A New Look

So loyal readers, your humble narrator brings you greetings and a new look for the uncensored voice of the faculty. As I believe the only constant is change, I thought a new presentation would be appropriate. Be forewarned however that a more pleasing aesthetic will not soften the presentation of the state of affairs of the university. To the contrary and more to follow on that score. Be safe in the knowledge that faculty will continue to discuss, deliberate, debate, dissent and disabuse various and sundry of all manner of ill conceived ideas about the nature of the Academy and bring to our discussion resonant themes and ideas consistent with being a doctoral degree granting institution.  

Stay tuned.

The Imperial Presidency Strikes Back

Lots of stuff going on the past few weeks on campus and if the faculty and the union don't come together on this then we truly get what we deserve.

Currently a two-day Deans and Chairs DAC workshop is going on yesterday and today which is underscoring our demotion from university to community college to high school.

As we know all DACs were due this spring. President Watson has rejected all the DACs that were submitted this spring - across the university. The workshop is a working meeting to get the DACs in shape to meet Watson's expectations. The Administration feels that faculty merely submitted the first draft (which represents shared governance in their world view) and the administration (in this case Provost, Deans, Chairs) is working on the second draft.

Supposedly there may be a chance for faculty comment but don't expect much to be changed--at other times when faculty have been "consulted" as "advisory" we all know how those comments are brushed aside (demise of the Grad School being a recent case in point).

There are no faculty, no DPC Chairs, no Coordinators, nor the primary authors of the DACs at this meeting. The administration is claiming a management decision to have just Deans and Chairs at the table and they are standing firm on this. So faculty had better hope their deans and chairs are working in their favor.

This is no longer a university this a high school, a Chicago Public High School.  Small surprise considering the influence of educationalists and politicians rather than scholars in the presidential "kitchen cabinet."

Here's what is going to be imposed on the Faculty:
1. Increase standards in Research Productivity
2. Include language in the Teaching/Primary Duties section of the DAC mandating effective communication with students, availability to students, use of available technologies in the classroom, keeping office hours, employing multiple pedagogical tools in the classroom (lectures, discussion, debates, multi-media displays, small groups, worksheets, etc.).
3. Standardize DAC formats across the university.
4. Drop the point system
5. Include graphic tables in DACs for clarity
6. Standardize acceptable Service components.
7. Increase expectations of student involvement in research activities.

How to explain Dr Watson's demand that he be the Decider on all things faculty? Exactly who is he to rule over us in such a way? Isn't a university president supposed to be a fund-raiser first and foremost and the Provost the Chief Academic Officer?


Apparently Dr Watson also now claims the right to interview all candidates from departmental searches. And all in-coming faculty must submit to an in-class writing test because that article they submitted in their application is just not good enough proof as a writing sample. What a high school mentality.

And wait a minute, wasn't Dr Watson the only one of the job candidates for the CSU presidency in 2008 who did not even submit a letter of intention with his "application" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)? What exactly were his intellectual qualifications? I wonder how many Illinois State university presidents have publication records, we know for sure that ours DOES NOT. So he is now the Decider on all things academic by virtue of Emil Jones putting the mantle of Great and Powerful Wizard on him?

Yes Dr Watson is the Decider. Another decision in the past month was to deny retention to 4th & 5th year faculty by sending them essentially a form letter--how contractural is that?

HLC is going to love all this.

Well, maybe all of this overreach is simply Dr Watson's megalomaniacal swan-song in the midst of rumors of his possible departure from the university.

And where does the Union stand on this?  How is the Union going to stand up for us on this and that other ridiculous imposition of the time card punch policy? Why are we following Eastern Illinois University on this and not U of I?

Does Corday hear the drumbeat of Bastille Day?

THEY CAN'T GET NO SATIS-FACTION (surveys that is)

The HLC Committee has been encouraging "college employees" to complete the Noel Levitz "COLLEGE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY". Some colleagues have mentioned to me that they are afraid to fill it out for fear that it is not truly confidential and that there would be retaliation against them by the Admin (Cook offices and beyond) and our culture of rule by personal loyalty. This is a telling point that the committee might want to make note of --the campus climate of fear that faculty full and part-time don't even want to complete a survey to discuss how the culture of fear pervades the place! This is compounded by apathy where there is a strong feeling among many faculty that "no matter what I say "they" will go ahead and do whatever "they" want anyway." Both are still true, unfortunately, in spite of some strides made in the areas of shared governance and transparency of action over the past year. I am forwarding this message from Sarah Austin of the HLC Committee. She assures me that the test is completely confidential and that CSU administrators will not see personal info. In other words, do not fear retaliation.

From Sarah:
Subject: Re: PLEASE complete the HLC: College Employee Satisfaction Survey


PLEASE spread the word that the link goes DIRECTLY to Noel Levitz (tell them to watch the web address when you are directed to the survey)

Noel Levitz does NOT save any info about people who do the survey, and the ONLY identifying info that they record is:


Are you


- Part time or Full time


- Staff, Faculty, or an Administrator


We really need folks who have taken it to tell others that this is important and that it IS confidential.
Thanks
Sarah

Noel Levitz Link is posted here:
http://new.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2ise32eoaUFuGG0

Highlights and lowlights from the Board of Trustees Meeting

In the swirl of finals, grading, and end of year reports that have absorbed faculty and students there has been a lot going on around us on campus—some of this comes up at the Board of Trustees meeting some of it does not. Here are some highlights from the public part of the BOT meeting on Friday that I gleaned. Please feel free to add commentary if anyone else was there who has something to add:

1. We are again short one board member—a resignation, can’t remember which one at the moment. Not sure when that replacement will be made. Maybe this is the time to rally for a Faculty trustee?
2. The Civil Service Employees, particularly the janitorial staff who work all around us are facing a loss of a paycheck in June because of a reordering/changeover of their payment schedules. If I understand correctly they had been getting paid one week in advance. In order to adjust this so that they work 2 weeks and then get paid, a pay period has to be missed. After some negotiation with Human Resources, the employees will be “loaned” a check in June and have deductions made over 6 pay periods. It seemed a reasonable solution until a couple of members of the civil service staff spoke out during the public comment period and asked, “were there Union Representatives at these negotiations with Human Resources?” The question went unanswered, no union representatives spoke up, and the follow-up question was met with more silence: “Is it legal?” I wonder what the answer is.  It was nice to see the Library Auditorium harboring a contingent of the greenshirts of our workers alongside the suits for a change at this Board meeting. I wonder, however, if anyone noticed them leave en masse at one point. I hope they get the answers they need.
3. Another thing that came out was that a contingent of Civil Service employees lunched with the Trustees on Friday which continues the Trustees’ attempts to reach out to all sectors of the university—faculty, staff, students. At the last Board meeting, some members of the Faculty Senate met with the Trustees.
4. President Watson gave his report praising “Dr. Henderson” (is she a doctor now?) of Enrollment Management on the aggressive marketing and the improved statistics she has made in various areas—I couldn’t keep up with all the numbers. Did I hear our grad rate moved from 14% to 21% in a 2-year period? Did I hear that we would be at a 25% grad rate in May 2013 for first-time/full-time freshmen? Sounds good, I think, at least it will keep the Trustees happy. The word “branding” was bandied about (as usual). And Dr Watson owned up to working “quite a bit toward shared governance” although he provided no examples of this.
5. New Senate President Phillip Beverly gave a Senate report making reference to the Senate’s dismay over that shambles of a “Communications Policy” that was issued this spring on the heels of the computer usage policy. Since Dr Watson has been invoking his absolute right not to hire a department’s faculty search choices if he does not deem them worthy of employment at CSU (e.g. “I am the great and powerful wizard of Oz”), the Senate expressed its dismay over this failure to let faculty, who know their own disciplines and departments better than he does, have a say in the hiring of their colleagues. Faculty at CSU, if you remember, do not have a right even to RANK candidates of their job searches and the Union failed to bring this to the table in the last negotiation. Dr Watson claims the right to review ALL the application files and turn away finalists. I understand he wants to see “writing samples” from incoming faculty—hello, we call these articles and books at the university-level. Is this all just part of the CEO’s micromangerial style we’ve heard about? Or, is he afraid we will be hiring too many more potentially disgruntled white faculty to add to the cadre of those he famously attributes the last few years of apple-cart upsetting on campus? So the Senate is on record at least of calling attention to various departments’ unhappiness about their overturned searches and while no one is against the checks and balances that any institution needs to have, the overreach of the executive authority into academic matters is taking on unfortunately high proportions.
6. Public Comment. Oy veh.

It is interesting that some students accomplished what is usually a faculty-based action and offered to the Board of Trustees a petition of about 150 names citing “no confidence” in President Watson and his regime. The spokesperson cited several examples of Dr Watson failing them and recalled a quote from Oliver Cromwell of all people (certainly not my favorite historical figure) to the Rump Parliament of 1653: "YOU HAVE BEEN SAT TO LONG HERE FOR ANY GOOD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING. DEPART, I SAY, AND LET US HAVE DONE WITH YOU. IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO!."

A second student spoke to the Trustees as the guardians of the university who needed to pay attention to the internal crises on campus. To Dr Watson he said that he must seriously seek the support of faculty and students because “you cannot steer this ship alone” and finally he asked, “do you believe faculty have control over curriculum matters?” The question was left to be answered at another time and place. These “students” by the way, are grown men who have a certain amount of age and experience behind them. They were not the typical students that that cadre of 4 or 5 disgruntled white faculty members are usually accused of manipulating. I was surprised and impressed as I have been so often by CSU students.

The meeting ended shortly afterward, but clearly the discussion is not over.

Reminder: Board of Trustees Meeting on Friday

The last meeting of CSU's Board of Trustees will be on Friday, May 11th. Even though it's a busy time of year it's important to be aware of what is happening at our university. The Library Auditorium on the 4th Floor is the usual venue, after 12 or 1 p.m. for public comment.

CSU in the News--we must be rich!!

A friend sent this link today from the Daily Herald and asks the question:  "CSU gets 2% of the take at this casino. What is being done with that revenue?"

I guess this is an argument for keeping CSU at the status of an Illinois patronage pit (assuming we don't aspire to much more than that). This deal was cut some time ago, I believe. Without political connections we'd never have gotten this benefit. I wonder though, was it--is it-- worth it?

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120504/news/705049726/

A few bits and pieces

So I want to extend my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Dr. Yan Searcy for his service to the Faculty Senate as its President, to the University as an exemplary scholar and to the larger  community in his work with young people. He announced at the April meeting  his resignation to pursue an administrative post where I am sure he will be outstanding. Faculty moving to administration is an archaic phenomenon that has some merit even in the 21st Century.  In the wake of his departure Professor Toth and Drs. Raynovich and Kuzdale were elected to form the Executive Committee along with your humble narrator succeeding Dr. Searcy as President.

CSU, along with all of the state universities have been receiving a repeat audit finding because faculty at state universities have declined to be treated like minimum wage Wal-Mart greeters by accounting for their time. The university has decided to implement a web based time keeping system for faculty. It will account for our normal time and exception time, e.g. bereavement leave. The Director of Human Resources asked for feedback from the Faculty Senate prior to implementation. I suspect that faculty feedback will be productive in implementing this new policy. The surprising thing was that the Senate was informed that the UPI agreed to this new process last year. To say that many Senators were surprised that the Union agreed to this system and not inform the membership or request some discussion would be understatement.

May 17th will mark the Spring Commencement at the Jones Convocation Center. For faculty interested in being faculty marshals please contact me at pbeverly@csu.edu. The faculty marshals lead the graduates into the hall during the processional and lead them out during the recessional. We are anticipating that we will stay in integrity around time and that all participants that have speaking roles will be mindful of the time graduates expect to spend on the ceremony.

Finally, I want to congratulate all the union members elected in the recent election. I also want to thank all those who stood for election offering to serve. I am sure all of the membership is eagerly awaiting the results, including ballots cast and candidate totals. It is my understanding that the Chapter presidents will have the results and determine how to disseminate those results to their respective members. I am hopeful those results will be published on this blog.

Independent Student Union TEACH IN Thursday, May 3rd 12-4 p.m.

I am posting this on behalf of CSU's Independent Student Union who are sponsoring a Teach-In on campus this week:
 
Attention CSU Community

Teach-In

 

Thursday, May 3rd, 12pm-4pm

 

SUB Conference Rooms A, B, C

 

Come out and hear students and professors discuss:

Shared Governance 
Facilities/Resources
Campus Atmosphere

  

This event is aimed at interjecting new beliefs and perspectives into the CSU community.

We want to promote discussion around things like faculty, student and staff consideration around decision-making that affects the university, the adequacy of CSU facilities and resources, and the source of the inactivity of the majority of the members of the CSU community.

This discussion can be the start of something so come join us while we work collaboratively to better CSU.

 

Our Ideas and Voices Together Are The Compass to Success!

 

Thought for the day...

From a long serving (long suffering) colleague, a journey back to the Vietnam War era.

"We the unwilling, led by the incompetent and criminal have done the amazing, forever with nothing. We will now attempt the impossible and probably fail. No reality distortion field here."

A response from a retiring colleague

This is a rejoinder submitted by Professor George Williams.

 

"Obviously, Dr. Walter misses the issues of my original “Dear Colleague” letter posted by P. Beverly. So let’s try again.

1.      PRIVATE NEGOTIATIONS: This issue is not so much what they did behind closed doors, but the fact that they actually met behind closed doors and excluded the union negotiating team.

L. Walter, E. Sullivan and J. Daniel (for one session only)  excluding the other negotiating team members met with the CSU President at his request for several sessions to finalize contract negotiations. The question is WHY? Possible answers: [select  one or all]

a.       The CSU President was unhappy with his own negotiating team;

b.      The CSU President wanted to finalize the contract on his terms so he could say (as he did with the CCC  union negotiations) that contract settlement required his special powers of mediation;

c.        [You supply your own motivation]

The issue is that the reduced union negotiating team of Walter and  Sullivan  should not have met in PRIVATE with the CSU CEO.  Referencing the College of  Pharmacy  integration and Appendix G  update  has nothing to do with the issue except to obfuscate  and deflect the criticism.

The Criticism of Walter and Sullivan is Chicago politics of “behind closed doors” meetings which resulted in the union acceptance of post tenure review, a 5 year contract with minimal salary increases, and inaction on other items on the table

2.      RUSHED VOTING to approve the contract. A membership meeting was held and voting began at that meeting on an incomplete version of the contract which has been posted online only a couple days prior to the membership meeting?

Again WHY the rush?

3.      PRO-ACTIVE LEADERSHIP: This issue is not so much with what was finally accomplished with the Administration’s computer usage policy, but the actual timeline of union intervention.

This criticism is of the union chapter president’s reaction to the “Computer Usage” proclamation and the timeline of the union intervention. The outcome of the fiasco was to be expected and for which there is nothing to compliment oneself. The entire point is that the day after the CSU proclaimed its new policy, the union should have responded by telling the membership to ignore the computer usage proclamation, not a week later.

In summation, let’s expand the criticism of the union, both union leadership and membership. Union meetings consist of a handful of loyal members -  why? Why did the union chapter president refuse to an open debate or Q&A meeting with Professor McFarland? Why is there not a CSU union blog similar to the Faculty Voice? Why is there no information ever posted for the membership concerning grievances (except those which are personal)?"