Faculty Concerned About Their ‘Diminishing Role’ in Campus Decisions

The letter drafted for President Ronald Vaughn last month by the University of Tampa Faculty Senate expressing concerns over rapid university expansion and the faculty’s relationship with the administration is not the first statement to address such anxieties.In October 2010, a letter on behalf of the faculty senators within UT’s College of Arts and Letters (CAL) declared, “Of late, we have become more and more troubled over what we perceive to be the diminishing role of the faculty in the governance of our university. We often find ourselves at a loss to pinpoint the genesis of issues that reach the floor of the [faculty] senate, and we often find ourselves confronting problems for which solutions have been predetermined by others.”

One example of administrators operating with little-to-no faculty input, according to the letter, was a Freshman Abroad Program to London’s Roehampton University. The program, the CAL faculty letter noted, was “presented to the faculty as a fait accompli [irreversible decision]” and was later a source of faculty contention. The program, intended to enhance campus internationalization, sent some freshmen abroad to Roehampton University in London. The program was eventually eliminated, in part, because some with knowledge of the program deemed it unproductive to send freshmen away from the university so soon in their academic career. Sources also said that concerns were raised questioning whether students would enjoy Roehampton so much that they would not return to the university.

“In the case of Roehampton, those decisions were not made without faculty input,” said UT provost Janet McNew. “Because it was intended to be an academic program, [it] had involvement from the faculty members in charge of the affected programs from the beginning. But the faculty felt, and it was true, that that program got ahead of the faculty processes. And they were concerned about quality control with that program. And because they were concerned, so was I.”

The 2010 CAL letter also voiced concerns about the university’s partnership with ELS Language Centers, a for-profit, private English-language service that provides academic programs for international students. The program is part of what McNew described as the “imperative and strategic plan to internationalize the campus.”  The CAL letter described the partnership as having been “created without faculty input.”

Tracy Morse, assistant professor of composition and rhetoric, said that controversy over the university’s partnership with ELS resulted from concerns “that we [would] not have enough places that are right for those students” and “that there was an admissions change to the catalog that the faculty had no input into and didn’t know about.” The 2010 university catalog included language referring specifically to ELS. The language has since been removed. However, ELS still operates using university space.

“I don’t think any faculty has ever seen a contract [with ELS],” Morse said. “So, what we’ve been told, through admissions, and through even Dr. McNew, is that the agreement with ELS is that when students pass out of their level 12 over there, they’re admitted to the university and they’re enrolled into First Year Writing 101.”

Other issues raised in the letter included the “exclusion of faculty from the Space Planning Committee” and “a policy presented without input determining which full-time faculty can serve on the Senate Executive Committee.”

Lastly, the letter of concern addressed the process by which “new major programs from continuing studies” had been introduced by deans and other administrators.

The last point refers to the contentious atmosphere that resulted over a proposed Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree. The BLS proposal provoked heavy debate due to the degree approval process. At a May 2010 Faculty Senate meeting, numerous faculty complained that the administration did not follow the correct procedures in vetting the BLS proposal.

The minutes from the meeting reveal that many faculty also expressed frustration over the way the BLS proposal was presented. According to the minutes, Scott Paine, an associate professor of communication and government and world affairs, said, “There was pressure that if we did not sign it there would be serious repercussions in the department. We were also told that we were the only hold-out in the entire university — that all the other departments are signing off and bending over backwards to make sure things get done.”

In the same meeting, Martha Harrison, an associate professor of education, said, “There have been allegations among faculty members of harassment, intimidation, unfair wavers, misfits, academic hooligans, little boys screaming in the corner, etc. The decision in my college has been a bit of a ‘pissing match’ between academics than it has been about BLS.”

Connie Rynder, a now-retired professor of history, is also confirmed to have asked, “How come the high pressure tactics are being perpetrated against chairs and sometimes against individual faculty members?”

Sean Maddan, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice and chair of the criminology department at the time BLS was being proposed, said that he felt subjected to such high-pressure tactics. Maddan later wrote in a statement, “I was pressured to sign the document or potentially lose faculty lines and other resources [Dean Anne Gormly] did not elaborate on.”

Maddan was removed from his position as criminology chair with less than three and a half weeks left on his contract. He believes his removal stemmed from his refusal to sign off on the BLS proposal.

Anne Gormly, dean of the College of Social Sciences, Math, and Education, said that she would not comment on personnel matters, but that the removal of a department chair during that time period “was not related to the concept of the BLS. . . . Definitely not related to that.”

Gary Luter, a professor of speech, theatre and dance, as quoted in the Faculty Senate minutes, said, “There seems to have been some coercion of chairs of departments and faculty members into signing something that they really have had no chance to examine. That is an issue of faculty governance.”

Provost McNew stated that she did not think faculty members were coerced during the debates over BLS. “I think deans were just trying to do what they thought their job was,” she said.

Gormly said she felt allegations of faculty coercion regarding the BLS signing were unfair.

The Faculty Senate meeting on May 7, 2010, resulted in a 26 to 3 vote in favor of tabling the BLS proposal until fall 2010. That fall, the Faculty Senate approved a revised version of the proposal.

Ultimately, Emilio Toro, an associate professor of mathematics, questioned whether the administration is really interested in faculty voices. “If the administration is going to consult with the faculty,” Toro said, “then consulting means more than just informing the faculty of the actions that they are going to take, but rather it should involve an exchange, a frank and open exchange of ideas.”

In a recent interview, Gormly agreed. “An effective administrator is someone who does consult, that does listen because frankly many heads are better than one,” she said. “Now, many heads won’t make the one decision, so that’s where you really do need to have the consulting.”

However, Toro painted the relationship between faculty and administrators as one without such consultation. As he said, “If the administration thinks that there is open communication and that both sides are listening to each other in that sense, then I think that there is a major disconnect because that indicates that they are really not aware of [the negative] sentiment of the faculty in general.”