
Programs will be created, expanded, reduced, or discontinued.
The Master Plan will be implemented.
Questions may arise concerning the appropriate boundaries among donor advice, administrative authority, and faculty governance.
That makes clarification now particularly important.
I spent over twenty years as a faculty member of this School and remain deeply invested in the institution as Professor Emeritus. My interest in these questions comes from a continuing commitment to an institution whose strength has always depended upon far more than buildings, budgets, philanthropy, or the name above the door.
It depends upon its people.
And it depends upon confidence that those people have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting the institution they serve.
The documents I waited approximately three months to receive have answered some of my earlier questions.
But they have raised others.
Perhaps the most important remains remarkably simple.
President Milliken approved naming the School for the Weills on August 18, 2025.
The Faculty Executive Committee was formally presented with the proposal on November 7, 2025, and endorsed it on November 10, 2025.
By then, the University was working toward a donor-linked naming, an accelerated timetable, and an extraordinary financial commitment.
So, I return to the question at the heart of shared governance:
When was the decision still a decision?
And I would now add a second:
When the University accepted not only the Weill gift, but the continuing conditions and relationships that accompanied it, what role did the faculty - and the Faculty Executive Committee charged with representing it - have in deciding what the School was agreeing to?
I respectfully invite the Faculty Executive Committee to answer these questions.
Because I have raised related concerns previously, and because it took approximately three months to obtain the documents upon which these questions are now based, I hope that this inquiry will not enter another prolonged period without resolution.
I therefore request a substantive response from the Faculty Executive Committee within 30 days of receipt of this letter (namely 30th October 2026).
If additional time is required, I would appreciate being advised within that period of the reason for the delay and the date by which I may reasonably expect a response.
If I receive neither a substantive response nor an indication of when one will be provided, I will consider what other appropriate avenues are available to obtain clarification of these shared-governance questions.
I already have had a session with the UC Ombudsperson regarding this matter, and so without a satisfactory reply I believe the only appropriate avenues to pursue will be outside the UC System.
My purpose remains straightforward.
I am seeking an explanation of the process, the role played by the Faculty Executive Committee, and the mechanisms that will protect meaningful faculty participation as the continuing provisions of the Weill agreement are implemented.
I believe those questions deserve answers - not only for those of us who have spent much of our professional lives at this School, but for the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and public who will inherit the consequences of decisions made today.
A public university's commitment to shared governance is ultimately demonstrated not by how many committees approve a decision, but by whether those entrusted with representing its academic community are given a meaningful opportunity to help shape that decision while it is still a decision.
Sincerely,
Richard A. LeCouteur, BVSc, PhD, DACVIM (Neurology), DECVN
Professor Emeritus
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California, Davis
Comments