The UNA Faculty Response to the Penson-Strawbridge Report, May 2001
For the UNA Board of Trustees
BACKGROUND
After a faculty vote of no confidence in his leadership, and based upon a recommendation of the President in December 2000, the Board of Trustees hired the Penson-Strawbridge Consulting team to visit the University campus as fact-finders. Prior to their arrival on campus, the faculty expressed to the President and to the Board of Trustees concerns about
§ reports that the president had located this firm by contacting other university presidents who had experienced no-confidence votes;
§ reports from Faculty Senates of other universities concerning this firm’s methods;
§ a lack of information about the process that the team would use;
§ the financial cost: $20,000
Nevertheless, UNA Faculty members worked cooperatively with the firm in providing data and being available for interviews.
The faculty worked cooperatively even though the Board of Trustees and the Penson-Strawbridge team rejected efforts by the UNA faculty to ensure that the majority of the faculty voice was clearly presented and that untenured faculty would be protected. In the interest of open, public processes that would protect participants, the Faculty Senate offered the following suggestions to the Board and the Penson-Strawbridge team.
§ Senate Executive Committee meetings with the fact finders should be open to all faculty members.
§ Untenured faculty should be exempt from the interviews with the fact-finders unless the untenured faculty chose to be part of the process.
§ The process for selection of faculty for interviews should be public.
§ Faculty members should be able to take a witness to the interview. This suggestion was offered on the assumption that interviews would be with individuals rather than with groups of faculty.
§ Any faculty member who wished to speak to the team would have an opportunity.
All of these suggestions were rejected. The President was allowed to choose members of the community to be interviewed while the faculty was not allowed to participate in any part of the process for establishing protocols for interviews or selecting interviewees. No information about the interview process was presented to the Faculty Senate or to the faculty by the administration, the Board, or the Penson-Strawbridge firm until one day before the arrival of the team. However, prior to the team’s visit, the selection process used to determine interviewees was described to the Faculty Senate President by an administrative assistant.
RESPONSE
Inadequate research and inferior reporting procedures resulted in a study and document that does not serve the needs of the University of North Alabama community. The Penson-Strawbridge report addressed ten questions developed by the fact-finders based on some of the issues raised by the faculty and on the President’s letter of response to these issues. While extensive data regarding these ten questions were provided to the team, the faculty expressed many additional concerns other than responses to these ten items. Many questions asked by the fact-finders of faculty groups reached beyond these ten questions. Because a broad spectrum of topics was discussed in the interviews, faculty members who participated felt they had an opportunity to clearly communicate the greatest concerns of faculty. The Senate Executive Board believed that faculty concerns were thoroughly communicated and were supported by appropriate documentation. Therein, lies one of the main flaws of this report.
No Confidence in the President
Unfortunately, the faculty’s greatest concern, expressed repeatedly by faculty and the Senate Executive Board, was trivialized to the extent that it received no treatment in the report whatsoever. The great majority of the UNA faculty members have no confidence in the President. This fact escaped the fact-finders. Examples provided to the group demonstrated reasons that the President has lost credibility in his relationship with the faculty. The Penson-Strawbridge report failed to acknowledge the critical, underlying fact that the UNA faculty has no confidence in President Robert Potts as a leader. Results of the November 74% vote of no confidence and the 2000-2001 Faculty Attitude Survey were provided. The majority of the faculty members who were interviewed indicated that they clearly explained to the consultants why faculty members have no confidence in the President. They provided examples and documentation of administrative decisions that demonstrated decreasing support for academic programs while non-academic programs received increased attention, and often increased funding, over the last several years. Yet, the fact-finders limited the written and public oral report to ten questions and chose to ignore the central fact of the situation—that the Faculty lacks confidence in the President.
Restrictive Nature of
the By-laws
Furthermore, the team did not address the major issue of the current Trustees’ By-laws and the isolating effect they have on the faculty and the members of the Board of Trustees. The issue of the President’s removal of materials from packets prepared for the board—censorship-- because he considered them derogatory was not addressed by the report. The fact-finders ignored these important facts.
Call for In-House
Discussions
The Penson-Strawbridge team recommended that efforts to move the university forward be resolved in-house. As part of a public institution the faculty has the right and responsibility to keep the public informed. If faculty had not called the public’s attention to problems with the proposed physical therapy program, it would probably be a reality and the University would now be struggling with a tremendous financial impact on existing academic programs.
Annual evaluations of the President by the faculty may be considered as an in-house communication/discussion. Such evaluations of the President by the faculty were provided to the Trustees, excluding the Board’s newest members, over a several year period. This in-house process of evaluations, which mirrors the evaluation of faculty by students, has been shared with the Board through the years, and none of the concerns expressed through these communications has been addressed. Former Faculty Senate Presidents personally expressed concerns to the Board. No response to the concerns surfaced from the Board. Instead, the President was given a rare ten-year contract. These events were not included in the report. Without sharing such information outside the university community, it seems there may be no response to such concerns.
Faculty Participation in Student Recruitment and Retention
Contrary to the report, the recruitment and retention of students has been an important concern of faculty. Many members have worked on appropriate committees to address these issues. Current public expressions of faculty members’ concerns indicate that they:
§ desire to maintain the integrity of academic programs by seeking appropriate funding;
§ attempt to call attention to the unfairness of charging special fees when students are not receiving benefits from them;
§ point out that departmental budgets provide about the same support, or less, than they did ten years ago;
§ endorse an honors program that is appropriately funded; and
§ encourage the administration to spend more time and energy finding financial support for academic programs and scholarships rather than cosmetic projects;
§ encourage the administration to give academic programs priority given fiscal constraints.
These behaviors seem to indicate a strong effort to recruit and retain students through attempting to meet the learning needs of the student body.
Overall Quality of the Report
As a document, the faculty’s assessment of the report is that it was poorly crafted. In the oral public report, one of the Penson-Strawbridge team members, Dr. Dale Feinauer, stated that his portion of the report was poorly written and that time constraints did not allow the team to conduct adequate research.
In communicating one its primary concerns or facts with the fact-finders, the Faculty Senate Executive committee provided multiple instances of presidential and administrative unresponsiveness to faculty requests for information. Dr. Feinauer stated in the public report that the team did not have time to confirm these claims of unresponsiveness. Actually, the team could have evaluated this information by making a simple request for copies of the administration’s responses to the Senate Executive Board and other faculty members.
A member of the President’s administrative team confirmed the lack of quality of the report during a general faculty meeting.
Faculty Senate—the
Elected Representative Body
The
report proposes the creation of a number of committees and task forces to work
on resolution of problems. It is the faculty’s view that these are unnecessary
and represent an end run around the elected faculty leadership. If the
administration wishes to discuss issues with the faculty, the President and the
administration must work through the elected representative body, which is the
Faculty Senate.
There are positive aspects to the Penson-Strawbridge team’s recommendations. Three areas in particular echo the faculty’s wishes for the university. These are the recommendations to move toward a) a true system of shared governance, b) an improved budgeting process, and c) open communication.
Shared Governance and Open Communication
Throughout this academic year, the Faculty Senate representatives communicated to the Board the great need for open communication between two major university groups—Board members and the faculty. This is not allowed by the current by-laws. In May 2001, the Senate passed a resolution endorsing shared governance and open communication. Shared governance will allow the faculty perspective to become influential in outcomes of decisions by appropriate committees.
Improved Budgeting Process
In a fall Faculty meeting, the Faculty Senate presented an amendment to its By-laws to create a standing Senate budget committee to gain insight to the budgeting process and ultimately improve the process. This amendment was passed unanimously by almost the entire faculty. It is the general position of the faculty that more faculty members should serve on the University budget committee.
Respectfully submitted to the Board of Trustees
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee
May 31, 2001
Attachment to the UNA Faculty Response to the Penson Strawbridge Report, May 2001
Action Items to be Presented to the Administration
by the Faculty Senate
Executive Board
§
The
rules of the Board of Trustees must allow open communication with the faculty
on formal and informal levels.
§
There
must be easy, open access to public documents, including the University’s
annual budget and expenditures.
§
There
must be timely responses to requests for information made to the administration
by the Faculty Senate.
§
The
representative body, the Faculty Senate, must elect faculty members to serve on
University committees. There is no need for additional teams, committees, or
task forces. There must be a considered effort to promote genuine shared
governance. Enough faculty members must
serve on appropriate committees to allow the faculty voice to influence
committee recommendations.
§
Specifically,
there must be faculty members on the University Budget Committee elected by the
Faculty Senate; the Budget Advisory committee should be disbanded. Members of the Faculty Senate’s Budget
Committee should be eligible to serve on the University committee if elected.
§
Protocols
and procedures agreed upon by shared governance must be followed, not evaded
with ad hoc decisions by the administration.