Officially Discovering What We Already Knew

There's nothing like a blinding flash of the obvious.

Last year, UNCG administered a survey known as the COACHE survey in order to make an effort to measure faculty satisfaction. Just on the off chance that outbursts, protests, letters, the AAUP survey, position statements, and general conversation didn't REALLY represent what faculty were feeling.
If there's one thing I always say about the faculty is that they are uncommunicative; it's just so hard to get them to really open up and talk...

In any case, Provost Dunn created a PowerPoint that summarizes the findings from this survey. Here are the absolutely unsurprising results:

It turns out, faculty are generally satisfied with each other and their departmental leaders (although that falls off a bit at full professor - probably not difficult to understand why that might be). Faculty are generally satisfied with tenure and promotion policies and procedures.

This next one, and this is the doozy, so let me say it clearly: FACULTY ARE OVERWHELMINGLY DISSATISFIED WITH SENION LEADERSHIP AT UNCG.

I'll give you a moment to get over your lack of surprise.

So, Brady is gone, although threatens to return to the classroom to bring her trademark wit, warmth, and wisdom. Imogene Cathey is gone, Paul Mason is gone, Edna Chun is gone, etc. etc. However, there are still plenty of sharks left over and it seems to me like it might be time to take a real long, hard look at them.

I'd say it's probably high time that anybody in executive administration didn't just get to continue to coast. The default assumption shouldn't be that they are doing fine. Instead, they should have to prove themselves, reapply for their position, demonstrate that their overwhelming failure to gain the confidence of the entire faculty isn't just something that can be brushed off as if unimportant.

And it would be difficult to imagine that a staff satisfaction survey (which was never administered) would show anything except for another section of our community that finds senior leadership to have performed well below expectations.

If an academic department, or heaven forbid a center, were to receive this kind of feedback, the entire area would be under review with the threat of closure/dismissal/defunding - why should senior leadership get a pass? That's the fat at the university and yet we act as if they are indispensable and absolutely immune.

If Gilliam wants to start from anywhere but in a hole, he's going to have to clean up this mess that was left behind before him. The message is clear.

Now, I'm just going to wait for the survey to determine if it's a nice day outside, so I can have my fill of finding out what I already know.

Dear Linda

Dear Linda:

I just want to say how glad I am that you did that interview with The Carolinian where you were egregiously candid enough to admit how sorry you were that we are all so difficult to work with.

I mean, if only we had known that none of this was your fault, that the problem was US and not you, and that we were simply too hard-headed to understand what was best for us, why then maybe we could have been better people. 

I’m sorry we are so disappointing.

I mean, now that you’ve explained, again, how difficult we are, I really feel like a great era of healing and togetherness is just over the horizon. After all, you only make enormous amounts of money (plus nice bennies!) to do your job, so how could we ever have expected you to be the one who was responsible for anything? I feel so foolish.

You’re right about so many things. It is tough to have a frank and open conversation when one side refuses listen. It is so complicated when something like the Faculty Senate can’t just nod and agree with everything and insists (!) on asking questions, representing various constituencies, and having access to information. Who could have known that people at a university would be so concerned with knowledge, right?

I’m sorry we’re so weird and different in that a racial discrimination scandal seems to have ended your career at Oregon State while an entirely different type of scandal seems to have brought it about here. Surely, there is nothing for you to learn from any of those situations because, as you so candidly explained, it’s everyone else.

I, for one, am enraged on your behalf that people would be so callous as to suggest that shared governance means a “sharing” of the “governance.” I can see why you would find that frustrating.

I’m sorry that the press wasn’t able to paint more glowing reviews of the change you knew was best for us. Where were the headlines saying: “New Rec Center Provides Enhanced Pigeon Roosting Opportunities” or “She’s Got a Green Thumb for Growing Executive Administration”? Instead, it was all “destroying my neighborhood” this and “overwhelming faculty dissatisfaction” that.

I mean, I know if that kind of continued conspiracy were to egregiously happen to me, the only thing I could think of to do would be to have people investigated and arrested. That’s what I did once when my cat wouldn’t use the litter box and I haven’t had a problem since!

Anyway, I know you spent a long time really doing some soul searching before you were able to satisfactorily conclude that you were blameless and that’s never easy, so I salute you.

Hopefully, everyone will be able to remember your honesty clearly when you rejoin the faculty in 2016.

Tchus,

Sophie