UA Defender

Who is Responsible for the Curriculum?

2009-10-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

[Addendum Oct. 3. The post below appeared Friday 10/2, before we received the Executive Summary of the Faculty Poll Comments, sent by e-mail from the Faculty Center that same day. Having read the Executive Summary, we are at a loss for words - except for one: Magnificent.
Being at a loss for words is not usual for us. Our regular readers know that, and they know also that many of the things that were said in the "comments" section of the Poll were also said here, beginning last August. We mention that not by way of saying "we told you so" but to emphasize how important it has been for the faculty to have the "safe space" for discussion we first described in our initial posts. It is less important, going forward, to note who it was who said these things first, and where, than to point out who it was - more than 700 faculty members - who said them best, on the Faculty Poll. The Executive Summary of the Poll comments appear to us now as THE plan for going forward. Everything is there.
Our thanks, again, to the Faculty Leadership group (Wanda Howell, Lynn Nadel, Robert Mitchell, J.C. Mutchler, Michael Cusanovich, Javier Duran), and in particular to whomever it was who put in the hard work of coming up - so quickly - with that clear and comprehensive Executive Summary. That, dear readers, is what leadership is about.
Now, the following comments represent an attempt to synthesize some of the points made in the second FGLF meeting with faculty on 10/1. These comments appear to us now as focused elaboration on just a few of the items presented much more comprehensively in the Executive Summary. For those who did not receive it on e-mail, the Executive Summary is available in Renee Shafer Horton's Tucson Citizen blog, or in the online Arizona Daily Wildcat. ]
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“The curriculum” in the broad sense means: everything we decide to teach, and excludes everything WE decide not to teach.
Who decides?
We decide curriculum.
The Faculty Senate homepage features the following statement: “Faculty governance at the University of Arizona functions under the Constitution and Bylaws of the General Faculty.” Article I of the Constitution: "The General Faculty has fundamental responsibilities in the areas of ... instruction and curriculum policy...”

If we have the authority to decide curriculum, then we have the authority to invalidate redefinitions of the curriculum that we did not authorize.

By "redefinitions of the curriculum," we are referring to distribution of budget cuts that result in de facto alterations of curriculum by redirecting resources away from units that can no longer sustain budget cuts without suffering loss of faculty, loss of programs - curricular damage - that may be irreversible.

That’s the thesis. Here are the arguments. We begin with two questions:

1) How do you read the phrase “fundamental responsibilities in instruction and curriculum”?
Does it mean some responsibilities or the responsibilities?
a) SOME responsibilities? (if it’s just “some” responsibilities in defining curriculum, who, in practice, has ever exercised “the others”?)
b) THE responsibilities? (that is, decisive authority, on an ongoing basis, for instruction and curriculum policy)

2) How do you understand the term “responsible”? Is it
a) responsible as in ‘obliged to perform duties assigned by a superior to an inferior, or by a parent to a child’ (as when mom says “you’re responsible for keeping your room clean”)? or
b) responsible in the legal sense of ‘answerable to,’ as in “the faculty is answerable to the executive administration and to the Board of Regents, the legislature and the Governor for maintaining a curriculum consistent with its institutional mission as a state supported land-grant university with responsibilities to (answerable to) the citizens of the State of Arizona?

If you answered “b” to both questions, you’re right. You’re in the right.

You’re right, even if Lynn says, “You’re playing with words.” Even if Robert says “You’re playing with fire.” We say, we’re playing our role. The role of the faculty to preserve, protect and defend the curriculum.
Preserve, protect and defend it against being redefined without the level of faculty responsibility required by our constitution and confirmed by statute.

We’re told, “Yes, but.”
“Yes but you can’t protect it against insufficient funds. Or against hostility from the legislature.”
Yes we can. And we must.

OK, how?

Marv says, “mobilize the students and their parents.” By that he does not mean to ask them to carry signs and write slogans with chalk on horizontal or vertical surfaces. He means let them know how budget cuts and “overcuts” – unauthorized budget re-allocations – are inimical and illegal:
1) inimical : harmful to education, and out of compliance with the statutory obligations of the State universities to provide higher education consistent with their mission;
2) illegal: illegal given the obligation of the legislature to secure funding adequate to support public education in Arizona at the levels of quality instruction in the curricula defined by those with the statutory responsibility and competence to do so, i.e., the faculty – not the executive managers of the faculty nor the Regents nor the JLBC. (Actually, this is part of the arguments made on our behalf to the Regents by the three presidents last week.)

How specifically?

Specifically, the graduate students are negotiating a “Graduate Students’ Bill of Rights” with president Shelton (see yesterday’s Wildcat). Next step? That’s right, an Undergraduate Bill of Rights insisting that students and their parents be given what they’re entitled to under state law. That they be given what they pay for. That they not be required to pay more and get less. That they not be told “We don’t have enough classes for your requirements.” Or “We’re changing the requirements so it’ll look like we have enough classes.” That students not be further distanced by distance learning, farmed out to cattle-car mega-classes, or told “you can do it online” (just like a video game!) And so forth.

We are aware that many of the views expressed above are shared by Robert Shelton. Where we disagree is on a basic point: our adherence to the principle that the Faculty must not relinquish its fundamental responsibility in matters of curriculum. Regarding the “core mission of the University,” Mike Cusanovich told us yesterday that it would take a lot of work to come to agreement all across campus on the definition of “the core mission of the University.” That may be true on details, but it’s not true of the big picture. On the big picture, the overwhelming sense of the faculty poll suggests that we do indeed agree that we were heading in the wrong direction. Which implies a pretty good sense of who, and how, to decide what the right directions are.
We close with Lynn Nadel's statement on "the essential core of the university" in his 10/2 interview with Renee Shafer Horton on her Tucson citizen blog; our readers may wish to add to what Lynn said, but we doubt that many would subtract from it:

“We become academics because we have a deep sense of what a university is,” Nadel said. “This isn’t an idea that started a few years ago. This is a 700-year-old idea, that a university preserves and enlarges human values. It is the life of the mind, but more. And it is that sense that the university at its core is being squeezed that is causing the angst. It’s fear that the essential core of what a university is, is being sacrificed on the corporate altar. The people who pay our salaries (the Legislature) seem to have a restrictive view of what a university is – as just a place to train people to get jobs. But a university is more than that. And the undercurrent of anxiety and anger is at least part about faculty wanting to know that (Shelton and Hay) are committed to protecting and preserving what a university is.”

The foregoing represents a synthesis of some of the points made at yesterday’s FGLF meeting. Their purpose is to encourage further reflection and discussion. In your comments, we encourage you to state your case forcefully, but not abusively. (Rules & etiquette for this blog may be found among the September posts.)

Post-poll Faculty Governance Leadership Forum, Oct. 1

2009-10-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

In the meeting this afternoon, new issues were discussed, along with important new facets of old issues, clarifications were offered, initiatives were proposed, all of which would be impossible to summarize here, although we will post whatever recapitulations of important points, followup comments, and new initiatives our readers wish to send in. Recognizing at the conclusion of the meeting the need to "keep the momentum," Faculty Senate chair Wanda Howell flanked by Michael Cusanovich and Lynn Nadel acknowledged that they are indeed in the process of creating a mechanism of their own, in the Senate, for online discussion to facilitate communication between FGLF meetings going forward. In the meantime, we will serve temporarily as a bridge, for those wishing to continue the discussion here, until the FGLF has their own online discussion space.
Readers new to the blog are invited to get their bearings by clicking on the previous post by Marv Waterstone below, and on the "September" archive in the right navigation sidebar for discussion of the issues that led up to the poll.

To Boldly Go

2009-10-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

People are still using the Defender for valuable conversation about where the university is going next and how the faculty can be a real voice and power as the UA moves forward. As always, Marv Waterstone has valuable insight into the discussion, so we post his comments here along with the responses that have come in today. Please feel free to continue the conversation, but also attend today's faculty forum and make your voices heard in public, where they can really make a difference.

Also, click here for Renee Shafer Horton's promised analysis of the poll, which
includes an excellent interview with Lynn Nadel. We don't agree with Lynn's conclusions , but we always appreciate the fact that he's in the conversation.

Dear (mostly invisible) colleagues,

I’ve refrained from rejoining the ongoing discussions for a few days to let some events (the poll, the chalking “incidents”) run their course. Now that they have, with all of their ambiguous outcomes, it is time for us to really get to work to make some changes in the short-, medium-, and longer-term. Tomorrow’s faculty forum, hopefully, will be one productive step.

Last Friday (25 Sept), I met with the Committee of 11 (or at least a significant subset) to propose some concrete actions that might be taken under their auspices in each of the appropriate timeframes. Given the wide variety of existing faculty governance mechanisms available, the C11 seemed to me the most appropriate, given their charge. At the meeting, those present were receptive to the ideas, and I believe these issues will be taken up again at their next meeting on 9 October.

Here are some steps that I suggested merit our collective reflection and action. I have posted most of them on this blog in one form or another, but I’m hoping that they can now generate further action. They are all inter-related, but they can be prioritized:

Short-term: in order to stop the budgetary hemorrhaging we need to mobilize our most critical constituencies—our students and their parents—by alerting them, in the most specific ways possible, to the actual effects of the cuts so far and the likely impacts of any further budgetary excisions. In order to accomplish this, we need several kinds of data. First we need concrete data on increased class sizes, decreased course offerings, changes in time-to-degree, documentation of increased tuition and fees, and losses or decreases in ancillary services. I suggested this as a task that the C11 might take up. Second, and consistent with a recommendation made by an earlier commenter on the list (which also demonstrated our capability in this area), we need a district-by-district analysis of our allies and enemies in the legislature, and their political vulnerability. Once mobilized, our constituencies need to be able to engage in effective actions to change the complexion of the legislature by supporting those who support us, and by opposing those who do not. In the short-term, legislators need to be compelled to understand that cuts to higher education will carry a political price.; Medium- to longer-term: it is time, as many on this blog have noted, to face up to certain facts. Nearly ubiquitously, the support for higher education within the general public is generally low (just look at some of the comments that accompany campus stories at the Arizona Daily Star). We must make the attempt to change those views, or we will continue our ineluctable slide into penury and irrelevance. Again, some data may be helpful here. It would be worth our finding out if other, comparable public universities have been/are faring better than the UA. If so, we should endeavor to understand the reasons they develop and maintain more favorable relations with their constituencies than we do. I proposed to the C11 that some comparative information would be useful in this regard.

These data will take us only so far, however, and at best may suggest some tactical and strategic lessons that we can learn. In addition, we must now be much more proactive and effective in making a persuasive case for our existence and healthy viability. To make that case we need to accomplish two difficult (though by no means impossible) tasks. First, we must think deeply and carefully about the DISTINCTIVE AND UNIQUE contributions that a university (as differentiated from any other element of the educational enterprise) can and should make to society. What are the things that we, and only we, can do, and why should anyone care if they are accomplished? If we cannot make this case (and a member of the C11 raised this exact question), then we probably should drift into becoming an ITT tech with a middling football team, or a loosely connected set of corporate-funded (and owned) patent-seeking enterprises, and be done with it. But I think, if given the chance, we can such a case. Many of us have already thought long and hard about these matters, and strive to put our ideas into practice as best we can in our own pedagogy, scholarship and creative work. It is time to try to make those individuated efforts the heart and sole of our collective endeavors, and to transmit our passion and commitment to our various “outsides.”

Which brings me to the second task. We must change the relationship between faculty and administrators so that those of us at the “core” of the enterprise, rather than those who make the UA one of several transitory stops in their professional managerial resume construction (and who, necessarily reflect the corporatist, privatizing, bottom-line enhancing mentality that has failed us demonstrably and repeatedly all across academia), are responsible for articulating the appropriate vision, and for transmitting this message.

I have some additional specific ideas about some future actions, but since I’ve taken up enough of your reading time here, I’ll save them for tomorrow’s forum.; September 30, 2009 5:33 PM
sandra said...: Thank you, Marv! Your voice gives me some hope. While I extremely disappointed at this moment with our faculty governance leadership for their lack of vision, I find in your voice a reason to want to stay here. You put it so well--the upper leadership is passing through, but we are the ones who live here. I think some polls have suggested, as I said somewhere above, that people in the state generally support education. In fact, one poll showed that people in Az would be willing to pay higher taxes in order to save education. I think that includes K-12. Some of their ambivalent attitudes about the university have to do with misconceptions about what we do and about things like tenure. People frequently like to sound off about that. The university spends little time trying to educate the public, though they do spend a lot of money hanging bill boards around town saying things like Pima Cotton Invented Here. We need faculty leadership. I mean real leadership--not apologists for the approaches of the status quo.; September 30, 2009 10:16 PM
Lynn Nadel said...: Bravo Marv and Sandra. These are just the kinds of discussions we need. And Marv spells out the sorts of data we will need to bring to the discussion. He is absolutely right to stress that unless we can make the case for what a university, and only a university, adds to society, then we are lost. Let's get on that task immediately. I believe a shift in power between faculty and administrators would follow -- if and only if we accomplish the first task.

I also agree with Sandra's analysis of the tenure and exigency issues. I've just been too busy this week to think straight and expressed myself in oversimplified ways in recent posts.

Hope to see as many of you as possible at the Forum this afternoon.

Lynn Nadel; October 1, 2009 7:22 AM
Anonymous said...: While I understand the sentiment that the University could not exist without faculty, as a staff member, I feel I need to make a few points. While EDUCATION could exist without staff members, the UNIVERSITY could not exist without staff members. Those of us who order your supplies, type your memos, create payroll, set up the technology for your classes, advise and process the graduation of the students in your major - the "little" people who help make the processes of the University work on a day-to-day basis - are also the ones who have been terminated in droves. The argument for the creation of CLAS was, besides the "logic" of it, the savings over $2 million dollars by centralizing services and eliminating University College (which was entirely staff members). As is apparent to anyone who has actually looked at University College's budget, the elimination of "little" people, and the salary increase Dr. Ruiz received (along with the costs of new signage, new letterhead, and the other ancillary costs of new schools), the net savings of all the changes is minimal. However, terminating all those "little" people has engendered fear and anger across campus among all the other "little people".

Is there anyone on campus who has examined the non-cuts to positions in the Admin building. Besides Dr. Garcia, has anyone making over $100,000 been "transformed"? Also, while we are discussing cuts to academics constantly, what has happened in student affairs? Besides the debacle of merging the cultural centers, renaming units and eliminating "little" people in the units (which has impacted the availability of programming for students), there seems to be one primary difference from a year ago. There are now new positions that have been created there - associate/assistant vice presidents, and associate/assistant deans seem to have sprung up overnight.

ALL efforts of the University must be examined, student affairs and academics. And they should be examined in totality - not separately. While I'm sure that the administration will argue that has happened, from the outside, it would not appear so. I do not believe there can be any sacred cows. Do there really need to be 4 biological science majors (with 2 separate departments) in the College of Science? Should the Outreach College and its administration really need to be a college? Is the existence of UA South and all its accompanying administration justified by the few hundred students in its 3 majors? How many Associate/Assistant Deans of Students and Associate/Assistant Vice Presidents of Students Affairs does the UA really need? Politically, these issues may be "off limits" - but if the entire University and its mission are being questioned, these should be discussed as well.

While cutting education is a much easier path for the state, cutting staff is the same easy path for the University. I am not proposing wholesale cuts to student affairs (as it is an invaluable unit in the University's effort to keep and retain students) or the elimination of more colleges at the UA. However, all that has been discussed on this blog is faculty - and there is much more to the cost of running the University than that.

Faculty Poll Results

2009-09-28T15:09:00.001-07:00

We wanted to get to get the results of the faculty poll and Robert Shelton's comments up immediately. Feel free to comment.

The raw numbers are below. Here is our first overall view of the poll results. The tally figures are here.

On the questions assessing "confidence" or "no confidence" where 1 = "no support" and 5 = "full support," the range 1-3 defines the range going from "no support to neutral." Everything shy of 3.0, the midpoint, is negative to neutral. Votes of approval or support are those higher than neutral 3.

Here is our tally of percentages in the "not supportive (neutral to negative) range":

#1 ... the way the President has carried out the Transformation process: 77% not supportive (neutral to negative)
#2 ... the way the President has handled the recent budget cuts: 69% not supportive
#3 ...the way the Provost has carried out the Transformation Process: 86% not supportive
#4 ... the way the provost has handled the recent budget cuts: 82% not supportive
#5 ... the principle of differential cuts: 43% not supportive
#10 How much confidence do you have in the ability of central administration to lead us through the tough challenges we face now and in the forseeable future? 80% in the neutral to negative range.

To: General Faculty

From: Wanda H Howell, Chair of the Faculty

Lynn Nadal, Chair of the Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee
Robert P Mitchell, Vice Chair of the Faculty and Presiding Officer of the Faculty Senate
J C Mutchler, Secretary of the Faculty
Michael A Cusanovich, Chair, Committee of Eleven

Javier Duran, Vice Chair, Committee of Eleven

Re: Faculty Poll

We report below the results of the faculty poll held last week. Given the nine-day timeline, we ran into some technical issues carrying out the poll. We gratefully acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the Faculty Center staff and UITS, who rose to the challenge at a time when they were already dealing with a major transition. Although a small number of faculty experienced difficulties voting, the majority of these problems were resolved within the voting period.

Eligibility to vote is described in Article II of the Constitution of the General Faculty at http://fp.arizona.edu/senate/constitution%20revised%202009.htm

and includes

a. Faculty members who hold half-time or more tenured or tenure-eligible appointments,

b. Academic professionals who hold half-time or more continuing or continuing-eligible appointments,

c. Lecturers (including Senior and Principal Lecturers) holding half-time or more multi-year appointments,

d. Clinical professors, research professors and professors of practice holding half-time or more multi-year appointments.

In the spirit of shared governance, we have communicated the results of this poll to the President and the Provost. We are in the process of reviewing the hundreds of comments and will release an executive summary as soon as possible, no later than the end of the week. The full text of the comments will be posted on the Faculty Governance website at http://fp.arizona.edu/senate/ by the end of the week as well.

We would like to thank our colleagues for their engagement in this process and their active participation in shared governance. We would also like to encourage even more faculty to participate in the days to come. In that regard, we remind everyone of the next Faculty Forum to be held on Thursday, October 1^st, at 4:00 p.m. in Family and Consumer Sciences 202 (campus map http://iiewww.ccit.arizona.edu/uamap/staticLarge/33.html

September 18-25, 2009 UA Faculty Poll Participation:

Eligible Voters: 2754 (includes approximately 750 emeriti faculty)

Ballots cast: 858 Percentage of eligible voters: 31.1%

Participation by

College -- Eligible Voters -- Votes Cast -- Voter Rate

CALS: 377 -- 106 --28.1%

CALA: 32 -- 1 -- 3.1%

EDUCATION: 104 -- 15 -- 14.4%

ENGINEERING: 179 -- 38 -- 21.2%

COFA: 156 -- 55 -- 35.3%

COH: 185 -- 104 -- 56.2%

LAW: 53 -- 16 -- 30.2%

COM: 380 -- 60 -- 15.8%

NUR: 72 -- 5 -- 6.9%

OPT SCI: 41 -- 5 -- 12.2%

PHARM: 46 --13 -- 28.3%

MEZCOPH: 39 -- 6 -- 15.4%

COS: -- 473 -- 144 -- 30.4%

SBS.: -- 335 -- 176 -- 52.2%

ELLER : 123 -- 58 -- 47.2%

NON-COLLEGE: 158 -- 56 -- 35.4%

September 18-25, 2009 UA Faculty Poll Results:

Question 1. Do you support the way the President has carried out the Transformation Process? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No Support, 5=Full support

1....256

2... 206

3... 198

4... 128

5... 64

Question 2. Do you support the way the President has handled the recent budget cuts? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No Support, 5=Full support

1... 212

2... 199

3... 178

4... 167

5.... 95

Question 3. Do you support the way the Provost has carried out the Transformation Process? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No Support, 5=Full support

1... 483

2... 142

3... 106

4.... 73

5.... 42

Question 4. Do you support the way the Provost has handled the recent budget cuts? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No Support, 5=Full support

1.... 444

2.... 130

3.... 114

4...... 93

5...... 61

Question 5. Do you support the principle of differential cuts? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No Support, 5=Full support

1.... 152

2.... 75

3... .135

4 ....168

5.... 317

Question 6. Do you believe that the central administration has communicated adequately concerning recent changes at the UA? On a scale of 1-5, 1=Do not agree, 5=Agree

1.... 338

2 ....196

3.... 142

4.... 112

5.... 63

Question 7. Do you believe Open Forums would be important in improving communication between the central administration and the campus community? On a scale of 1-5, 1=Do not agree, 5=Agree

1.... 91

2 .... 155

3 .... 264

4 .... 172

5 .... 165

Question 8. Do you believe More Email and Other Digital Messages would be important in improving communication between the central administration and the campus community? On a scale of 1-5, 1=Do not agree, 5=Agree

1.... 164

2 .... 141

3 .... 243

4 .... 175

5 .... 124

Question 9. Do you think central administrator should be more visible on the University Campus? On a scale of 1-5, 1=Do not agree, 5=Agree

1.... 67

2.... 75

3.... 218

4.... 200

5.... 287

Question 10. How much confidence do you have in the ability of central administration to lead us through the tough challenges we face now and in the foreseeable future? On a scale of 1-5, 1=No confidence, 5=Full confidence

1.... 311

2.... 204

3.... 168

4.... 98

5.... 75

==================================
TO: Campus Community
FROM: Robert N. Shelton, President

Many people on campus are frustrated. Many feel that they have not been heard. Others feel that the Provost and I should have provided more detail on how we planned to approach the differential cuts that most (though not all) believe are the best way to tackle the enormous challenge before us. For some, personality and personal communication style are the issues.

While we have attempted to be as transparent in this process as possible, it is apparent that we need to do more, both in sharing details of the monumental budget dilemma that we face, and in engaging our faculty in the search for solutions.

To that end, we are planning two immediate steps. First, I have asked our faculty leadership to schedule a Presidential Forum with the faculty of each college. This will provide an opportunity for me to hear from and engage the faculty in each area of our University. I expect those to be frank conversations with no topic off the table. It will also afford the opportunity to discuss how we, as a University community, can confront the very real political obstacles that all of us in education face in this State.

Second, Provost Hay has already begun planning to meet with smaller groups of faculty leaders to discuss the continuing actions that are being taken to deal with the cuts that we have already received from the state (approximately $100 million). Even more critical will be talking through the possible options for dealing with what will undoubtedly be more devastating cuts in the coming years. How we go about decentralizing unit budgets and implementing a tuition funds flow model will be critical components of those conversations.

Issues that we face in this state are not only about money, but about our values. Partisan state politics intrude on both of those areas on a constant basis. In virtually every corner of the country there has been a shift away from state support for public universities. This trend is probably most evident in Arizona, where over the past two decades the portion of the state budget dedicated to higher education has decreased by half. By all accounts that trend will continue, and how we as a University replace those revenues is critical to the future viability of our institution. I cannot emphasize enough that the status quo will not hold.

Let me conclude by saying that I take the comments that were shared in the poll to heart. This has been a frustrating time for the administration as well as the faculty. We want to do everything possible to sustain the greatness of the University of Arizona. Finding the right path in a time of historic revenue reductions is not easy, and not everyone is going to agree on whatever path is chosen.

As I have said many times, in the face of these state budget cuts we cannot continue with business as usual nor do everything that we have done in the past. That is a sad reality, but it is the reality nonetheless. How we arrive at a model that will preserve the University as the type of
institution we all want it to be will take time and enormous effort. I very much welcome the best thinking of everyone on campus to help inform the approach we take. I will work hard in the months ahead to seek out those ideas, and I pledge to greater engagement of faculty leadership at the stage of taking quantitative decisions.

The Jacob Miller / Evan Lisull affair

2009-09-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

This item was originally posted 9/25. It has moved to the top of our site as comments continue to pour in.

[Original intro, 9/25]
Is the fact that a student was arrested and charged with a crime while publicly protesting education cuts yet another sign of this administration's autocratic and heavy handed character? One poster asked that the shameful arrest of a Geography graduate student for using chalk art to protest should be at the top of our posts, because "we have let a grad student take the fall for our feebleness". Read, and see if you agree that the faculty should take some action in defense of this student:

EBH Team

[Original Post ]

The UA defender has not yet completed it mission. As many of you know, at Thursday's rally a grad student was arrested for a chalking. A rather, spurious and arbitrary charge meant simply as a scare tactic against any further public attempts at voicing concern (I wish I could say opposition, but I haven't seen that yet in daylight, and probably won't after this). And too few people were there to do anything about it (and I was there from start to finish). Unfortunately, I didn't stay long enough to see the arrest.
So I say that faculty apathy has now instantiated another consequence: we have let a grad student take the fall for our feebleness. This happened Thursday, and it was on the news that night. To what department does this student belong? Why have we not heard from the outraged faculty from this dept? Why have we not seen a draft of a statement that responds to this abuse of power, written by faculty from that department, so that other outraged faculty may sign off on it, in support not only of this particular student, but in support of all students's right to speak? This is a despicable turn of events. At any other university with any sense of social consciousness, not only would a statement have been immediately isssued by that student's home dept. on Thursday, but by Friday we would also have seen statements of solidarity issued from other universitites deploring this action against a student. Neither has happened. The chickens have come home to roost. and worse yet, we should be ashamed.

UA defender, this student arrest is major affront to the university, even if (better yet, precisely because) it a consequence of our own apathy, and its deserves it own place at the TOP of the blog to remind us that failed to defend a student. So before we start thinking about life "post-poll" we should start thinking about life "post-grad student sacrifice" because that will be our legacy, and we deserve it.

After the Poll. Where we go from here.

2009-09-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

The UA Defender was called into existence by a crisis of confidence. We presented the main features of that crisis as we saw them, and asked for your help in refining the picture. As the days went by, the picture came more clearly into focus, our readership grew, and our discussion joined with that of the Faculty Senate leadership, eventuating in the Faculty Poll.

We have now come to the reckoning we requested. Not the final reckoning – on that point we agree with Marv Waterstone and all of you who, like Lynn Nadel in his most recent comment a few minutes ago, have stressed the need to continue discussions and actions.
We have been active.
The results of the poll, promised Monday, will certainly tell us more than what we knew a month ago. And for that we can thank you our readers, and Google, the EBH team, and the FGLF - Faculty Governance Leadership Forum.
We are also grateful for the decisive intervention of the press, the intrepid journalists and bloggers inside and outside our walls. We acknowledge in particular the sharp and alert reporters at the Daily Wildcat, the Tucson Citizen, the Desert Lamp, the Daily Star. Our thanks go to all of you, for whom truth and facts matter more than the presumed authority of the names of the people reporting the facts, and telling the truth. For those in the Tower claiming to “rise above the cacophony” aloof in your isolation, know this: The media will not go away. And they will not be duped.

What will have come out of our joint efforts, for the faculty, is a renewal of confidence. We will have shown that we CAN make our voice heard. And that a campus-wide faculty poll is not a hard thing to do (notwithstanding a few bugs yet to work out). And that it is a good thing to do. Sparingly. And that in the future we need not wait for a crisis before asking the faculty as a whole: "What do you think?" Directly. Without mediation. Without hearing the president or the provost report to the press that "the faculty says this" or "the faculty says that" when the truth of the matter - as we know so well from this blog - is that We the Faculty (plural) say a lot of things. We need not rely on the administration for paraphrases (spin) that serve their interests more than ours. A well-focused poll is far more reliable for finding out what “the faculty” says.

We wrote on 9/23 that our job at the UA Defender “was to clarify some issues and bring questions to a wider audience, in as forceful a way as we decently could. That purpose has been served and we now await the results of Faculty Poll I." And elsewhere that same day: "What we see shaping up in the near term is a movement more toward the center ... in the faculty forums that Lynn Nadel has proposed. The UA Defender has baggage, and connotations - we are referred to as "disgruntled," and "whiny," and "dissident," which makes it easier [for the administration] to be dismissive of us than to discredit a faculty group that will have grown out of the Faculty Governance Leadership forums, ... with the cachet of legitimacy attached to that body. Any and all of those who have gathered here can also attend the meetings of the forum (which Lynn Nadel has proposed but which remains unnamed - maybe it'll still be called something like FGLF (fig leaf!) for Faculty Governance Leadership Forum).”

Or maybe just call it "Faculty Governance" - whose blog might be called "UAfacgov" to allow "UADefender" to recede gracefully into post-crisis oblivion. Not to disappear entirely nor immediately, but to curtail its activity in the hope that ever-growing support and unity will gather around a senate-leadership group with the wherewithal, and, we hope, the will, to secure stronger, better-focused faculty involvement in an effective, productive relationship with the president and provost, whoever they may be, going forward. That can happen. And it must be done. By drawing on the collective wisdom and experience of the world-class faculty that is ours at the University of Arizona.
For it to happen with Robert Shelton, the onus would be more on him than on us. That much we have made clear. Regardless of the poll numbers, the very existence of the poll has made that clear.

Response to Shelton-Hay editorial 9/24

2009-09-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Our response is here. We don't want to take up room on the blog at the moment since it's more important to deal with the verification issue (check for your "I Voted" icon) in the Faculty Poll (see "Voting Problems" below).
The Shelton-Hay op-ed in the Star is here. Please help amplify or refine our response by adding your comments below. Remember that our readers include people from within the University and outside.
Also check out Renee Schafer Horton's 9/24 Tucson Citizen report here. One of our readers says below "She's doing better reporting for free than those who are getting paid."
And here for the perceptive, incisive commentary of Evan Lisull in the Desert Lamp. Evan's commentary is sometimes hard to penetrate, sometimes brilliant - but we always enjoy reading in his posts things we can't say - or haven't thought of yet!

Voting Problems

2009-09-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

URGENT PROBLEM - BALLOTS MAY NOT HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED.

A very serious new problem has arisen regarding the faculty poll that could lead to some faculty being disenfranchised. It is crucial that faculty members who believe they have voted return to Employee Link to see whether an "I Voted" icon appears. If it doesn't, the system has not accepted their ballots and they need to vote again.

Faculty members need to check with Employee Link to verify whether their ballots have been accepted. If they have to vote again, they should receive a message saying "Thanks for voting" or "I voted" immediately after submitting their ballot. Even if you receive that message, it would be a good idea to return once more to Employee Link to check that the "I Voted" icon appears on the screen when you log back in.

When I sent an urgent message to my 13 colleagues in the School of Journalism last night, asking them to return to Employee Link, I soon heard from one of them that he had encountered this problem. Since yesterday afternoon I've heard from faculty members in Agriculture, SBS, and Science that this happened to them, so it's not a problem confined to one college.

Incidentally, several faculty I heard from said this problem was not the result of using a colon in the comments section of the ballot. They had avoided doing that because they had heard about the problem. One recommendation might be to use no punctuation except periods, because some punctuation marks or special characters can be significant in programming languages, and could possibly have caused the type of problem that the colon created. Another possibility is that problems could be caused by some browsers, such as Camino. Anyone who had voting problems should use one of the recommended web browsers.

I've alerted the faculty leadership about these issues, as have some of other faculty. The underlying concern, of course, is that the poll is so important that everything possible must be done to ensure that everyone's voice is heard, and that the validity of the poll results are not undermined in any way.

Jacqueline Sharkey
Director, School of Journalism

Preemptive Budgets & "Critical Areas"

2009-09-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

We have been asked to create a new post to accommodate discussion of the following item, received 9/23 as a comment, and which reads as follows:

This is from today's Wildcat (I know, I know, but...):
"[Arizona Board of] Regents' president Ernest Calderon said the university system will have to pursue outside funding to provide for an adequate operating budget.
Gov. Jan Brewer introduced the idea of a temporary sales tax; however, the state legislature has been unresponsive to the idea so far. Other possible sources of outside funding will be discussed at the meeting.
'Our goal is to make sure the universities are adequately funded,' said Calderon.
In addition to approving the 2010 budget, the board will discuss a preemptive budget for 2011. In this preemptive budget, the UA will present 'critical areas' that are in need of funding in order for the university to remain competitive. The preemptive budget will be sent to the governor’s office on Oct. 1.
Following state budget discussions, the board of regents will address Capital Improvement Plans for the three state universities. The UA Capital Improvement Plans will amount to $124.9 million over the next three years and include the stadium renovation and modern streetcar projects, which the university hopes to start next fiscal year.
Joel Valdez, senior vice president of business affairs, said if the plans are approved then the UA could start design work for the future projects this year."

OK, can someone explain what a "preemptive budget" is? Is anyone on this blog involved in such a discussion? Are depts being asked to provide input on this matter? There is talk of "critical areas" for ... investment? divestment?
All of these buzzwords worry the heck out of me...
Any comments????
Over
[Signed "Chicana y que?"]

That comment was immediately followed in our mailbox by this one:

"Wow, is this an important post and question! Note that they are supposed to put in a rationale for funding of 'critical areas.'
To my knowledge, this has not been run by Faculty Governance at all. There has been no discussion of this deadline and nothing has been run by SPBAC or other faculty committees to my knowledge.
There is, of course, the strategic plan, but that clearly did not guide the differential cuts all that much.
So we can only assume that these decisions... what should be funded and, again,what is a 'critical area,' have been made by our administration already. Are those 'critical areas' the same ones used for differential cuts?
Am I wrong? Is Chicana y Que? This is VERY serious and I think it is worthy of a post of its own, Evelyn(s). " [ Signed Anonymous 4:09 pm]

Happy to oblige. Here's your post of your own.
Evelyn

PS - I hope you all appreciated our Wildcat editors' sense of humor - or sense of the absurd - in placing side by side on the front page of today's paper two complementary stories: "Shelton Warns of Further Cuts" to the tune of $50M, right next to the companion piece "ABOR to talk of stadium upgrade" to the tune of $82M plus $35M ( total $117M ) for a streetcar track (1.1 mile extension of the streetcar from Campbell to Park).
Well, yeah! Our leaders know what they're doing, where they're going, where they're taking the University; they know which side their bread is buttered on!
Isn't it time we knew where we're going too?
Read the "Shelton Warns of Further Cuts" story here. And the Stadium-Streetcar story here.
And don't miss the part about "the new, modern scoreboard"!
We're actually going to be posting a Scoreboard of our own, right here, early next week (hopefully Monday) when the results of the Faculty Poll I are announced by the Senate. Why do I keep writing "Faculty Poll I" (you ask)? Because if we don't get there the first time, our successors will, soon after (for more on that, see 9/22-9/23 comments under the "Faculty Poll" post below.)

Faculty Poll

2009-09-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

After the Poll went live Friday 9/18 at 5:00 and before we could post this (7:24 am on 9/19) seven comments regarding the Poll had already appeared under three different posts ("Deck Chairs," "Deans List," "Evelyn comments...").
To make the comment thread on the topic of the Faculty Poll easier to follow, we have regrouped those initial comments under this post and request that if you wish to comment on the Poll specifically, please do so below rather than under a different post. Since comments can be deleted from a post but cannot be moved from one post to another, we have recopied the initial "Faculty Poll" comments below, in the order received.

PS. This just in from the Arizona Daily Star: "Deans List: Turnover at the Top."
Before you vote, consider this: How many deans have recently been replaced at the UA - one or two?
Or is it eight or nine?
See the update (9/19) on our "Deans List" post below, for a list of the deans recently replaced, and the discussion by Becky Pollack in the online Arizona Daily Star.
Why have that many deans been replaced?
To know why people writing to this forum are concerned (more than 250 comments in 3 weeks, not counting the unprintable ones), please take the time to read the comments they have added to the various posts below.
...................................................................
Initial comments on the Faculty Poll (for later ones, see below)

Anonymous said...
Check your emails folks. A faculty sponsored poll of our current situation is going live at 5PM today.
I have not seen the wording of it yet, but please vote.
September 18, 2009 5:00 PM

Anonymous said...
I voted!!!  Check your email for the poll issued today at 5PM by the Faculty Senate.
 And...I should say...I strongly appreciate our faculty leadership for taking this poll.
September 18, 2009 5:10 PM

Anonymous said...
What does this poll mean? For those who wish a leadership change, I would argue that this could be a big problem.  First, what does it mean if dissatisfaction or no confidence is shown? At what level must the dissatisfaction reach for anyone do to anything? 55-45? 75-25? On a scale of 1-5, a 1.5 or a 3.5?
If the results of the poll are that there is no confidence, then is this a vote of no confidence or is it just a reason to, yet again, for the hundredth time, demand more transparency and accountability.
Now, let me ask the other side. What if the poll comes out with support? Then the claim can be that there is just no real problem here and that the gripers are in the minority...and we move on. Right?
 I don't mean to sound cynical, but there are a host of ways for "nothing to be done" on the basis of this poll.  I hope I a wrong.
September 18, 2009 6:22 PM

Anonymous said...
IF the faculty want to show the administration that they have any spine at all... WE MUST vote in the online poll.  If only 80 people vote, it shows the central administration that we are too apathetic to even take that meager step in having our voices heard. 
PLEASE VOTE IN THE ONLINE POLL ASAP.
September 18, 2009 8:02 PM

Anonymous said...
I agree, thank you to the faculty leadership for putting out this poll.  It is now our duty, as faculty, to step up and VOTE! And encourage our colleagues to vote.  Make your voice heard, loud and clear.
September 18, 2009 8:06 PM

Anonymous said...
If you have looked at the online poll, one question specifically asks if you have confidence in the current administration's ability to lead this university forward.
 Vote No Confidence.
September 18, 2009 8:09 PM

Lynn Nadel said...
No poll is perfect. Democracy can be a bit messy. But, let's leave the interpretive questions to later, when the results are in. We tried to create a poll that was as neutral as possible and that would give faculty a chance to express their opinions in a somewhat nuanced way (eg., 1 to 5 rather than yes-no). We wanted it to be short, so that people would do it, rather than much longer and inclusive of many different questions one could ask. We are trying to make things better here, and hopefully the knowledge that is gained from this Poll will do that. That knowledge will include not only what people say, but how many bother to say anything at all.
 Lynn Nadel
September 19, 2009 6:29 AM

Deck Chairs on the Titanic

2009-09-17T07:09:00.001-07:00

To augment this very productive discussion by moving it in a slightly different direction, I am posting here an updated and modified set of remarks I made to the Faculty Senate at their 3 February 2003 meeting. It is depressing, though not at all surprising, that so little had to be changed to make these observations relevant to the situation we face some six years later.

To try to minimize any misunderstanding, I just want to make a couple of prefatory points. First, my fundamental critique is of the corporatist governance model quite generally, and not only of the Shelton/Hay incarnation of it. The problems we in higher education face are structural and systemic, not simply matters of personality of particular “leaders.” I do not believe that our current administration is much worse than others, but on the dimensions I lay out below, they are certainly no better. Second, I advocate more faculty control over UA policy (and not simply through advising administrators). The retort to such a position is always that real faculty governance would be chaos. My response is twofold: 1) that faculty, if given the chance, are much more keenly sensitive to the needs of the university and its place in society than present administrators; and 2) we could hardly do worse than we are doing now. In arguing for more faculty control over policy, I am not suggesting that faculty involve themselves in the day-to-day running of the UA (except if they take on such duties), but rather in articulating the broad visions of what the UA ought to be, and formulating the strategic and tactical mechanisms for achieving those visions. I also recognize that by advocating more faculty involvement with policy, any time spent on such issues is on top of our regular jobs (unlike our professional managers, for whom these activities currently constitute their jobs). This means that we must develop mechanisms that restructure reward systems and time schedules (i.e., eliminate the constantly expanding speed-up to which we are all subjected) to allow faculty the thoughtful participation these matters require. Finally, I would just call your attention to the disclaimer with which I begin my remarks below, and point out that what we now take for granted about university administration need not continue to be the “common sense.” The common sense changes over time, and we can change the present model of UA governance. Here are the (recalibrated) remarks:

My name is Marv Waterstone, and I’m a faculty member in the School of Geography and Development.

I have a few remarks, and a couple of pointed questions.

Before I begin, I want to offer one disclaimer:

My remarks are going to sound like non-sense at the outset. I mean this in a very precise way. What I want to say today is going to be a deliberate challenge to the taken-for-granted “common sense” of how universities must be managed. By definition, then, any challenge to accepted common sense has to seem non-sensical. As I hope to convince you, it is not!

The current “transformation” is a deliberate distraction from massive administrative failure, and a major extension of the assault on faculty governance.

Let me talk about the managerial failure first.

The budgetary mess we are in is the result of repeated and consistent management failure; it is not, as the administration now claims, an opportunity to reorient our way of doing “business.” It is the result of failing to make a persuasive and distinctive case for the importance of higher education in this state. Our “managers” are incapable of articulating this kind of mission, because they speak only with the truncated, corporatist vocabulary and vision of bureaucrats and bean counters. Because they are now a permanent class of managers, they rarely (if ever) step back into the activities that form the heart of a university. Their imaginations limit the university roles to the market-tied goals of economic development and job training, and therefore position us as just another agency of the state or private sector. Their failure to articulate our unique contributions (as opposed to the mundanities for which they do tout us), forces universities to compete in arenas in which we do not, and often should not excel, and prohibit our being seen for the real values we (and only we) bring to society.

The result (i.e., the track record of this management model) has been at least two decades of declining budgets, faculty disaffection and defection, stagnant salaries, increased workloads, imposition of post-tenure review, and on and on. We’re told that all of this is not the fault of our “managers.” It’s the economic downturn in Arizona. But in fact, this and previous administrations have done their jobs so poorly that even during the relatively better economic years of the mid- late-1990s, university budgets were not even restored, let alone increased! Or alternatively (and simultaneously), it’s the fault of an uneducable legislature. What can our poor leaders do; they’re trying their best. And yet… How does all of this add up to a record of achievement that legitimizes the current form of management? Given this record of abject failure, why should we now trust this model of corporatist, autocratic university governance (and the values it represents) to diagnose our present woes and to prescribe the massive reorganization that we are now being told is not only necessary, but opportune? If ever there was a moment when market fundamentalism and corporate-style management should be held up for opprobrium and dismissal, this is certainly that moment. Even for those who have argued in the past that universities (and everything else!) should be run like a business, the current domestic and international failures of this model should now be beyond question and tossed out on their ear.

We’re told that this is the kind of management that modern universities need in order to respond to the external (and internal) situations that face us. But a big part of our problem is captured in this formulation. The current approach is always reactive. And don’t be misled by the rhetoric claiming “transformation” is pro-active and entrepreneurial. It is first, foremost and primarily a reaction to declining budgets, and represents doing less with less, no matter how our managers try to characterize it. These bureaucrats (our “leaders”) never seem to recognize the enormous power we have to shape the environments in which we operate. We, as faculty, have a unique opportunity through our scholarship and teaching, to shape the minds and critical abilities of our students and to contribute new knowledge to society at many levels. We (the faculty in the trenches and in touch with the day-to-day achievements of the university), and not our out of touch and visionally-impaired administrators should be the ones conveying this message to our various publics. We have the experience, the belief, and the passion to make this case. If, given the opportunity, we cannot make this case persuasively to legislators and others, then we should relinquish our claims to being educators. We should also be more proactive in mobilizing the constituencies we have that should be allied with us: our students and their parents. Instead of hiding the effects of devastating budget cuts (e.g., the ludicrous idea that furlough days, if necessary, should only be taken on non-teaching days), we should be doing everything in our power to make these effects tangible, visible and damaging. We should make clear to our students and their parents that the educational system on which they rely, and on which many base their future hopes and aspirations, is being systematically dismantled. These constituencies, and others allied with them, should be making their displeasure known in Phoenix. But this cannot happen if they don’t realize what’s being done. When it comes time to making budgetary decisions in Phoenix, we must, through our own voices, and through those of our constituencies, make higher education as much of a priority as policing and prisons.

Why speak out right now? This brings me to the second major, and related, concern: the extension of the assault on faculty governance. One reason to speak out is that the changes being proposed currently have enormous consequence (real people are being thrown out of work, programmatic changes that may not be reversible are being set in motion), and are being carried out in a largely unaccountable manner by those who have repeatedly failed us in the past. As I’ve indicated, the failure is not just with this particular administration, but with the whole corporatist model that now governs most universities. It is clear, however, that this administration (and its immediate predecessor) especially relishes the CEO role and the autocratic power that accompanies that “leadership” form. Though invariably cloaked in the language of consultation, Robert Shelton’s clearer sentiments are expressed in his and Provost Hay’s autocratic actions
On what basis is this kind of unilateral authority claimed? Where is the record of achievement that would justify this bald assertion of autocracy? Robert Shelton, like Peter Likins before him, was hired as a CEO, and was hired to run the university like a business. He has. He has run it on the same Likins trajectory, right into the ground. The kind of real leaders we need are ones who not only know that the corporation is not the only organizational model available in society, but who also know and believe that it is an inappropriate model for a university. We need leaders who are collegial, collaborative, consultative, and who rotate back into the faculty on a regular basis in order to stay in touch with what a university is really all about. Only then, will they be able to convey the passion that will convince others of our value, relevance and merit.

Whether your unit has been designated as “core” and essential (only 2% cuts), is not nearly as important as the issue of who gets to decide such matters, based on what criteria, and with what kind of accountability. It is clear, however, that the current designations not only matter (especially if your unit is slated to be eliminated, merged, reorganized or downsized by 7% or more), but that the process that has produced these proposals fits beautifully with a “divide and conquer” strategy. Those units that have been “spared” in the current round of cuts are clearly encouraged to keep their heads down, lest they be next. But a focus on the details distracts us from the enormous, and illegitimate, extension of power by the central administration. Having “been spared” and told that your unit is currently “core,” does not insure continued survival in the future, nor does it insure compatibility with the “bottom-line” set of values that now governs this and other policy processes, whether they are appropriate or not.

We, as faculty, must assert and attain a real, and in fact, dominant say in this process (and in other policy-making as well), and not simply one of advising. As I’ve argued, I do not think the track record justifies the current autocratic, top-down arrangement, no matter what ABOR policies indicate (don’t forget that the large majority of non-student, non-ex officio ABOR members are themselves corporate CEOs). We need to turn the current relationship between faculty and administration on its head. Faculty should be making policy (not simply consulting and advising on agendas set almost wholly by managers with a proven track record of failure). Administrators (who rotate in and out of the faculty) should then be charged with carrying those policies out. I am sure we’ve gone far enough down the corporatist path that this will sound absurd and unrealistic to most of you, but this taken-for-granted, current “common sense” can be changed. Faculty have the power to effect this change. The university can run without permanent, professional managers, it can’t run without faculty and students! If you don’t believe me, try this in your next class: conduct a disaggregated, decentralized general strike by declaring two minutes of your own silence. See what happens in the classroom.

Given the state of affairs our present management model has produced, it’s long past time to admit that this management model is bankrupt and should be scrapped. We can do better. How? We need to invigorate the Faculty Senate to take up a much more activist stance. If the Senate can’t meet the challenge, we need a new, autonomous organization (i.e., a UNION) to mobilize and actualize our power. Our biggest obstacle is ourselves. We (faculty) are mostly acculturated in environments that are largely antithetical to collective action. Most of our reward structures, from graduate school and on through the ranks, are structured around individual achievement. We are also encouraged to think of ourselves as professionals and not as workers. I suggest that the challenges we in higher education are facing require a concerted, unified, and collective action, no matter how much we are inclined otherwise. The entire enterprise is either disintegrating or is being changed so radically that most of us will soon find it unrecognizable as the place that inspired our passion in the first place. Just doing good work, and hoping to be left in peace, when the organization as a whole is being gutted out from under us.

Participation in such matters, as has been noted on this blog, is a chicken/egg question. Why don’t more faculty get involved in “shared” governance? Because most of us believe that under the current “advisory” model, it’s a waste of time and energy. We need faculty to get involved to CHANGE THE MODEL..

Deans List

2009-09-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

One of the original issues this blog began with was the topic of improper firings, dismissals and reassignments of high-ranking administrators (including the Vice President for Instruction and several college deans), along with high-ranking staff members (including budget managers).
Progress has been made in identifying the "who" and "why" in these cases, but more needs to be done, and needs to be done quickly, as the issue of Abuse of Power continues to hang over all these discussions like a pall.
Several names of people who have suffered retaliatory personnel actions have now been mentioned in the press and in this and other blogs.
V.P. Garcia's case has been the one most widely discussed; we are told that internal and external complaints are pending.
Regarding the deans on the list, reports vary as to the degree and type of mistreatment that occurred or is alleged.
In some cases deans and budget officers on the list were threatened and badgered by the Provost more or less publicly (i.e., in meetings with witnesses).
In other cases, we are told that a dean "stepped down" or a budget officer "resigned" - which implies that the action was taken voluntarily, but other sources assert that it was not voluntary at all; rather, the dean or budget officer was pressured, threatened, badgered. Or that the "resignation" deal included a promise not to talk about it publicly.
It is not our job to compile the complete list from the media and blogs, nor to delve into the exact nature of the charges - which in some cases cannot, for legal reasons, be discussed in informal proceedings. But that job must be done. It is imperative that the complete lists (Deans list, Administrator list) be compiled and that the charges be reviewed by a committee of the Faculty Senate, perhaps in consultation with a representative or a commission of the Board of Regents. If they don't do it, the media will. And if that happens, the results will be more messy and more controversial. We therefore urge that this matter be taken up expeditiously by the duly constituted authorities, and that the UA community be given the assurance that the duly constituted authorities are indeed not waiting for all of this to "blow over" or just go away. It will not blow over. It will not just go away.
The sooner we have that assurance, the sooner some of the pressure will be lifted, so that we may proceed with the difficult course adjustments that need to made - openly, transparently - with a renewal of leadership, trust, and shared purpose.

Update 9/19/2009 : NEW DEANS LIST
Arizona Daily Star, "Deans List : Turnover At the Top at UA"
How many deans have been recently replaced? One or two? Or was it at least 9 ?
That’s the count Becky Pollack of the Arizona Daily Star came up with by comparing the current lists of Vice Presidents and Deans (from the Provost’s website) with the list of Deans in 2007-2008. Her conclusion: “Among the vice presidents there have been eight changes and four have stayed the same. Among the deans, eight are the same and 11 are new (not counting deans of UA South, admissions and Honors).”
The list of 11 dean changes tabulates as follows:

------------College ----------------2007-2008------------ current----
Agriculture & Life Sciences..... Colin Kaltenbach......... Eugene Sander
Architecture & Landscape Arch. Charles Albanese... Janice Cervelli
Engineering.................... .Thomas Peterson.............Jeffrey Goldberg
Fine Arts..........................Maurice Sevigny................. Jory Hancock
Humanities......................Charles Tatum..........Mary Wildner-Bassett
Law ................................Toni Massaro............... Lawrence Ponoroff
Medecine .......................Keith Joiner.................Steven Goldschmid
Nursing.......................... Marjorie Isenberg................. Joan Shaver
Soc & Behav Sciences..... Edward Donnerstein......... Beth Mitchneck
UA Outreach College...... [name not listed]......... Michael A. Proctor
UA South ................................................................Gerald Jubb, Jr.

Since the above table was posted, our readers have informed us of the following :
1) "Colin Kelenbach was dean only when [Eugene] Sander was interim Provost."
2) "[Marjorie] Isenberg retired. She was not pushed out . [Keith] Joiner was removed..."
3) "Peterson took a very prestigious job at NSF; he was not removed or pushed out."

We will continue to update this list as we receive information from our readers - so please continue to send information that will allow the University community, as well as the press, to know which of these replacements may be considered unproblematic.

Hay’s and Shelton’s Breach of Trust

2009-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

This came in as a comment. It presented such compelling insight into the way decisions are made in the "tower" that it deserved "post" status. The UA Defender again calls for world-class leadership for our world-class institution. The situation described below illustrates that we are not getting such leadership from Shelton/Hay. This posting has been modified to reflect Garcia's correction that the $436,000 was taken from the Diverse Faculty Initiative in spring 2008 to fund gen. ed. courses scheduled for fall 2008, not spring 2008.

This past weekend the U of A celebrated Hispanic Heritage day. To do so the administration paraded out folkloric Mexican dancers and mariachis onto the football field to symbolize their commitment to diversity and the Hispanic community. The president’s office also continues to spew out data that shows increases in “minority” enrollment, which is meant to convince us that they are committed to progress in this arena. But numbers without substance are meaningless. That is indeed the case when it comes to this administration’s record on diversity.

Let me describe the most recent series of events that illustrates the lack of substance and commitment to diversity by the U of A central administration, despite their continued propaganda. In 2007-2008 the President initiated the Diverse Faculty Initiative as a way to increase the number of women in STEM fields and faculty from underrepresented groups. He allocated $1 million for the Initiative. In spring 2008, Meredith Hay used over $436,000 from the $1 million allocated for this Initiative to fund fall 2008 classes. At the time of this action, the central administration was holding on to $16 million in over realized tuition, which they could have used to fund additional seats in general education. Instead they took from the poor.

When Shelton funded this Initiative he assigned me to administer it, so you can imagine my surprise when Hay took $436 K from this fund without notifying me. In 2008-2009 the Initiative was again funded by Shelton. During the spring of 2009, he was asked by members of the Diversity Coalition and the community advisory groups on diversity what effect the budget cuts would have on the funding for the Diverse Faculty Initiative. He responded that it was in the most difficult of times when our values were truly tested, and that his commitment to the Initiative and diversity remained unchanged. In meetings held in the spring of 2009 with these groups he again touted the importance of this Initiative and said, in effect, that he wanted me, Juan Garcia, to come to him at the end of the year and inform him that he has “overspent” on the million dollars allocated for this program. After a meeting with the African American Advisory Committee he spoke to me outside the Ventana Room and asked me to “get on the backs of the deans” to identify and recruit more minority faculty. I informed him that I was doing that very thing and that we had some outstanding possibilities developing.

In response to my call for more colleges to take advantage of the Initiative, I received proposals from several units in SBS asking for funding to recruit faculty that they had identified. The units did due diligence and conducted their respective searches according to the guidelines and procedures established by their college and the university. The end result was that six faculty were identified, 5 of whom were from underrepresented groups (2 African Americans, 1 Hispanic, 2 Asians, and one STEM faculty. All six of these faculty are women. To hire these stellar women to the U of A meant that we would need an additional $350,700 per year of bridge funding using the Diverse Faculty Initiative. Under normal circumstance I would have written MOUs to each of the units approving the hires because the dean in SBS agreed to pick up their salaries using permanent funds once the temporary funding from the Initiative ended. However, when all of this was occurring I was in the midst of being non-renewed, so I wrote a memo to Shelton detailing the faculty recruited and the funding required. I wanted to make certain that these obligations to the SBS departments were not lost in the transition following my non-renewal by Shelton. Shelton did not deign to respond to my memo. Instead Meredith Hay inserted herself into this matter and summarily decreed that we had “no funds” to support these hires. She then added insult to injury by declaring that I had “overspent” the funds allocated, and that I had no standing to do so. To this I say “yes I did overspend the amount allocated” because that's what Shelton told the advisory groups he wanted me to do.

When the heads that had recruited these faculty learned that the funding for these hires was not forthcoming, they were, and remain, enraged and betrayed. In June, the SBS heads and director formulated a proposal that would not have involved any funding from the Strategic Initiative for AY 2009-10. The only financial commitment would have been $30K for spring 2010, to bring on the tenured associate professor, who was willing to come at a reduced FTE for the semester. The other five women were willing to wait until AY 2010-11 to start at the university if they had contracts. The heads met with Meredith to discuss the matter, and again Hay characteristically proved intractable.

The plan set forth by the heads had the support of Beth Mitchneck, Interim Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Joaquín Ruiz, Executive Dean of the Colleges of Letters, Arts and Science, of which SBS is a part. Beth and Joaquín said they would work with the heads and director to find the $30,000 for the associate professor’s spring 2010 salary.

This meant that no funding would be needed from the Strategic Initiative until AY 2010-11, when $104,000 was available. In addition, the SBS heads and director said they would ask for only two years of salary support (for AY 2010-11 and AY 2011-12) instead of the usual three years provided by the Strategic Initiative. At this point, the provost presented to Ruiz and Mitchneck another reason for not hiring the six candidates: she said the former SBS dean, Ed Donnerstein, had overcommitted the college's funds for faculty hires, and the college was in deficit. Therefore, the college could not afford to take over the salaries for the six diversity hires at the end of the three-year funding period. The provost refused to approve the hires.

Hay’s transparent lack of commitment to integrity and diversity was no surprise. But for Shelton to abdicate his responsibilities in this matter and allow Hay to completely derail all of the effort and good faith that had gone into recruiting these faculty is both unconscionable and irresponsible. In essence, the departments, SBS, and the faculty being recruited had met the standards and requirements of the Initiative guidelines. There is nothing in the guidelines that allows the Provost to deny Initiative funding after all of the requirements have been met by units under this Initiative.

Even if you do not agree with diversity initiatives, the fact is that this action by the Provost and President is unacceptable for the following reasons:

It will damage the credibility of the U of A nationally in recruiting any faculty because the commitment to hire faculty will be questioned by applicants. It will make our university appear as a second-rate university that does not honor its commitments.

The failure of the administration in fulfilling its commitments further erodes the trust of the academic community on campus.

It again penalizes the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences by denying them even the most meager of resources to improve on the quality and number of their diverse faculty.

It is unmitigated and demeaning micro-managing on the part of the Provost in the affairs of SBS and other colleges.

It contradicts Shelton’s pledge to the community advisory committees on diversity. This has the potential to again alienate this important constituency and undo all of the work that has taken place to win their trust and support.

As for the advisory groups—they must not allow this breach of trust on the part of Shelton and Hay to go unchallenged. The pledge to hire more diverse faculty was made to them personally by Shelton. Demand that he live up to his promise. The argument that they do not have the funds to approve these hires is specious and untrue.

For example, in August 2009, the Provost announced that the university would allocate $12 million to promote the hiring of excellent faculty in environmental studies and translational medicine. She also announced an allocation of $300,000 to promote scholarship among faculty in Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social and Behavioral Sciences (three of the four units in the newly formed Colleges of Letters, Arts and Science). What this indicates – in light of the 7% budget cuts allocated to Fine Arts, Humanities, and SBS – is that there is a massive centralization of resources, with reallocation of funds to favored colleges and fields. In short, the cuts are financing a massive expansion of resources in the sciences and medicine. Meanwhile, despite the continual press releases and president’s statements about the UA’s commitment to diversity, the university has refused to fund six faculty candidates in SBS with excellent research agendas, all of whom are women and five of who are members of ethnic minorities.

Furthermore at a Team Provost meeting earlier last spring Gene Sander, Dean of Agriculture and VP for Outreach, was bemoaning the loss of faculty at the U of A. Meredith stated that this is the time we should be out recruiting the best faculty possible, to which Gene responded how could we when there was a hiring freeze and the budget situation was dire. Hay replied, just go out and find them and we will find the money to hire them. Well, a group of heads has done that—so where is the money, Provost Hay?

Finally, someone has just put together the statistics and data on the U of A's record in terms of hiring women and faculty from under-represented groups. They are abysmal. I will ascertain whether they can be placed on this site, so that you may come to your own conclusions. (They have been. Please see below.)

I challenge the community advisory groups to demand what was promised to them by Shelton with great fanfare. And do not forget what happened under this administration last spring when they (Vito and Hay especially) dismantled the cultural centers, despite your concerns and protests. Do not continue to be misled by data shoveled out by the central administration or by the hollow rhetoric and promises of Shelton.

So let’s go back to the symbolic meaning of Hispanic dancers and mariachis on the football field last Saturday evening. In light of this administration’s actions regarding the cultural centers, the Diverse Faculty Initiative, and the almost complete absence of members from underrepresented groups on Team Provost and the president’s cabinet, it is not surprising that they have compartmentalized their commitment to diversity in terms of celebrations--although I do not see much to celebrate about. As long as this administration continues to rely on numbers rather than substance, it may keep their shallow demonstrations of inclusion that are paraded out annually in colorful costumes to entertain and amuse them. It once again demonstrates to me the utter lack of understanding and appreciation of how groups from diverse and different backgrounds have come together to shape who and what we are. A world-class leadership would have tapped into that deep reserve of knowledge and talent. The current administration continues to demonstrate through their actions that they are second rate when it comes to leadership.

Juan R. García

Sources:
Click here for "Diversity Graphs for UA Faculty 2003-2008."
Click here for "Highlights of Diversity Graphs 2003-2008" (September 2009)

Evelyn Comments on the Daily Wildcat Podcast 9-11-09

2009-09-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Arizona Daily Wildcat Managing Editor, Shain Bergen, for his insightful analysis presented in the Daily Wildcat podcast of Friday, September 11 of the ever growing controversy surrounding President Shelton and Provost Hay. Bergen, during an interview with Wildcat Online Editor, Bryan Roy, concludes that there is less and less support for Shelton and Hay on the UA campus and that opposition to their continued leadership is gathering momentum. Bergen states during the interview that many faculty and staff are talking to him off the record about their displeasure with the Shelton/Hay administration, but fear that going on the record will result in retaliatory dismissal from their positions at the UA. Interestingly, Bergen also reports that their have been some calls that have been supportive of Shelton and Hay, but these people have also expressed fear when asked to publicly comment. One might speculate that there is such an overwhelming lack of confidence in Shelton and Hay that those who still support their policies are unwilling to step forward for fear of ridicule and condemnation. That is unfortunate, because we at the UADefender believe that the conversations we're currently having online and those we're beginning to have in departments around campus are valuable and will lead to careful and thoughtful decisions about next steps for the UA. We point out that if President Shelton and Provost Hay had allowed and sought the type of discussions we see on the Defender instead of making insulated decisions and rulings by decree, they might have made different and better decisions and they certainly would have made those most impacted by their decisions, the students, staff and faculty, feel heard and perhaps even valued and empowered. That moment has passed for President Shelton and Provost Hay and it is now time for them to move aside and allow us to find the "world-class" leadership this great university deserves.

On Faculty Governance and Shared Governance [revised 9/13]

2009-09-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

[As the topic of faculty governance - more accurately, faculty participation in shared governance at the UA - is at present receiving the most comments - and the most constructive comments - we are re-posting at the top of the blog, with minor revisions, the original post dated 9/9/09.]

Reports that UA faculty governance is dead have been greatly exaggerated, and are premature - according to the Faculty Senate organizers of the "Faculty Governance Leadership Forum" held on September 9th.

Their message:

1) The President and Provost have failed to provide the “transparency” they promised in the most important aspects of implementing the Transformation process.

2) Faculty members present at the meeting were seriously upset about this.

3) Faculty Governance at the UA is not dead, nor even in hibernation; it just needs more support and participation among the faculty as a whole. Faculty must participate. If you don’t participate, don’t complain.

So, coming soon: a Faculty Senate poll of all the faculty, asking whether the faculty as a whole supports, or does not support, the way the President and the Provost have been conducting the Transformation Process.

Exact wording of the poll and the logistics of its implementation will be taken up by the Committee of Eleven in the Faculty Senate.

In the meantime, we will continue to consider comments from readers who write in response to the “core issues” that have defined this site since its inception (way back last month), provided the comments are written in accordance with our rules for civility and evidence.

"Death Panels"

2009-09-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Has push come to shove? Are the gloves coming off?
President Shelton, in his memo of Sept. 9: “Across the board cuts would be the quickest route to mediocrity.”
We agree.
But who are you going to let define “mediocrity”? Meredith Hay?
Has she now clawed her way up to mediocre? By what standards? By what evidence? World-class university provosts are distinguished by their qualities of leadership.
President Shelton in his memo of Sept. 9: “From the very beginning, our commitment as a campus has been to ensure that in these dire financial times we protect and strengthen the University of Arizona's world-class programs. That principle has provided the underpinning for all our budget decisions."
We agree. Who could disagree with protecting world-class programs and, we would add, world-class scholars, even if they’re housed, as is often the case, in programs that may, overall, fall short of world-class.
But who do we let decide what qualifies as world-class, mediocre, and everything in-between?
Shelton and Hay tell us “You decide.” Meaning us. The decisions should be made, we are told, at the level of each academic unit in consultation with its dean.
A Death Panel in every department.
A panel to review the files and say, “This one is terminally mediocre; he has to go.” Or “This one is borderline; we’ll give her a year to show signs of life or we’ll have to pull the plug.”

Horrible idea? Guess what, it’s already in effect. It’s called Annual Performance Review and Post-Tenure Review. The law is there, it just hasn’t been applied.
Don’t ask for peer-review, don’t ask for shared governance, if you’re afraid to use it. Meredith and Gail are not afraid to take over the power we’re afraid to exercise and defend.

Solid, objective assessment standards do exist. We have them in our university-wide guidelines for P&T and annual performance review. Those standards have been worked out with all the clarity, detail and faculty input you could ask for. We just don’t apply them.
Or sometimes we don’t. And sometimes we apply them badly. We find excuses to disqualify standard assessment criteria, or make exceptions, or substitute bogus criteria for real ones. Take the example of Suzie (not her real name).
“Suzie was elected President (by a small clique of mutually-supportive mediocrities) of a prestigious professional society (that no one ever heard of) on the basis of her outstanding research and publications (that no one has read, not even her mom, anymore), published in the most respected venues in her discipline (but which have had no impact on anything—except her career management).
Instead of pulling the plug on Suzie, she gets a promotion, a raise, and eventually maybe a high administrative post.

In contrast, the UA really does have plenty of genuine world-class programs and authentically world-class scholars, measured by authentic standards, the only ones that count – external standards which overlap with the internal ones (referred to above), national and international standards and even the global standards of the ARWU (Academic Ratings of World Universities).
So when they ask for volunteers to the Death Panel in your department, go for it. Just don’t call it a Death Panel – call it a Sustainability Panel, because that’s really what we’re talking about.
After review at the department or program level, files go to the next level up (dean’s-level committees in most cases) where peer-review can be more exacting and more objective.

But wait. What’s wrong with this picture?

Hold on. Before you sign up for service in Sustainability or waste management or whatever you want to call it, we need consistency and reciprocity if this exercise in shared governance is to have credibility and teeth. If Robert Shelton’s and Meredith Hay’s criterion for program “protection” at the UA is world-class quality, then before buying into their plan, we must insist that they, too, submit themselves to the same criteria and the same standards.
And that they provide world-class leadership.
Not the mediocrity of acquiescence papered over and whitewashed, but excellence.
Excellence measured by evidence, results, and positive outcomes.
Positive outcomes means gains, not losses – losses measured in how much you give up, how much you give back, how much you cut.
Cutting is the easy way out. Don’t quibble about differential cuts or cuts across the board; losing is losing.
World-class presidents and provosts are the ones who don’t lose – or who lose the least.

[The views expressed in this post are those of one member of Team Evelyn and do not necessarily represent those of the whole Team.]

PS. This post was written before we saw the opinion piece in the Arizona Star by Regents Professor Oscar Martínez entitled "Poor Leadership, funding is bringing down the UA."

Click here for Prof. Martínez's statement.

Click here for the Tucson Citizen blog (Renee Schaefer Horton) reporting on that story.

Click here for the view of the UA Graduate Student organization "Gradstudents for Change in Arizona.

Click here for the Arizona Daily Wildcat update (9/11). Brian Roy and Shain Bergan (Managing editor of the DW) have published a podcast on the "UA's budget crisis, unrest within the faculty, and a vote of 'no confidence' in Shelton and Hay that staff have said may come in the near future."

And here for light on the story from the Arizona Desert Lamp, written by Evan Lisull, a UA undergraduate and former columnist for the Arizona Daily Wildcat.

Postscript 9/14. We have been informed that a Faculty Senate colleague, whose opinion we respect, considers the title of this post to be not in the best of taste. As we are not morbid by nature (and though one recent comment refers to "deadwood" and no one doubts that the business at hand is deadly serious), we have added hedge-quotes to our title, in deference to our readers' right to disagree.

Post-postscript 9/15. Evan Lisull has posted a rare photo of an actual UA Death Panel. Read his commentary here.

Back to School

2009-09-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

Some of our more attentive readers have discerned in the persona of Evelyn B. Hall a multiplicity of voices. Evelyn is moderate or militant. Passionate, compassionate, progressive, aggressive, excessive. But also punctilious and detail-oriented, reserved and businesslike – almost, dare we say it -- “administrative” (with the voice, as one of you put it, of a “snarky administrator” (whatever that means).

Well, we’ve told you all along that Evelyn is a team. She contains multitudes, like Walt Whitman. Or like Santa and his helpers. But, we are all going in the same direction.

You too, dear reader, Evelyn is you. Or you wouldn’t be here.

Now that the Faculty Senate has valiantly taken up the cause of defending the faculty’s interests, resolving to poll perchance to shaft (no longer to sleep perchance to dream, as has been its wont), some of us on Team Evelyn will be hanging up our blogging shoes. And going back to D2L.

Those of you who know us, know that we’re all here if you need us. All of us. But the bell’s ringing, the book is past due, and the Evelyns remaining know exactly what to do.

If there are delays, please bear with us. Along with participating in shared governance, we have oversized classes to teach, and world-class research to perform.

Where We Stand

2009-09-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this website was clearly defined at the outset. Its mission is focused on “concern about administrative abuse of power at the UA” and the need to provide a “safe place to discuss these issues without fear of retaliation.” We do not, and cannot, represent all points of view. People wishing to attack our point of view or who want to support the alleged abuses under discussion here, may do so elsewhere - the administration has plenty of resources for defending itself, including its own Media Relations Director for University Communications. All we have is this blog. Therefore, we will continue to focus on three main issues at the core of our mission:

1) The Right to Disagree, without punishment, reprisals, or threats;

2) Board of Regents review of the firings and threats reported here and in the media, and a moratorium on further negative personnel actions and program closures until completion of that review;

3) General Education: Control of Gen Ed being taken away from the faculty, and taken over by the Provost’s office, entails a fundamental redefinition of the core mission of the University of Arizona without adequate input.

However, in an effort to accommodate differing points of view, we may occasionally post “attack comments” from the other side of the table, on a temporary basis, before removing them to allow space for comments that represent our core mission, as summarized above and defined in more detail on the website. Space is short, time is limited, we cannot post anything and everything we receive. Selectivity is not censorship; our selection criteria are clearly stated below.

Arizona Daily Wildcat story, Friday Sept. 4

2009-09-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Whatever you know, or don’t know, about this story, everyone agrees in applauding the courage of Juan García in his frank remarks to the Wildcat editors, and whose efforts on behalf of undergraduate education at the UA cost him his job as Vice President for Instruction.
The circumstances of his dismissal, and the manner in which it was carried out (see below), were the straw that broke the camel's back -- an unforgivable affront to the students and to the faculty of the UA, and a signal, to the Arizona Board of Regents, of failed leadership at the University of Arizona.
The online version of the Wildcat article, entitled “No Confidence,” provides an informal quick-poll “yes/no” voting box where you can give your opinion on the question, “Have President Selton and provost Hay abused their power in the UA transformation?” Please feel free. Click here. But that poll is only an informal approximation.
More important, and more decisive, will be the next step, which is currently in the discussion and planning stage. The next step will be a closely targeted poll of all current and former Deans, Department Heads, and Program Directors at the UA, for their yes/no response to the same question. The results will go to the Regents.
Stay tuned for further details.

PS - Another blog covering these issues is written by Renee Schafer Horton, a former reporter with the Tucson Citizen. Renee documents the fact that the reports of intimidation and "flat-out denials" from Sheldon and Hay, have been going on since last year. Renee would welcome further information and comments.
Still another blog, closer to home, closer to the ground, and closest to UA Students, is Sally Gradstudent, Gradstudents for Change in Arizona. Excellent coverage by some of our finest graduate teaching assistants, ferociously dedicated, well-informed and certain that Change can come to Education in Arizona.
[EBH team]

Faculty Leadership Forum Announced for September 9

2009-09-04T08:07:00.001-07:00

The faculty leadership has just announced a public forum. I hope those of us expressing concerns here will take the trouble to show up and bring our colleagues. Similar forums last year were very poorly attended -- we can't expect the faculty leadership to represent us if we don't tell them what we think.

Here is the text of the email announcement:

Open Faculty Forum with Faculty Governance Leadership: Kiva Auditorium, Student
Union, Wednesday September 9, 1-3pm.
Mike Cusanovich, Wanda Howell, Robert Mitchell, J.C. Mutchler and Lynn Nadel will answer any and all questions about current events at the UA, and howfaculty governance is, and is not, playing an appropriate role.
All Faculty Members are invited, indeed encouraged, to attend to voice their opinions and ask their questions in a frank and open setting. Members of the Central Administration and Deans will not be present.

How This Site Works

2009-09-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

To navigate to POSTS on this site and the accompanying COMMENTS from readers, click on the blue titles in the right sidebar.
The "Welcome" post following this one (originally posted 8/21/09) provides general information about what this online forum is, and how it works.
After reading the "Welcome" post, you are invited to proceed to the various POSTS and COMMENTS sent in by readers.
Some of our older Postings (including the "Welcome" post) are periodically re-posted to keep them accessible on the monthly Blog Archive on the right side of this screen.
The members of the EBH team managing this site are diverse and decentralized. Please bear with us if your comment does not appear immediately, or not at all (see Rules below).
Due to the high volume of comments received, we occasionally remove earlier comments and redundant ones. We cannot post everything that comes in; the site would be too big, too long, too hard to navigate. If you would like to remove you own comment, here' how:

Removing Comments
Because this blog operates with a Google template, you can delete any comment that you left here provided that you made your comment while signed in to a Google Account at the time you left the comment. Simply go to the blog and find the page where the comment is listed. Next to the comment, you should see a trash can icon. Click the trash can and answer yes to the confirmation prompt. If you wish to remove a comment that you left from within a non-Google account, you may send us an e-mail (EvelynBHall@gmail.com), identify your comment by the title of the post and the date and time of your comment, and ask that it be removed by an EBH administrator.

Blog Etiquette. Please do not “step over the line.” There is a line between failure of leadership and professional misconduct; a line between bad judgment and professional impropriety; a line between overstepping authority and judiciable misconduct. Allegations of judiciable miscondunct will not be accepted on this website unless you back them up. If you are not prepared to back them up, please confine your comment to stating that it is your opinion that such-and-such impropriety or illegal action or actions may have been committed. ]

Welcome to the Forum - A SAFE PLACE to express your opinion

2009-09-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

WHO WE ARE. We are UA students, staff, faculty and administrators who are concerned about abuses of power at the UA. This is not a political blog. It is an academic forum for presenting facts and expressing legitimate opinions – facts and opinions that the UA administration finds objectionable and has therefore stifled and suppressed.
Many facts and opinions about reorganizing the UA have not been reported in the media – or have been misrepresented when they were reported.
Some of these facts and legitimate opinions have been so seriously distasteful to the University’s executive administrators – President Shelton and Provost Hay – that they have fired the people who expressed them. Deans, department heads, and even senior adminitrators who are among the most respected people on this campus have been fired, for disagreeing. We need a place to talk about that.
A place where we can speak openly, without fear of reprisals, and therefore anonymously for those who prefer not to sign their postings.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECURITY. You can post comments to this forum in complete confidentiality. All postings to this site are protected by three levels of security:
1) This is NOT A UA Website. Our site is hosted by Google, and uses the anonymous "Blogger" interface created by Google in the public interest. "Since Blogger was launched in 1999," according to Google, "blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others."
2) Anonymous Postings. Anyone wishing to remain anonymous may sign with a pseudonym. Or simply sign as "A reader." But impersonations are NOT permitted; any comment signed with someone else's name will be discarded. This is a serious site, and we follow the rules (see below).
3) Non-traceable postings. Since you will be posting to one of Google's "Blogger" websites, NO ONE, including the forum team facilitating this site, will know your e-mail address. So you can send your comments from anywhere.
If you worry about the possibility of UA e-mail accounts being administratively monitored and would feel more comfortable posting your comments to the forum without using UA e-mail, go ahead and log in to this forum - UA Defender - using Gmail or Yahoo or AOL. And rest assured that NOBODY from the UA can monitor off-campus e-mail.

RULES . The following principles will govern postings to this site: respect, accuracy, civility. First Amendment protections carry with them responsibilities, chief among which, as regards internet anonymity, are the obligations
• to say nothing libelous, expressly defamatory, or gratuitously insulting; comments that are "below-the-belt" or "over-the-top" will not be posted;
• to stick to the point (excessively long postings may be shortened by the forum team);
• to stick to the facts (and document them if contestable); and
• to make clear the difference between facts and opinions.
Example: It is a fact that on May 20, 2009 President Shelton sent an e-mail to Dr. Juan Garcia summarily dismissing him from his position as Vice President for Instruction. It is the opinion of many of us on campus that this dismissal was hasty, recriminatory, demeaning and unjust. But, get this: How many University employees can you imagine would feel comfortable, would feel protected in their rights – on this campus in the present conditions—stating such an opinion in a signed letter to the Wildcat?

THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE. And yet, the right to disagree with your superiors without fear of reprisals is a fundamental right guaranteed to everyone in the University of Arizona community:
7.01.01 Statement on Professional Conduct. The following "Statement on Professional Conduct" was adopted by the Faculty Senate on January 4, 1971. Although the statement refers most often to faculty members, its principles also apply to administrative and professional personnel.
Membership in the academic community imposes on students, faculty members, administrators, and regents an obligation to respect the dignity of others, to acknowledge their right to express differing opinions, and to foster and defend intellectual honesty, freedom of inquiry and instruction, and free expression on and off the campus. [University Handbook for Appointed Personnel, University of Arizona, 2000.]

PROTECTION AGAINST REPRISALS. Still, in spite of “sunshine laws” and First Amendment protections and the UHAP Manual that applies EVEN to “administrators and regents,” some among us still have reason to fear further reprisals and dismissals, disguised under the cover of “program reorganization” and the like. That’s why we need a safe place to talk about serious issues. And be heard. By the media, the Regents, the Legislature...

MORATORIUM ON CLOSURES & DISMISSALS. We therefore appeal to the Arizona Board of Regents and to the Arizona Legislature, for a moratorium on administrative program closures and negative personnel actions at the UA (dismissals, demotions, reassignments, etc.) until such time as the complaints currently filed, and the investigations currently underway with regard to recent firings (2008-2009), have been resolved, either at higher administrative levels (e.g., ABOR), or in the courts, as the case may be.

OUR FOUR MAIN AREAS OF CONCERN. Until such time as the moratorium protection has been put in place and announced in the media, this forum will publish postings --anonymous or signed-- on the following 4 topics which have emerged as the areas of greatest concern:
1. FIRINGS. Dismissals, demotions, reassignments without just cause. How they occurred and why they were felt to have been unjust.
2. PROGRAM CLOSURES AND DEFUNDINGS without due regard for legitimate input from faculty, staff, and students (and others affected, where applicable). How and why they were felt to have been unjust.
3. ADMINISTRATIVE INFRINGEMENT AND USURPATIONS in matters of academic policy and planning. These include abolitions or “hostile takeovers” of faculty committees that have expressed reservations or disagreement with administrative initiatives, or where input from faculty, staff, and students was felt to have been unduly curtailed or disregarded.
4. MOTIONS OF CENSURE and VOTES OF NO CONFIDENCE. A rubric for those who wish to express support for motions of censure or votes of no-confidence against the President and/or the Provost, and for those who disagree and wish to argue for alternative forms of redress and relief.

ARIZONA’S FIRST UNIVERSITY. Arizona’s First University is our University. All of us. Students, staff, faculty, community, the citizens of the State of Arizona. It does not “belong” to the executive administration. Many of us feel that they have forgotten that they work for us, not the opposite.

[original posting date August 21,2009; successive re-postings reflect updates.]

AAUP protection at the UA

2009-09-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

The AAUP (American Association of University Professors)intervenes legally on behalf of University faculty members.
The UA Chapter of the AAUP has apparently ceased --or paused-- its activities.
Any UA faculty members wishing to know more about AAUP protection may find information here. Anyone interested in reviving the UA chapter of AAUP should look here.

[original posting date 8/30/09]

Firings, dismissals, demotions

2009-09-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Just Cause for Dismissal? The 5/20 e-mails: Provost Hay – VP Garcia – President Shelton
What does it mean to be "direct"?
Shelton said "Let me be direct. The wording and tone of your email to Provost Hay will not be tolerated." You’re fired.
"With this email I am formally asking for your resignation from your administrative position."
What did he mean by saying, "That kind of wording and tone in an email will not be tolerated"?
What kind of wording and tone did he want?
It looks like he meant, "I will not tolerate wording and tone that are not respectful and polite."
Respectful and polite like the wording and tone of Meredith Hay’s email?
There the wording is at least superficially respectful and hypocritically polite. Calculated to look good, while ruthlessly eliminating an obstacle. Because the content of her email, and her real message is "Get out of my way, I'm taking over. My office is taking over the responsibilities you were entrusted with, so get out of my way." (For Hay's exact wording and tone, see the 5/20 e-mail exchange leaked to the press by Shelton’s office)
By contrast, Juan Garcia’s e-mail, like Shelton’s, really is direct: "I will not acquiesce to a decision that once again has excluded me from the process. At the very least I should have been consulted on a decision that will profoundly affect and infringe on my main area of responsibility."
Now that's direct. But is it just cause for summary dismissal?

[originally posted 8/23/09]

"No Confidence" Votes

2009-09-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last fall, four months into her tenure as Provost, the Deans were ready to oust Meredith Hay over her budget over-reaching. She swept their lines without consultation and at the time, the Deans were powerful enough to force her to put it all back. They should have done a vote of “no confidence” then, but they gave her a break and she’s been able to replace a lot of them now. Department Heads gave her a straw vote of “no confidence” last year, but they didn’t make it official. She’s now replacing them. It is imperative that she and Robert Shelton receive faculty votes of “no confidence” this semester, and it is equally imperative that this stuff hit the press. I have no doubt that they are going to try to go after tenured faculty next, even though that seems to be next to impossible. I’ve seen how these two work. Colleagues who use as an excuse for inaction the idea that the entire campus will fall down around their ears anyway, because of the Centennial Hall fiasco, ignore the great damage that will happen to what was once a first-rate university. It will take years to recover from the damage they have already inflicted. If the faculty wait, they may not have the institution in anything like its current form. I urge everyone to press Wanda Howell and the UA faculty to take this step.
[ Originally posted 8/21/09]

We've Been Looking for Wanda Howell to Represent the Faculty!

2009-09-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

The EBH team has just read the latest copy of Alumnus magazine, Fall 2009, which is put out by the UA Alumni Association. On page 16 is an article entitled, "A Season of Transitions: The Transformation Plan Falls into Place", by Ford Burkhart. In the article, Provost Meredith Hay is quoted as saying, "I think we've come together even closer as a family." Really, Dr Hay; we would suggest that perhaps your ever decreasing, small circle of cronies in the Provost's office has grown closer, but I don't think the rest of the UA community feels close to the administration or much like a family.

We have come to expect this kind of commentary from Hay, but the comments of Faculty Chair, Wanda Howell, are beyond the pale. Howell is supposed to represent the faculty, yet she appears to be firmly in the pocket of the administration. Further citing the Alumnus article who quotes Howell in reference to the transformation , "It's been a winning situation all the way across. We're doing great, and the reason is the whole process was bottom up. That let the faculty do what they do best: generate extraordinary ideas." One can't help but ask Dr. Howell: to which campus and on what planet are you referring? Because your comments have no basis in reality on the UA campus. Furthermore, Howell says that students have been unaware of the changes. Something tells us the students became aware when they walked into huge impersonal classes with no T.A.s, when their student loans were not processed, and when they couldn't get timely and accurate advising.

It has been noted in other postings that there is no consultation with this administration. We are simply informed of decisions from on high. Decisions that are frequently made without the input of those with expertise who are most aware of how those decisions will affect students, faculty, staff and programs. Many of us know the results of questioning a decision by President Shelton or Provost Hay. The questioner is demeaned, marginalized, demoted or fired. To have the Chairman of the Faculty state that the Transformation Plan was created from the ground up with faculty input is just insulting to our intelligence. It's time to tell Dr Howell that she needs to represent the interests of the faculty or we will elect a chairman who will.

No, Robert. No Meredith. That's Not How it's Done

2009-09-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

The editors of UADefender decided to post this comment from J.F. as a post rather than as a comment:
To the editors: I would like to request that my comment be added as a “new posting” under topic 3 of your opening statement: “Administrative Infringements and Usurpations.” If I may, I would like to suggest that my comment be posted with this title: “No, Robert. No, Meredith. That’s not how it’s done.”

I would like to offer a comment under topic 3 in the list of “areas of greatest concern,” namely “Administrative Infringements and Usurpations.” But before I do, I would like to thank the editors of this web-site for giving all of us the opportunity to comment on these important issues. I know I speak for many of my colleagues when I say I'm grateful to whomever it was that organized this “forum” and gave us back our voice, and a place to speak where we are not under the watchful eye, and not under the boot, of the Administration.

Regarding illegal usurpations of Faculty rights and powers which the Administration has lately taken to arrogating unto themselves, there is only one thing to say: No, Robert. No, Meridith, that is not how it works.

Let me refer specifically to General Education, which accounts for 90-95% of undergraduate tuition dollars. The General Education (Gen Ed) program at the UA was designed and implemented by the Faculty. It has always been overseen by the Faculty, through the University-Wide General Education Committee (UWGEC). Last year, the UWGEC was told by people working in the Provost’s office that Gen Ed courses, because of the “revenue streams” they “generate,” needed to be beefed up, revved up, pumped up, changed from 3 units to 4, and new courses needed to be added, with enrollments in the hundreds, and taught on-line, or in large auditoriums, or in Centennial Hall.
Several members of the UWGEC expressed reservations. They said, “We understand the problem. But you’re going too far.” So last Spring (April-May), the UWGEC was told that it was being abolished. Some members of the committee protested. So next we were told that the committee was not being abolished; it was simply being relieved of its decision-making authority in the contested matters regarding design and delivery of Gen Ed, which would henceforth be handled by the Provost’s office. The UWGEC committee would still be allowed to offer advice to the Provost’s office on these matters, and could still retain its power to review new Gen Ed courses for appropriate design and content, and periodically review existing courses. But its real mission had been moved to the Provost’s office. This is wrong. It is illegal. It will not stand. You do not take over Faculty space –the space where academic decisions on curriculum are made— by Eminent Domain.
Many of us on the UWGEC have taught and served at the UA for a long time, 20, 30, 40 years or more. We have seen provosts and presidents come and go. Meredith Hay rode into town a year and a half ago and set out with unprecedented aloofness to restructure the University her own way, by removing rather than working with people and committees who disagree with her. Let’s be clear: That’s not the way it’s done. It’s wrong, it is illegal. It will not stand.

By “illegal,” I am referring to the “Blue Book,” or UHAP Manual (University Handbook for Appointed Personnel), referenced already on this web-site, with a link to the on-line edition. The UHAP is the “law of the land” for this University, and clearly sets forth the division of labor and responsibilities (or balance of power, if you will) between Faculty and Administration. It comes down to this: Administration manages resources and logistics, Faculty decides curriculum. Period. That’s how it’s done.

The Administration does not take over curriculum. If Administration does try to take over the responsibilities entrusted by statute to the Faculty, if Administration impinges or infringes upon or usurps the decisions and authority reserved by statute to the Faculty, then it is not only the right, but the duty, of every member of the Faculty to say No, that is not how it’s done.

In conclusion, let me be direct. No, Robert, No, Meredith. Illegal actions harmful to this University will not be tolerated. Will not be tolerated by the Faculty, Staff, Students, Community, and Regents, your direct superiors.

[originally posted 8/30/09 ]

Shelton's 8/25 Memo: Don't Be Fooled!

2009-09-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

I feel obligated to respond to President Shelton’s 3-D memo of Tuesday, August 25, 2009.
Shelton says that ‘[i]t is important to note the value that has been placed on undergraduate education and teaching function.” Yet, many steps have been taken to damage undergraduate education at the UA.

1. The Financial Aid Office’s staff has been decimated of experienced staff and is in chaos. At the beginning of the semester, they are 6 weeks behind and still processing summer applications.

2. University College with its excellent advising program, which has served the great majority of under-represented groups on campus, has been closed.

3. There is no longer a V.P. for Instruction, which Shelton supposedly created a year ago to demonstrate the importance of instruction at the UA. The position never had an operating budget and the duties of the position have been doled out to underlings of Gail Burd’s. None of these people, including Burd, have any background in effective instruction.

4. The Colleges that in fact do the most undergraduate instruction, Social and Behavioral Sciences and Humanities are, along with Fine Arts, scheduled to be the victims of the “differential cuts”.

5. The person most responsible for budget redesign, Juan Garcia, has been fired.

6. The Cultural Centers, which provided a welcoming presence and support for many undergraduates have not been closed after much protest, but true to the Shelton/Hay methods of doing business, they have not been funded.
Shelton makes reference to “the collegial input that is vital to shared governance…”, and talks about “improved opportunities for academic collaboration”. Don’t be fooled by his rhetoric. There is no shared governance on this campus and there are no improved opportunities for academic collaboration. Shelton throws these words out to try to calm the waters, but in fact, decisions are made by an increasingly small group of Shelton/Hay cronies. There will be no shared governance until we demand it. Therefore, I wonder here, where is Chairman of the Faculty, Wanda Howell in all this? She has been strangely quiet and certainly has not represented the faculty well through this last academic year. I suggest a movement to recruit someone who will be truly effective standing up to the administration, and truly representing the Faculty!

Eveyln B. Hall

[originally posted 8/25/09]

In Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month....... How Committed to Diversity are the President and Provost?

2009-09-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

[The EBH team represents and defends diversity at the UA. The following post examines the gap between promises made by the current administration on "diversity", and its track record.]

Robert Shelton makes much of his devotion to diversity on campus and of his relationship with various under-represented groups at the UA. Recently, he has made a lot of noise about this year's freshman class being the most diverse in the history of the UA However, let's take a look at his actions rather than his words:

Considering that Tucson is over 40% Hispanic, where is the Hispanic leadership at the highest level of this administration? There is Joel Valdez, who has done much good for the UA and for the Tucson community, but he is near retirement and much less willing to fight the good fight than he has been in the past. Who can blame him? Shelton publicly, and many think recklessly, fired his only other high ranking administrator when V.P. Juan Garcia was asked to resign via email by Shelton for the "tone" of a response he emailed to Provost Hay. That firing may come back to haunt Shelton and Hay. Besides Valdez, there is no high ranking Hispanic in"the tower," and "team Provost" --Hay's leadership team-- is lilly white. In fact, Hay has shown absolutely no interest in understanding the diverse Tucson community. She has repeatedly refused or ignored invitations from these groups. The campus is restless and the Garcia firing is one of the sparks that may ignite the Shelton/Hay reign. Many people on campus will be pleased to know that Garcia has filed multiple complaints against President Shelton and Provost Hay for discrimination and other charges. It will be interesting indeed to see how these grievances are resolved and what the reaction of the Board of Regents might be. it is also interesting to note that Garcia is one of the few people on this campus willing to stand up publicly against the administration.

Shelton has crowed recently and frequently about the diversity of this year's freshman class. However, the resources put in place to help students from under-represented groups to navigate the UA have been removed. As noted in an earlier post, the Cultural Centers have been left unfunded, University College, which served more Arizona Assurance scholars, more scholars from under-represented groups and the neediest students, has been dissolved. With it went the experienced advising that kept many, many of these students on track for graduation. The Financial Aid Office has lost its most experienced staff, and students who most desperately need help are left without. Furthermore, extremely large classes mean that students have little contact with professors when studies tell us that relationships with teachers do more to assure student success than almost any other factor. With classes in the hundreds, who has time to build relationships with students and how many 18-year-old teenagers will be brave enough to approach a professor themselves? In particular, how many first generation 18-year-olds from a minority culture will approach a usually Anglo professor? Without resources, a lot of the students from this freshman class face a very difficult road ahead. Many of them will not survive the first semester and many more of them will not graduate.

Remember too that the UA is up for NCA accreditation review and we were slammed 10 years ago about a lack of diversity in the faculty ranks. It's worse now. We've have actually slid backwards in this regard under the Shelton administration.
So, we ask, what does Shelton and the UA have to be proud of in regard to serving diversity in this state?

Evelyn B. Hall