The Issue Is Shared Governance: Eleven Years Is Too Long!

D. Larry Crumbley
President, AAUP
dcrumbl@lsu.edu

The faculty senate will vote on November 6 whether to pass a proposed resolution to initiate an open, informal method of administrator evaluation after eleven years of waiting for an official evaluation method. Please consider this situation carefully and encourage your senator to be present and vote in favor. Some administrators do not wish to be evaluated by professors, and they can be expected to fight tooth and nail to avoid this and any other means of being held accountable for their actions, inaction, and decisions.

The proposed resolution is for VelocitySquared to allow evaluations of administrators online (like students can currently use to openly evaluate LSU professors, see www.universitytools.com). LSU is currently funding the faculty evaluations, and according to VelocitySquared, an online evaluation of administrators could be done quickly and efficiently.

In Resolution 90-14 eleven years ago, the Senate passed a resolution to evaluate administrators. One senator who has been here 17 years says he has never evaluated a higher administrator (above a Dean). Many administrators at LSU are evidently a protected species, and they do not wish to be evaluated, period. Unless a higher administrator engages in an egregious action, he or she essentially has a lifetime appointment. While some LSU departments and colleges do evaluations of their administrators, others are not allowed to evaluate department Chairs and Deans on a regular basis, and professors are not provided with the performance results. Conversely, other universities, see attached example from the University of Colorado, and organizations such as corporations and government units allow bottom-up and 360 degree performance evaluation.

University administrators should be subject to a formal review process, including review by faculty. As confirmation, the AAUP’s position since 1974 is that “institutions should develop procedures for periodic reviews of the performance of presidents and other academic administrators. Fellow administrators, faculty, students, and others should participate in the review according to their legitimate interest in the result, with faculty of the unit accorded the primary voice in the case of academic administrators.” If a Chancellor, Provost, Dean, or department Chair is performing adequately, faculty evaluation should not be a threat.

Please talk to your senators and encourage them to support the proposal for faculty to evaluate administrators. Dr. Fogel attends the Senate meetings, and there are Senators who are administrators. It is sometimes difficult to vote against the administration. Give your senators both input toward and support for action on the important issue of shared governance. Give them backbone.

SR 02-02 is not likely to be the ultimate solution to the problem of achieving shared governance, but it can be enacted simply, quickly, and start a process that has been stalled for eleven years. In concept, there are alternatives to SR 02-02. However, last year the Senate tabled a proposal to require periodic evaluations of administrators. A laughable solution proposed recently by the administration is to establish a six person committee with three faculty appointed by administration and three administrators (with Dr. Fogel a member) to evaluate administrators. Will they be evaluated every ten years, or every 20 years? No formal system is suggested. This proposal is not faculty governance. It seems to be another stall. Administrators should be evaluated by professors with the results going to professors, and with a summary being made public. Eleven more years is too long to wait, so a short-term solution is the universitytools.com procedure.

When the current Resolution was introduced in October, one Senator (who is also an administrator) said that the proposal “seems more vindictive than helpful.” I believe that an Administrator/Senator has a conflict of interest and should not vote on this proposal. This administrator will now be evaluated on a periodic basis and has a conflict of interest in opposing evaluation that is equivalent to that applying to faculty.

So what is my beef? I am trying to stop the devaluation of my LSU degrees (a M.S. and Ph.D). When I received my degrees, LSU was probably ranked within the top 50 schools in the United States. Recently U.S. News and World Report ranked LSU in tier 3, beyond 131. My degrees have depreciated drastically over the years. [By the way, I am one of the few professors in the U.S that has created a Professorship – Donald & Velvia Crumbley Endowed LSU Professor in English. I love LSU.]

We teach our internal auditing students that to improve an organization, you have to improve the “tone at the top.” How does faculty, the frontline of any university, influence the tone at the top if the higher administrators refuse to allow input and feedback from their faculty? Opponents of administrative evaluation by faculty have argued that the input would not be valid. How does anyone know whether we need faculty feedback until there is some feedback to evaluate?

With apology to my hero, Neil Armstrong (who later became a professor), a vote for Senate Resolution SR 02-02 is a small step for LSU professors, and a giant leap for faculty governance.

University of Colorado’s Appraisal Procedure:

Section 8a:

Article VI. Section 8a. Administrator Appraisal Subcommittee

a. Composition: The Subcommittee shall consist of ten members, with six elected from the faculty senate for staggered, three-year terms, two members of the assembly at large for staggered two-year terms not to exceed their tenure in the assembly, two elected by the Assembly from candidates nominated by the administration for staggered, two-year terms, and an ex officio member from the Office of Planning, Budget and Analysis selected with the concurrence of the Nominating Committee. The Committee shall be structured with three members elected from Arts & Sciences representatives, three members elected from non-arts and Sciences representatives, and two members elected from the assembly. Committee members may be elected to two consecutive terms but not to a third term until at least a year has passed in which the member was not on the committee

b. Functions:
The Subcommittee shall:

i. oversee the BFA evaluation of administrators during each spring semester;

ii. update or modify the evaluation questions and procedures in accordance with the faculty and evaluees' feedback;

iii. and keep current the list of administrator evaluees.

http://www.colorado.edu/FacultyGovernance/BYLAWS/art6.html

Senate Resolution SR 02 – 02

Whereas LSU and A&M College students have computer access to evaluate professors and instructors through VelocitySquared website (www.universitytools.com).

Be it be resolved: VelocitySquared is to be used to allow LSU and A&M College faculty members to evaluate Department Heads, Directors, Deans, and higher university administrators. Additional financial support to VelocitySquared will be the responsibility of the Office of the Academic Affairs.