From one of our untenured colleagues or What Does Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn Have against Predominantly Black Chicago State University?

So part of the responsibility of tenure is to speak for the un-tenured. They are in the precarious position of not having the same protections and yet being part of the university environment and activities. I was contacted by one of our colleagues who requested to be heard and here is that piece.

As you’ll recall, several months ago, dozens of Chicago State University faculty members and students protested what we perceived to be a rigged presidential selection process: Following the Board of Trustees’ national search, which cost Illinois taxpayers $75,000, the final candidate was the politically connected chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, Dr. Wayne Watson—a candidate rumored to have been tapped for the job prior to the launch of the search.

Faculty members appealed to Governor Patrick Quinn to restore fairness and integrity to the process. We demanded a new search. He did absolutely nothing. That’s in stark contrast to his instantaneous response to the board of trustees’ crisis at the University of Illinois, which is not located in a middle-class African American residential area, unlike Chicago State.

When members of the board of trustees at UIUC were accused of manipulating student admissions, the governor interceded with flourish, cameras rolling. When members of the Blagojevich-appointed board of trustees at CSU were accused of manipulating the selection of the most important position on campus, the governor cowered backstage.

Even after the faculty’s concerns about Dr. Watson’s qualifications to lead this institution bore fruit, Governor Quinn has said and done nothing. As state lawmakers work to pull the state from the quicksand of an unprecedented budget crisis, Quinn has allowed the appointment of the man responsible for inexplicable cost overruns of 118% at new Kennedy-King College campus. Ironically, Dr. Watson counts this as one of the highlights of his career as the City Colleges’ chancellor. The project was budgeted at $93 million. To date, the cost is $202 million, and is expected to rise when all the bills are tallied. The additional $109+ million can’t be explained because records are missing. How convenient!

Patrick Quinn blazed into the governor’s chair promising reform. He has replaced entire boards at other state agencies. Incidentally, while much is being made about the ascension process of UIUC’s current board of trustees’ chair, no one has mentioned that Rev. Leon Finney maneuvered his way into the chairmanship of the CSU board after only two years on the board, without holding any other position. As vice chair, Rev. Richard L. Tolliver was next in line. Quinn has remained mum, allowing Blagojevich’s CSU trustees to put a plague on our house.

Rev. Finney, who is frequently mean-spirited, condescending and disrespectful to the University’s presidents and high ranking administrators at public Board of Trustees’ meetings, raised the faculty’s ire again when he ordered the admission of students with low ACT scores. And he wanted the tuition to remain the lowest in the state.

Again, Quinn said nothing about the devaluation of a state university with some of the finest minds in higher education. CSU faculty members hail from prestigious universities throughout the country and the world. We have produced some of the state’s most successful business, political and educational leaders—and more African American physicists than any university in the country. Yet, our expertise has less value than our colleagues at other state universities.

Incoming president Wayne Watson reportedly told the Chicago Tribune editorial board that CSU faculty members must learn to teach. To that end, he allegedly plans to provide us with additional methods courses. Has Dr. Watson has observed even one CSU class? Why is he so committed to spending taxpayer dollars to improve our teaching skills? Who’ll get that contract?

The faculty has protested. Governor Quinn has turned a deaf ear.

Quinn’s disrespect for the Chicago State faculty generously gave Rev. Finney, the man many say orchestrated Watson’s selection, carte blanche to treat the university, which belongs to the state’s taxpayers, like a carnival prize he’d won at the State Fair:

• According to an Open Letter to the Board of Trustees written by then-Interim President Dr. Frank Pogue, Rev. Finney usurped Pogue’s authority to run the day-to-day operations of the University—authority granted to the CSU president in the board of trustees’ by-laws;

• In a public board of trustees meeting, Dr. Pogue revealed that Rev. Finney also allegedly halted Pogue’s search for a vice president to run the University’s financial affairs, despite numerous past irregularities found by state auditors and the possibility for more without a senior financial administrator’s oversight;

• Several administrators say Finney visited offices and instructed them how to do their jobs—jobs for which he has no expertise, educational background or previous experience;

• In May, Finney sent a memo to the entire staff, prohibiting the hiring or reassignment of any personnel without the Board of Trustees’ approval. Among the effects of this order, the search for a new campus police chief was halted; and

• When the interim president’s contract ended on June 30, Finney took the reins until Dr. Watson’s contract period officially begins on August 1. Both have been spending lots of time on campus in recent weeks.

Still, Quinn and the other Chicago State trustees have said nothing. As a result, what many staff members characterize as Rev. Finney’s reign of terror continues, and every taxpayer in deficit-plagued Illinois will pay the tab. He is now in the process of firing senior administrators and other staff—without cause, according to their termination letters—just because: just because they were appointed by Interim President Dr. Frank Pogue and just because he’s now in charge. Illinois taxpayers’ bill for this stunt will total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why?

According to Chicago State University Board of Trustees’ Regulations, employees terminated without cause must be given notice three to 12 months in advance. It is University practice to send these employees home, instead of allowing them to continue working until their termination date. The rationale is that it minimizes the possibility that the employees will harm University property or personnel, in response to being fired for nothing—or in some of the recent cases, fired for doing a great job. It makes sense, under the circumstances. So off these employees go, remaining on the CSU payroll until their termination date finally arrives, three to 12 months later.

For CSU Provost Dr. Sandra Westbrooks, appointed by Rev. Finney and the board of trustees as the University’s most senior administrative officer until Dr. Watson officially arrives, this has been a tumultuous July: Allegedly at Rev. Finney’s or Dr. Watson’s behest, she has terminated at least five of her colleagues on the President’s Executive Council (PEC) and several other administrators.

On Wednesday, July 1, Dr. Westbrooks sent a grateful e-mail to one PEC member, wishing that she “could clone” her. The next day, she sheepishly entered that administrator’s office, pie-eyed and near tears, explaining that she had been ordered to fire the administrator—without cause, of course. And so, right or wrong, painful or not, the Provost did it, even while observing that after spending a month terminating her colleagues in preparation for Wayne Watson’s arrival, she’d probably be terminated herself.

Currently, none of terminated administrators has been replaced. None of their work is being done, and the University and the state are receiving no return on the administrators’ salaries. To add insult to injury, when they are replaced after Watson arrives officially, taxpayers will pay two individuals for doing one job until the terminated employees’ notice period expires. That’s consistent with the appalling lack of fiscal discipline that Watson exhibited at the City Colleges.

In the meantime, Governor Quinn and the other Blagojevich trustees are whistling in the wind. In a quest for great leadership and fiscal responsibility, the University’s faculty senate has implored Quinn to replace this board—a few of whom have expired terms—and he has done nothing. We asked him to fill the vacancies on the board, and he has ignored us. Why? Perhaps the good Rev. Finney has provided some clues.

No slave to subtlety, Finney has made only two new appointments during the past two weeks, most notably the reassignment of the attorney who formerly reviewed and approved large purchasing contracts. He will now do that again as the Associate General Counsel and Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary Operations.

The faculty has expressed concerns that the selection of Watson signaled the beginning of Chicago State’s use as a patronage tunnel for jobs and contracts. Clearly, room is being made for bodies. Monthly or quarterly FOIA requests for purchasing office records will reveal to whom the University is awarding contracts. Maybe with vigilant taxpayer oversight, no records will go missing.

Despite its top-notch faculty and staff and beautiful sprawling campus, Chicago State has been challenged with declining enrollment. Among the contributing factors is the board of trustees’ failure to approve a marketing budget for a number of years. There’s no advertising in online, print or broadcast media. The Office of Enrollment Services struggles to afford brochures and other marketing material while competitors advertise heavily to our prospective students. This is an anomaly among other state universities.

Few, beyond the range of a bullhorn, are aware of the treasures at Chicago State: Few people know that our students are engaged in significant alternative energy research with solar cells and fuel cells. Few know that our nursing students have a higher pass rate on the national certification exam than their counterparts in the state or the nation.

There’s been a lot of negative publicity about our graduation rate, which only counts those who enrolled as first-time, full-time freshmen. But with a student body of 6,800, more than 1,000 were conferred bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Chicago State’s spring commencement. They will be wage earners and taxpayers, and they’ll be outraged by the callous disregard with which this governor has treated their alma mater and their tax dollars.

August first has not yet arrived. Wayne Watson is not yet officially the president of Chicago State University. Governor Quinn has time to appoint a reform-minded board of trustees. It’s also not too late to investigate the legitimacy of Watson’s selection and order an legitimate, cost-effective, ethical search for a leader who can move the University forward, rather than turn it into a funnel for patronage jobs and contracts.

Quinn holds full responsibility for what is happening at Chicago State and has a vested interest in addressing it, because it glaringly reflects the credibility of his dedication to fiscal responsibility and educational excellence. Neither the University nor Illinois taxpayers can afford Watson’s reckless spending sprees. If Quinn continues to endorse cost overruns as the status quo, we certainly can’t afford him.

The contributors welcome your comments.

Mid summer musings

So the summer is moving along. The university is conducting some house cleaning, reshuffling, reorganizing and the like. One of the statements that I have heard is that the new administration will clean house. Firing people is pretty easy. Hiring competent people to replace them is a bit harder. Our fair university has often found it hard to do the latter. Our history in that area is spotty at best. What we can expect next month is a politically connected administrator more interested in how long the blinds in the dormitory has been up than the deeper issues of managing a university. And this is what we get, someone who has never been an administrator at a university. I haven't quite figured out which organization has the worst curse, CSU or the Chicago Cubs. Will administrative competence ever land at CSU?

We aren't the only ones....

We aren't the only ones suffering under incompetent board leadership. This is a link to a Chronicle blog about what is happening at Florida Atlantic University. I guess this is what we can expect from a vindictive board and their applicant. The comments are very interesting.

Gov. Quinn's Hypocrisy

Many of you are no doubt following the recent admissions “scandal” at University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, and my sense is that mostly the press coverage of this has been on par with the press coverage of the events at CSU this past semester.  However, it appears the Gov. Quinn is much more concerned about the alleged unethical practices of the Urbana-Champaign’s Board of Trustees and President than the unethical practices of CSU’s Board of Trustees.  As reported in the Tribune today, Quinn has created a panel to review the admissions process at U of I, and reading this article I found myself get increasingly angry with his response in comparison to Quinn’s complete and total inaction in response to the unanimous request by the Faculty Senate to deal with the myriad of problems with CSU’s presidential search and its Board of Trustees. 

I know, I know, there are specific reasons why Quinn would be much more concerned (or appear to be) with U of I than with CSU, starting with class and race.  And I know that we should be focusing on the leadership that the faculty, students, and staff are taking in our efforts to reclaim our university, and not be looking for help from a single person in Springfield.  But knowing those things doesn’t make me any less angry about the gross inequalities demonstrated by Quinn’s vastly different responses to the two universities. 

These inequalities are magnified by the nature of the supposed unethical practices in the cases of these two universities.  If one looks at what’s been alleged in the U of I case, is it really so surprising that elected officials might try to make use of their influence to get various friends into the university?  Why does this “admissions scandal” merit the creation of, as the Tribune puts it, a “task force aimed at changing entrenched practices in the state,” whereas the manipulation of a presidential search at CSU does not?  Not to mention that the manipulation of the presidential search followed years of other problematic actions by the CSU Board of Trustees.  Which is a bigger concern, altering the admissions of a small group of students (in comparison to the total student body) or altering the way that the entire university is run? 

Again, I know that I should be focusing on the real leadership shown by faculty, students, and staff at CSU.  And, I know that we are the ones who really matter for the future of CSU.  Still, these recent actions by Gov. Quinn further demonstrate that our actions at CSU are not isolated from the larger society of which we are a part, a society riddled with inequality that places CSU firmly on the receiving end of much of that inequality.  And that just makes me angry, which I suppose it should.

The Saga Continues....

This just in, an article published in Diverse Issues in Higher Education. And Part 2 is here.

A West Side Campus??? Part Deux

[WARNING: Long Posting]

So given the truly bizarre happenings at our fair campus this year I was very surprised and confused by the report of CSU being given $40 million to open a West Side campus (WSC). Have I missed the university tidying up the $70 million of deferred maintenance on campus? Are we running such an efficient university machine both physically and fiscally that we should expand beyond our current confines? I think not dear reader and here’s why.

Academic affairs:
There are several academic affairs questions that must be asked and thoughtfully answered. First, who will teach at the WSC? Are faculty who currently teach between three and five courses per semester going to be expected to travel to location unknown and teach? If not, then faculty will need to be hired. Are adjunct faculty going to be the faculty de jure or will we hire the tenure track faculty? If so, will those faculty be part of the existing departments making them subject to supervision by existing department chairs or will there be duplicate departments at the WSC? If the faculty are all part of the same department how will they be supervised? Will the existing department chairs be expected to split time between the south and west side campuses? How will collegiality and intellectual exchange happen if the faculty is physically divided? If the faculty is separate and distinct, that will necessitate a duplicate accreditation process and the expense associated with it. Is the legislature prepared to appropriate at least 50% more to operate the WSC? What courses of study will be offered at the WSC? Lower division, upper division, graduate or all three? Will offering courses at a WSC compromise or complicate the accreditation process for any academic programs? The College of Pharmacy comes to mind. Will departments like Music, have the resources e.g. instruments, available at the WSC? If so, what sorts of cost estimates are available for that? If the WSC Music Department has brand new equipment, how will students and faculty at the main campus react after years of administrative neglect? It doesn’t seem to be the way to build morale at a university that is already poorly managed. If we offer physical or biological sciences, will there be lab facilities available or will students need to come to the main campus for lab time. If they are coming for lab time anyway, why not just come to campus all the time? Who will determine what courses are offered? As no one at the President’s Executive Council knew anything about the $40 million, will our legislators decide what is to be offered and then let us know? There might be some collective bargaining issues that need to be discussed before we tread too far down this road. And finally, will tenure track faculty at the WSC be expected to pursue an aggressive research agenda? If so, what research resources, like a library, will be available to them at this as of yet undetermined location?

Library
Related to the academic function is the presence of the library. Is there going to be a mini-library with a mini-ROVR in it? Or will the WSC students need to come to the main campus to use the library? If so, why not come here to take classes? Maybe the university could negotiate with UIC, which already geographically serves the West Side, to use their library so as to not inconvenience our WSC students. I am sure UIC would be willing to open their library so that our students won’t have to travel to the main campus.

Athletics
Academics are the core of the university and there are other elements of the university that must be considered. Is the intention here to build a CSU system much like the UI system which has UIC and UIUC. Each school has its own athletics program, with UIUC belonging to the Big 10 Conference and UIC belonging to the Horizon League. Will the WSC have its own athletics program or will its students that are interested in intercollegiate athletics need to come to the main campus. Will there even be athletic facilities at the WSC? If not, why not?

Student activities
Another vital function of the university is in the area of student activities. Will there be any student activities at the WSC? If so, will they be replicated from the main campus or will they be different? If different activities are provided what is the impact on students at both campuses? Given that student activity fees must be the same, shouldn’t the level of service be the same? Anyone who would argue differently doesn’t understand university life or care about the students’ well-being.

Administration
Students have repeatedly reported that administrative activities are the primary complaint; bursar, financial aid, bookstore being the leading vote getters. How might we fix the main campus before venturing off in some expansionist fantasy? Again the short question is will there be a replication of all the vital administrative functions at the WSC? Will there be two admissions offices? If so, how is adequate supervision maintained? Given the number of audit findings since FY 2003, how could we expect not to have more findings and further deterioration of our reputation by this unnecessary expansion? And will the legislature be willing to fund in the out years a duplicate administrative setup that is already poorly performing?

Policing
I continue to hear complaints of not enough police on the main campus. Our officers are already stretched thin. Will we need to double the size of the police department in order to safeguard a WSC? How integrated will our department be in the west side environment or neighborhood? Will they be patrolling in adjacent neighborhoods as well as providing 24 hour police service at the WSC? What sort of physical infrastructure will be necessary to support the police, e.g. telecommunications equipment, visual surveillance equipment, vehicles, etc.? I don’t believe this is an issue that should be left to the end of the conversation. And many of the questions can’t be answered until basic questions like what will be offered and what facilities are required and what location is available are answered.

Emergency management
Policing is a subset of emergency management. Response is just one phase of the emergency management cycle. We do not have an Emergency Operations Plan for the university, though there are several staff and faculty who are scheduled to receive training on preparing one. This is a major undertaking for a campus on one location. It will be double the work for a two site campus. Being unprepared is unacceptable and I would not like to be the person to explain to the world why we weren’t prepared for the lab explosion, fire, active shooter, tornado or any other hazard or threat we could experience.

IT
Underlying so much of what we do is information technology. Our IT infrastructure is sound on the main campus. Its overall management is often suspect. Labs appear and then disappear. The Help Desk is often of no help. We don’t have policy on IT that is easily referenced. There university’s web site is in need of an extreme makeover. Banner is usable and normally not friendly. How could we extend our IT operation to a WSC? Is this an opportunity for the board’s candidate to give another $45million no bid contract to a politician’s kid? Stay tuned. Maybe we will have two separate IT operations. Again, this is something that the university must negotiate with the UPI about.

Management
Has this Board of Trustees demonstrated the competence to manage one campus much less two? Their performance has been appalling, worthy of removal by the Governor, which is unprecedented. They clearly are the wrong group to lead any effort at expansion.

These are only questions I could think of. I am sure there are many more and knowing how inept and incompetent the Board of Trustees is, I have no confidence in their ability to manage such an enormous undertaking.

So after all of these questions, is this $40 million appropriation just a way for state legislators to pass money through a crony administration and board to their cronies during an election cycle. Maybe none of this is about education but that would not be surprising, it rarely ever is.

West Side Campus?

Others are probably much more familiar with the idea for Chicago State to create a second campus somewhere on the West Side, but my impression was that this plan was long dead due to other needs at the university.  In today’s Chicago Tribune, however, there’s a story about the “pork” projects in the recently passed state budget.  According to the Tribune,  “The new pot of money allowed lawmakers to approve $3.1 billion in projects, which varied from $50,000 for a firetruck in Rockford to $40 million for a Chicago State University campus to be built somewhere on the city's West Side.” 

I’m certainly not completely familiar with all of the various long-term plans at the university, so can anyone enlighten us about this?  What do others think about the idea of creating a second campus?  It seems to me that the current campus has so many infrastructure needs that we should be focusing on meeeting those needs rather than looking at creating an entirely new campus.  

Who is Bill Sweetland and look what he is saying about Wayne Watson?

See Bill Sweetland's article on the "stunningly average" Wayne Watson in the Huffington Post. A biting counterpoint to Watson's ex-girlfriend's puff piece in the same journal a month ago.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-sweetland/education-in-chicago-wayn_b_207581.html

Some highlights:

May 29, 2009
Bill Sweetland
Education in Chicago: Wayne D. Watson is the Wrong Man at the Wrong Time for Chicago State University.

"...What cannot be denied is that Mr. Watson is a skilled self-promoter and a man experienced at political maneuvering. If you don't believe me, just go to his Web site at www.waynedwatson.com for a quick lesson..."

"And how do you plan to fight your own Board of Trustees' determination to water down the milk of college instruction even further? These misguided guardians of mediocrity want to admit high school graduates who score as low as 15 on the ACT.
This is folly. The Trustees are bent on swamping student body and faculty with a flood of half-literates who will make themselves, their literate school mates and the faculty miserable while wasting huge sums of the nation's money and patience..."

Board Meeting Notice

So just when you thought the Board of Trustees had done enough damage, they continue to meet. The next board meeting is Friday May 29th, at 2PM in the Library. The agenda is listed here:

1. Call to Order

2. Roll Call

3. Verification of Meeting Notice

4. Information Items

a. 2008 Audit Findings

b. Budget Update

c. Review of Contracts

1. Bookstore

2. Thompson Hospitality

3. Student Health Insurance

4. Boersma Travel Agency

5. Recess into Executive Session Pursuant to The Illinois Open Meetings Act

a. Employment Matters

b. Legal Matters

6. Reconvene into Open Session

7. Other Matters

a. Public and Employee Comments

8. Adjournment

With some luck video clips should be available by the weekend.

This isn't over....

So is it all over now that the contract for the Board’s president has been signed? I can say quite confidently, NO! It is not over. This isn’t the venue to discuss what could or will happen next. It is the venue to remind us that faculty are the core of the university and tenured faculty the iron rod running down the center of the core. Now I am sure there will be those who will say, “Shouldn’t we give him a chance?” I say absolutely not! The board didn’t give the university and its students a chance when it selected this applicant. The applicant didn’t give the faculty a chance when he denigrated our teaching ability. When the applicant blamed the low graduation rate on the faculty, it was clear I was not giving him a chance. It is unmistakable the intention the applicant has for the faculty. I say no to giving anyone who attacks me a chance to do anything but retire from the field. It doesn’t make sense to me to turn the other cheek and forget that the process that brought this applicant to the university was not just flawed, but corrupt and possibly illegal. (Stay tuned!) The weaknesses of this candidate are evident and I do not hope that anybody fails. I simply recognize failure when I see it. This university needs a president who has worked at a doctoral degree granting university in a senior administrative capacity. Chicago State University is not the local high school that the ‘community’ gets to have any input on. We are not selecting a principal who will have contact with parents. It is a state university, just like other state universities. If we don’t treat it like a state university no one else will. When UIC was being built the effort was resisted by the ‘community.’ People were displaced and uprooted. We don’t give ourselves an opportunity to progress unless we decide what is best in the largest sense for this institution. We are the professionals after all. Our most important responsibility isn’t teaching our classes or conducting our research. It is being in service to something greater than ourselves. Our first responsibility is to protect the academic integrity of the institution and uphold the ideals and aspirations of the university. One thing we can do is resist any effort to undermine the academic integrity or destroy the ideals of our university. Tenure is not a gift. It is a responsibility. Responsibilities come with burdens and we are faced with carrying a huge burden for the next period of time. I know there are those who will become sycophants to the applicant when he arrives. They believe that by being cordial and deferential they will be rewarded. The truth is they will be rewarded, just not how they think. If we stand together, we will create the university that we envision in those quiet, hopeful moments. If we don’t we will endure a period despair and hopelessness and in the end it is our students who will suffer.

So that most recent rumor is that all vice presidents and deans are going to be replaced. What would happen if all the deans, chairs and the provost resigned on the first day. Oh, and it would be done in front of television cameras. If this applicant thinks he can manage this university without us then he would be surprised by how difficult running a university is. Of course, not all chairs would support this. There are some who believe they will be looked after by the new regime. Even if 90% of the chairs resigned that would be an enormous statement about who runs this university.

Finally, I have had a couple of days to think about this. I still don’t know what the end game is in this presidential search process. Why choose someone who is so obviously unqualified to be at a doctoral degree granting institution? Who benefits and how? If you have any ideas about what this is about, please let us know on the blog.

I will keep you posted with what is happening in this struggle.