Audit report thoughts

So the earthquake of the state audit report hit and now the tsunami in the form of the press coverage has struck as well. Running every 30 minutes on CLTV, the university, now under new management, continues its tradition of honoring the rites of spring with its fascinating tales of financial and operational mismanagement. Continuing to regale the citizens of the State of Illinois with the reasons that the university didn’t properly account for appropriated funds or manage its Purchasing Cards appropriately, or why it maintained a negative balance in the Student Activities account or didn't manage university contracts in accordance with federal guidelines. And if these and similar tales of university behavior sound all too familiar then you would be experiencing deja vu all over again. What is new and not so new is the response of the university to the latest chapter of university mismanagement? Here are two. First, the university is told by its CEO that the institution asked the auditors to dissect the inner workings of the institution and lay its entrails out for all to examine. However, quoting from the recent Tribune article, ‘...Holland, however, said it was a routine audit and auditees "do not determine the scope of our audits."’ So this was a standard audit with the expected results? Why would the CEO try to publicly spin this as something out of the ordinary, knowing that statement could be easily refuted by the Auditor General? Second, in the political world that I have some experience in, whenever a public body or agency experiences a negative event like the audit report then it is imperative that the agency head contact all of the agency’s legislative and executive branch allies to inform them of the situation, strategize about responses and ensure that when the media does contact the legislators they are not blind sided by the reporter. Apparently that didn’t happen in this case. Again quoting from the Tribune article, “He (Senator Maloney, Chairman of the Higher Education Committee and CSU alumnus) was unaware of the audit until contacted by the Tribune.” This should never happen. Finally, if this was just a routine audit what would an incisive forensic audit yield? Is it possible this audit is emblematic of a dysfunction beyond the capacity of all but the most capable leader? The challenges facing this institution will not be solved by someone because they are local and “know everybody.”
Systems must be put in place and a culture developed to ensure those systems function as intended irrespective of turnover. Systems should always trump personnel. Sound systems in a functional culture will work to counter frequent changes in personnel as is common in administration.
I am curious how the next chapter of public coverage of CSU will unfold but sadly I believe this story will remain the same.

Just more of the same stuff that doesn't work

So, much has been reported about the university’s upcoming visit from our accrediting agency. If you spend any appreciable time on campus you will see much activity in preparation for that visit. I long ago learned not to mistake activity for accomplishment, so when my class was interrupted yesterday by one of my colleagues attempting to locate a student who received an academic warning I had enough. Something has to be said. Here are the facts as I understand them.

On June 1st, the university submitted a monitoring report to the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association to address the progress the university had made since 2006 when the last monitoring report was submitted. This 2009 report, as yet unreleased, highlighted several deficiencies in the enrollment management and retention areas as well as in university governance and leadership.

The university received a response to the monitoring report dated in the first week of July that recognized the university’s lack of progress in the areas that were noted in the 2003 accreditation report.

By the second week of the semester, the Deans, Chairs and Directors were sworn to secrecy about the report in a meeting with the Provost. The next week, members of the Faculty Senate were given information about the situation a day prior to an all campus assembly that informed the university community for the first time about the seriousness of the situation the university found itself in. Several members of the Senate asked pointed questions about accountability and communication of this information. They were informed by the then ‘unpaid consultant’ that there would be no accountability for decisions made that led to this situation. The faculty was assured by the Provost that the process for preparing for the mandated focus visit was going to be transparent. The ‘unpaid consultant’ communicated through his comments that the process would be less than transparent. I inquired at that meeting whether the Governor’s office, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the IL Senate Higher Education committee chairman, or the IL House Higher Education committee chair. I was told then that none of the people or agencies had been contacted since the letter was received in July. I encouraged the Provost and the ‘unpaid consultant’ to thoughtfully approach how we would boost our retention and graduation rates. Given our history of lack of accountability and open communication, I suggested that the university not rush into policy shifts, personnel changes and reckless activities that would impact the confidence of the campus community.

An ad hoc committee was formed to address the situation, which by my reckoning was completely the responsibility of the administration and the Board of Trustees. The participation of faculty in this process smacked of tokenism. At the all campus assembly I made remarks to the effect that the faculty’s hands were clean in this. It was an administrative and leadership / governance failure. The university was informed that it would be hiring a Vice President for Enrollment Services. This is curious decision for two reasons. First, no other state university has a vice president for enrollment services. Only Northern Illinois which has a VP for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management has enrollment management directed at the vice presidential level. Is this creation of yet another administrative position necessary? Is that the interpretation of the problems with leadership noted in the monitoring report? Is the Student Affairs area going to be short changed by not having a VP like every other state university? For a regime purporting to be student friendly, that is a clear lack of leadership depriving the student affairs area while attempting to shore up the retention/graduation problems on the administrative side. Second, according to the Board of Trustees governing policies, “...the appropriate and duly constituted committees of faculty government shall participate in the decision-making process of the university in the following areas: ... 3. Creation of administrative positions at the level of Dean and Vice President and selection of administrative officers for such positions as well as of the President of the university.” It is clear that the faculty was not consulted in the creation of the Vice President for Enrollment Services. So yet again the administration fails in their duties and there is no accountability for the failure from the BOT. That leads me to believe that the BOT is the core problem. They historically have hired presidents who prove to be incapable of providing the necessary leadership to prevent situations like this instead of ineptly responding to them.

This leads me to yesterday. While in the middle of my lecture a department chairperson from my college inquired as to the whereabouts of one of my students who had received an academic warning. The student was not in class, nor was the telephone number he tried contacting her on a good one. Sadly, we have gotten to the point of department chairs being truant officers. If any of you good readers have any academic references for the efficacy of department chairs as truant officers raising retention rates please provide that citation here so that my intuition can be proven faulty. Otherwise, my story is that using chairs to chase down students will likely not be successful in any appreciable way in addressing the underlying dysfunction at the university, namely a lack of accountability and no clear or transparent communication process. I asked when the duties of the chairs had changed. What I discovered was there is no connection between the university’s academic warning system and the oft criticized mid term grade process. It appears that the absence of a thoughtful approach to the retention/graduation problem has in large measure shown the academic warning system in its current configuration to be useless and I imagine the mid term grade system will prove to be equally useless.

So why not try something new? Let’s hold those responsible for the problem accountable. How about publishing the monitoring report and response from the HLC on the university website in the spirit of transparency. It is one thing to say there will be transparency and another to actually have transparency. The Provost has promised transparency while the now board selected president has been notably silent on the issue of transparency and communication. At least the BOT is consistent in its selection of presidents, professional administrators with no connection to students or faculty and no experience or inclination in communicating or being accountable.

And the saga known as CSU continues.

Who is leading whom???

So has anybody felt the rumbling of our students besides me? For the first time since I have been here (August 1991) students are expressing their discontent. Wow! Various folks around campus have asked me where the Factoids have come from, and what are the petitions about and who started the CSU Student Voice blog and what is SESOP. I shrug my shoulders and tell them that maybe we have done a good job teaching our students critical thinking and problem solving skills and instilled a sense of the history of student activism in this country. Maybe our students can see through the disingenuous protestations of board members about the transparency of the now concluded search process.

Like many folks on campus our students have grown tired of seeing the reputation of their university degraded by scandal and mismanagement. If I were a student planning on graduating I would want my degree to have value. The value of a degree is comprised of two elements; academic rigor and institutional reputation. By all accounts our rigor is comparable to similar institutions yet our reputation has been severely damaged in the past few years and recent events have done little to restore it. That means for our students their degrees a devalued because we faculty haven’t demonstrated the will to change the situation we find ourselves facing. If the rumblings are more than rumblings, then our students are leading us. They are doing what it takes to be heard. They are printing Factoids, which means they are doing their homework. I only wish all of my faculty colleagues would do the same.

As a graduate student many years ago a professor of mine explained tenure to me. I got that tenure imparts a special responsibility to the holder to become a servant leader in a university and speak to the best interests of the university and protect the values of the institution from assault from within and without. It is a gross dereliction for a tenured faculty member at this university not to know anything about the two political insiders selected by the board to lead this university. I believe it is unconscionable for faculty not to participate in the life of this university beyond teaching their classes. To put self interest above the common good speaks to a selfishness that degrades our university and its reputation. How dare we abdicate our responsibility for being the core of this institution. It is time to stand up, do whatever takes to protect this institution, its academic reputation and get the leadership we need. Our students seem to be leading the way.

Now is the time for faculty to lead!