The University faculty will vote on whether to change Columbus Day to “Indigenous People’s Day” at the upcoming Oct. 7 faculty meeting. The motion was sent initially to the University Advisory Council, a board of faculty and administrators who advise the Provost, but the UAC chose on Thursday to send the motion to a full faculty vote.

The UAC unanimously approved forwarding the vote to the full faculty and will approve the change for this year if the vote is affirmative, according to an email to the Justice from Provost Lisa Lynch. Should the faculty vote against the change, the issue will return to the UAC for further discussion.

A coalition of student activists and Student Union representatives have campaigned for it since last Monday. Provost Lisa Lynch received a Student Union resolution last Monday urging the administration to change the holiday’s name ahead of Oct. 10, when it is celebrated. A petition in support of the change at Brandeis had 590 signatories by last night.

“I would not like to speculate but I would expect a careful discussion in the Faculty Senate and the full Faculty meeting,” Lynch wrote.

In an email to the Justice, activist Sophie Warren ’17 — who worked with the Union to write their resolution and initially proposed the change — said that her fellow supporters “are understanding of the decision” to move for a full faculty vote. “Just as we want as many students to know about this change and amplify voices communicating the importance of this change, we too see a benefit to allowing our faculty to help us shift further towards justice in designating Indigenous People’s Day an institutionalized part of this calendar and our community,” Warren wrote.

Lynch wrote to the Justice for a Sept. 20 article that she had anticipated the faculty at large would want to weigh in on the change, even though the UAC approves changes to the academic calendar. The Anthropology department and Social Justice and Social Policy program have both explicitly endorsed the movement, as have the Justice and Brandeis Hoot editorial boards.

Warren wrote in her email that the community response has been “incredibly positive,” and that she’s heard of professors discussing the motion in classes. She urged supporters to connect this movement with the Standing Rock Reservation protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Black Lives Matter movement.

—Max Moran