Late last month, the University of Tampa faculty senate voted to censure senator Sean Maddan, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice, for alleged violations of confidentiality.
A censure is a symbolic measure enacted by a legislative body to express public disapproval.
Evan Chipouras, associate professor of biology and faculty senate president, brought forth the motion to censure Maddan. Chipouras called for the motion “in response to [Maddan’s] repeated violations of the explicit expectation of confidentiality that is stated in the faculty handbook’s CHAPTER 5: RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES, AND BENEFITS OF MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY.”
The motion cited an interview The Minaret conducted with Chipouras and Richard Mathews, a professor of English and writing, as evidence for Maddan’s alleged breach of confidentiality. “While not unexpected, it was only a matter of minutes into that conversation that mention of incredibly detailed info related to a couple recent grievance matters began to be made . . . and equally detailed follow-up questions began to be asked by members of the Minaret staff,” the motion stated. “Included in those mentions was info specifically identifying Dr. Maddan as the source of the grievance-related info being offered.”
The censure motion also cited Maddan’s “inclusion of matters specifically related to . . . ongoing grievances” in his proposed motion of no-confidence against Provost Janet McNew. In Chipouras’s estimation, the motion was “among other things . . . intentionally incompletely crafted so as to elicit the entirely predictable reactions.”
Maddan’s motion of no-confidence was outlined in the Oct. 13th edition of The Minaret. The motion included 17 incidents Maddan perceived as “serious violations” by the provost, including installing an armed guard at a departmental meeting and using attorneys in situations not sanctioned by the faculty handbook.
“Those who knew or have come to know a more complete picture since will likely also know that there is very little in the way of faculty honour to be or have been defended,” the motion read.
In an email to faculty senators, Maddan disputed the statement by Chipouras regarding faculty honor, calling it “unfair” and “cavalier.” In Maddan’s words, “All public stands against the [UT] administration have been solely in the name of other faculty members, so that they would not be subjected to the same types of attacks that I, and others, have endured in the last couple of years.”
Maddan’s email also laid out his case against the censure, including a denial that he provided confidential information to The Minaret. “Other than [Chipouras and Mathew’s] interview, there is no evidence that I have distributed confidential information,” he wrote. “When I asked the reporters about [Chipouras’s] assertions, they replied that that is not the case and that they did not get any confidential material from me.”
Maddan also questioned whether issues of confidentiality are faculty senate business. “Under the leadership of [faculty senate president] Evan [Chipouras], he has claimed the faculty senate is only responsible for curricular decisions. . . . Now, Evan has done an about face and the senate will consider such motions.”
In his defense, Maddan cited “Responsibilities of Faculty Senators,” a portion of UT’s Faculty Handbook that calls for “encouragement and facilitation of open dialogue with college and University Faculty on all matters.” Maddan added, “This does not provide a caveat for confidential issues.”
Maddan’s response also included a Dec. 15, 2010, email from Anita Levy of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). In the email, Levy briefly reviews the due process rights of faculty as laid out in the Faculty Handbook. Levy concludes that this section of the handbook is “exceedingly brief, vague, and inadequate when it comes to setting forth specifics” and “disturbingly silent with regard to faculty rights in [judicial] proceedings.”
Despite denying that he had breached confidentiality, Maddan wrote, “Confidentiality is utilized by those trying to cover their own behinds while also being used to deny others the ability to defend themselves from false allegations.”
His email concluded, “The time that we will put into this motion is time better spent trying to effect changes in the Faculty Handbook, thereby protecting faculty from future administrative misuse of policy.”
The faculty senate debated the motion to censure Maddan at the Oct. 21 faculty senate meeting. At the meeting, Chipouras clarified some aspects of his censure motion. He called the alleged breaches of confidentiality “a situation that’s been problematic for me for a while.” He added, “I had a very difficult year last year . . . dealing with issues surrounding faculty disagreements with other faculty. . . . It ate up a lot of my time and it wasn’t very productive.”
According to Chipouras, a faculty member contacted him to find out if he “was aware that there were faculty members going over to talk to The Minaret about a [confidential] hearing.” He added that, last spring, a week before Maddan withdrew his motion of no-confidence against the provost, “Sean [Maddan] said to me, ‘I understand that you’ve gotten some comment about the fact that somebody may be talking to The Minaret. I just want you to know that I am one of the people that has been talking to The Minaret.’”
Chipouras again cited a fall interview with The Minaret, saying, “Several questions that were directed at us were highly specific in nature, in my opinion, and were centered on these faculty hearings that had been going on and what had been happening in them.” He added, “When things about hearings and stuff like that are being asked by newspaper reporters with the potential of showing up in the paper or in other venues, that’s a problem for me.”
On why confidentiality must be maintained in conflict proceedings, Chipouras said, “I cannot honestly look a faculty member in the face and recommend that they avail themselves of that process when it says that it’s confidential, and then find out later that there are people that think it’s not confidential.” He also said, “If [faculty grievance] proceedings are not confidential, then we need to pull that out of the faculty handbook . . . and just tell people, ‘Go get yourself a lawyer and stop wasting your time with conflict resolution measures on campus.’”
Chipouras separately defended himself against Maddan’s claim that Chipouras “attempted to strong-arm [Maddan] off the Senate.” As Chipouras said, “As a faculty member, I absolutely asked Sean to consider resigning.” However, Chipouras indicated that he wanted to know whether Maddan would resign because Chipouras would be leaving his position in the senate if either Maddan did not resign or a “satisfactory solution” to issues of confidentiality was not reached.
Speaking during the senate meeting on behalf of the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics, and Education (CSSME) delegation, associate professor of psychology Jeff Skowronek said, “We are against this motion. We respect you [Chipouras] very much and respect your rationale for this. But we just feel that, much like everything else that has been tied to this issue that we wasted our time on, this is not senate business. And a motion to censure an individual for things that have occurred outside of the senate . . . is just not something that we should be doing right now.”
Kathryn Branch, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice, immediately objected to Skowronek’s implication of CSSME solidarity. “You can’t say all, but majority,” she said.
Richard Mathews, vice-president of the faculty senate, in a reply to Skowronek, said, “[The censure] has been made the senate’s business by motions that have distributed throughout the senate. . . . Motion to censure is in order if the body is being disrupted by the actions of the senator, and [Maddan] has taken numerous actions that have disrupted the normal functioning of this body.”
As the debate wrapped up, Skowronek added, “Once this vote is done, whatever way it goes, I hope this can be the end of this. . . . The senate has much bigger and better things to do.”
Given the last word, Maddan said, “I have not breached confidentiality despite what you heard from Minaret reporters, despite what you’ve heard from other places or sources. I haven’t. And I don’t know how many damn times I have to go through and perpetually say I have not breached confidentiality. I should almost have it tattooed on my forehead to save time.”
Requiring a majority to pass, the senate voted to approve the motion to censure Maddan by a 15 to 8 vote. Four senators abstained.
In the aftermath of the vote, Steve Hekkanen, professor of psychology and former faculty senate president, told The Minaret he disapproved of Maddan’s censure. “Basically, Maddan was censured based on hearsay,” he said. “That’s what it boils down to. And I find that very troublesome.”
He later added, “I go back to ’79, ’80 [and] I’ve never seen an administration label so many things confidential. . . . Our dean frequently labels things confidential. I’m bewildered by some of the things she labels confidential. It’s amazing. And the provost does it too. Many times they don’t want to be held responsible for actions they’ve taken against individual faculty members. They don’t want other faculty members talking about it.” He mentioned that, as a result of interactions with Dean Anne Gormly and Provost Janet McNew, he joined the AAUP and now carries roughly $1 million in professional liabilities.
Hekkanen described Maddan as a patsy, confirming, “Some faculty members don’t like to see dirty laundry in The Minaret and they needed someone to blame. They grabbed the nearest scapegoat and said it was this person, and it’s shameful.”
A majority of faculty senators did not agree with Hekkanen’s assessment.
[Note: The Minaret has not utilized confidential documents in its reporting on this story series. In addition, to our knowledge, The Minaret has not received confidential documents from Sean Maddan.]
Mikey Angelo Rumore can be reached at michealangelorumore@gmail.com.
Richard Solomon can be reached at richard.solomon@spartans.ut.edu.
I graduated last semester at UT. I know this university has had some issues in the past, but never really on this scale. I’m just curious as to why the majority of the problems are from the Criminology dept.? Is it just them or are the depts too afraid to speak up out of fear of the same things happening?
Either way from politics, to the work environment, to your personal life, you must first try to resolve matters ONLY between those that are concerned (ex. within that dept.) before taking them to board meetings etc. (I’m not sure if this was done). No one else will ever understand or take you seriously. I’m just saying!
On another note, Evan Chipouras is one of the best UT has got! Regardless of how much these articles are making him out to be…
And about the cars, you got to be ridiculous talking about professors driving BMWs! Students drive the MOST expensive, luxurious cars on campus…just crash ’em n get a new one. A Benz for a 4.0, n not even that sometimes SMH
A short excerpt from a recent article about the scandals emerging at Penn State seems appropriate here (the remainder is a quote about how universities and society are grossly negligent when they try to hide things and sweep things under the rug:
“Rather, however, than bemoan the decline in college sports, a topic upon which one could write for weeks, I am more concerned about what lessons we can learn from this experience and how it fits within a wide and, seemingly, growing culture committed to prostrating itself before the idol of monetary success.
From banking scandals to Wall Street, elementary schools to universities, the scramble to succeed in dollar terms, to bring in ever more money has led individuals and organizations to ignore visible, powerful, and pressing evidence of malfeasance. Money and power buy impunity, or at least rent it.
The Catholic Church, News Corporation, Citigroup, and now Penn State deserve the opprobrium that has been, and should be, heaped upon them for looking away, feigning ignorance, or covering-up the frauds, the abuses, the criminality.
When we place our loyalty, our commitment, in the service of individuals, organizations, or money we already have started down the path of corruption. Such misplaced loyalty, whether to a colleague in a hospital, a comrade in battle, or a stock trader on the floor, can only lead to error, wrongdoing, and evil.
In appearing to place success above honor, the administration of Penn State University has aided a sexual predator and ruined numerous lives. In their loyalty to the university’s good name, they failed in their loyalty, nay their duty, to the victims and to society as a whole. For this they should be wholeheartedly condemned and punished. The firing of Coach Paterno and university president, Graham Spanier, are clearly the right steps in that direction.
For the rest of us, we need also to look inward. As fans, investors, administrators and co-workers, how have we furthered this reality? Do we really desire the NCAA to clamp down on abuses, even if it is our team?
As surgeons, do we report the incompetent or drunken medical colleague?
As individuals whose wealth increases, do we really care about the nature of the stock trades or the processes? How we answer those questions determines the nature of our society.
Let us honor the coach who reports boosters slipping money to players, the co-worker who reports malfeasance, and the soldier who decries abuse and illegal orders. For if we do not, we ourselves must bear the guilt.”
Dear UTers,
UT is filled with wonderful, hard-working faculty, staff, and students and has great potential. Its potential has gone to waste for 80 years because UT functions like a incestuous high school–decisions are based on personalities not fair procedures. It’s a “good ol boy” system (women play it too), and everyone is responsible to how it plays out.
Ask a few questions: Who’s teaching me for my bucks? what’s the adjunct to full professor ratio? What’s the retention rate of faculty and the best students? what’s the ratio of well compensated leadership positions held by men to those held by women? Ethnicity? Why are so many students admitted late, put in hotels, and where does that post-budget money go?
It’s not Chiapouras or Madden–and the idea that Gormly has any power is a blame-the-woman fantasy. It’s an ingrained system of make up the rules because nothing is written down or enforced.
If you think it’s just the Social Sciences (or the provost or Vaugh) you are falling for the same personality, scapegoat trap. It’s everywhere. CSSME is just less refined at glossing it. Case: How is Math a Social Science?
Minaret–go back to the tenure race story from last year. RESEARCH it for real. Don’t ask a student outside Vaughn for a comment. The denied professor was also a woman. What doesit say that no one at the SPTimes or UT mentioned that. What does the faculty at UT look like now? If one current black professor says, it’s wonderful here–what does that tell you? Look at the STATS. Just as if enrollment was falling, if UT can’t hold on to new faculty in this economy, that should get your pencil scribbling.
Culture changes requires exposing the root problem and getting different folks invested in the shift. Can you help?
After teaching at UT for many years, I left for a better place. Since we are talking about cars, most of the time I was at UT, I drove a 1991 Ford Escort; the darning car didn’t even have AC (in Florida, no less!). It broke down multiple times.
I took a big cut in pay to come to UT to teach, and didn’t mind a bit. It wasn’t about the money. When I left, it wasn’t about the money. When I saw administration becoming (in my opinion) mean spirited and disparaging certain faculty publically (which markedly increased with the arrival of the Provost), I told myself it was time to leave. When the adminstration doesn’t respect the hard work and long hours that many, many faculty put into their jobs, it doesn’t speak well of the university as a whole. The strength of the university is not its brick and mortar, and palm trees, but the people. If people are treated like crap, the institution suffers. The students suffer–because faculty become demoralized. Ultimately, the students deserve better. UT deserves better.
I guarantee there a more faculty out there with stories like what the “same few people” are saying in these articles–and more. They just haven’t gone “public”–at least yet.
“I hope they realize they will probably have to trade in their BMWs that fill the Faculty parking lot (they should switch over to the Smart Car anyway so they can look like the clowns they are).”
How horrifically rude and mean-spirited.
I drive a ratty 2003 Chevy Cavalier whose engine is bound together by duct tape, tie wraps, and sheer force of will. Thinking about my parking lot, I don’t really recall seeing more than a few faculty-owned BMW’s. Most of the BMWs I have seen on campus are actually driven by students.
“Michael D.” what are the names of those hundreds of colleges?
In the harsh economic climate we find ourselves in, where 100s of private schools closed down last year, University of Tampa professors should be happy to still have jobs and THRILLED that UT is actually thriving.
If professors REALLY want UT to be under-enrolled, they are going about it in the correct way. I can’t imagine any student or parent would want to attend/pay for a school where the professors are more concerned with bitching and moaning than they are about educating students.
I hope they realize they will probably have to trade in their BMWs that fill the Faculty parking lot (they should switch over to the Smart Car anyway so they can look like the clowns they are).
“Has anyone noticed it is the same, very few people, over and over again that are mentioned in these articles? Hmmmm, should give one pause.”
Exactly true. There is a segment of the faculty in this university which has delusions of grandeur, and seeks to gain power over their little fiefdoms by any means necessary. Dr. Maddan is the fall guy, not the perp.
Ever notice that there’s never any problem like this in the other three colleges? Something’s rotten in the social sciences at UT, to cop a phrase from Hamlet.
I would like to know why employee records, grievances, etc. are being made public? I understand that this is a university, however in any other corporation, this is grounds for termination. What makes this news worthy? What is to be gained by making the administration of this school look bad? What is the ultimate end goal?
These professors are looking like spoiled brats on a school yard. It is time to grow up folks and remember that the main focus should be EDUCATING THE STUDENTS!
Sean Madden is a patsy alright, but he is a patsy of Steve Hekkanans and the rest of that old crew who have been trying for years to stir up trouble. After years of no one taking them seriously and getting sick of listening to their whining they turned to Sean Madden to continue their crusade. As for the previous article regarding transferring of Smith and La Rose to GHS, GHS doesn’t want them either. Has anyone noticed it is the same, very few people, over and over again that are mentioned in these articles? Hmmmm, should give one pause.
Hey UT administrators…sunshine is a great disinfectant…you should try it sometime—instead of constantly operating under a cloak of secrecy. Drs. Hekkennen and Maddan are absolutely correct—the adminstration marks everything as confidential so that faculty can’t communicate with each other, and no one can find out how ABSOLUTELY INCOMPETENT Gormly and McNew are…..
Vaughn must be at a spa (which he can afford with his $900K plus benefits package)—otherwise, he wouldn’t tolerate this sort of thing at UT. Wake up Vaughn…UT is being destroyed under your negligent watch….
I don’t understand the note at the end of your article about publishing confidential documents. I don’t know much about this case other than what I’ve read in the Minaret, but it sounds like a blanket policy against publishing confidential information. There isn’t a court order and you are a news organization. Assuming that the documents are newsworthy and you are not committing some internal ethical violation, what’s the problem with publishing confidential documents?