The Faculty Senate passed a resolution Wednesday to ensure that members of the faculty members will be involved in evaluating administrators.
Kevin Cope, Faculty Senate president, said the resolution is the first step in showing that the faculty believes the evaluations should be conducted according to a schedule and set of rules.
“The resolution is not intended to send any negative messages to administrators,” Cope said. “Instead, it shows the faculty wants to be involved [in evaluating administrators.]”
The resolution passed states the evaluation process for administrators “has shown the review process to reflect a top-down rather than bottom-up philosophy.”
“Unless we have accountability here, organizations cannot function,” Larry Crumbley, department of accounting senator, said. “Unless you find out from the body itself if whether or not the administrator is doing a good job or a decent job, these administrators continue on forever.”
Crumbley, who authored the new resolution, said it was necessary and overdue.
“At least eight years ago, I tried to start a motion to get faculty involved in evaluating all administrators,” Crumbley said. “An eight-page [resolution], which got passed in 2003, set up a procedure whereby faculty would be in charge of evaluating all administrators. This [resolution] went to the administration, and then it went to their lawyers.”
Crumbley said the 2003 resolution resulted in a policy statement requiring administrators to undergo an annual review process to be implemented by the administration. However, that policy statement mandated the evaluation be given by the administrator’s primary supervisor, then placed in the reviewee’s file that is subject to confidentiality requirements.
“You have administrators in charge of a process we – the people – never hear about,” Crumbley said. “Our policy committee has demanded this information for a number of years. They won’t give that to us. And even though they may follow through and evaluate the [administrator], the information falls through a black hole.”
Crumbley said he worries the nondisclosure of such information may allow higher-ranking administrators to suppress the evaluations of lower administrators.
“The [policy statement] basically puts the evaluation process in the hands of the administrators,” Crumbley said. “So this was a start today to see if they are following [the policy], this watered-down approach.”
The resolution passed Wednesday calls for the Faculty Senate to create a special committee responsible for reviewing the University’s compliance of the policy statement. Crumbley said it is a start to achieving their ultimate goal, which is to have a senate committee evaluate one-third of the administrators each year.
“This committee is going to be set up to, in effect, come back and say they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do,” Crumbley said. “And hopefully once we find out they’re not even following [the resolution] we can set up a committee [in the faculty senate] and do the evaluation.”
—Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]