Fred Shaffer’s Board Speech
I’m Fred Shaffer. I am a professor of Psychology, have served as Psychology
convenor for more than three years, and have taught at Truman for 26 years.
Truman is an exceptional public university. One of our greatest assets
is our sense of community. Administration, faculty, staff, and students are partners
in Truman’s success. We strengthen our community when we involve our members
from the start of policy development.
When administrators take the time to ask faculty, staff, and students for
input about the challenges Truman faces, this builds trust, makes us feel like
valued partners, and provides a broader range of perspectives.
When administrators bypass their partners on the grounds that Truman faces a
crisis or that a decision is budgetary, this creates distrust, reduces
commitment to the imposed decision, and risks bad decisions due to a narrow set
of viewpoints.
I’m here today because the administration blindsided its partners with
its summer school changes. During the four years that Vice-President Gordon and
our Division Heads studied summer program reform, they never held focus groups
or open forums, or surveyed faculty, staff, or students about changes in the
academic calendar, imposition of an eight-week summer session, or
discontinuation of non-essential courses.
The Index’s Editorial Board wrote about the need for student input on
Thursday:
“In case you were wondering whether any student opinion was taken into
account, the answer isÂ…kind of. Garry Gordon, vice president for academic
affairs, said he was told that a study on student opinion was performed before
he came to the UniversityÂ…Probably most of the students who participated in
the study are no longer at the University, so why not get input from students
who will be affected by this decision?”
I’m here today because the administration never presented the most
controversial of these changes to the academic Divisions, Faculty Senate, or
Student Senate for their reaction. Instead, the Vice-President announced the
summer school changes as a fait accompli in an October 25th, 2001 e-mail
attachment.
Weeks later, faculty gradually discovered that several courses our majors
require for graduation had been excluded from the initial summer course list.
While enrollments in these courses were sufficient to pay for instructor
salaries, they were not high enough to subsidize the non-teaching activities of
the summer program like Portfolio Reading and Faculty Development Institutes.
In November, the Social Science Division voted to recommend that summer
school changes be suspended for one year to allow further study and to request
that the Vice-President meet with us in a special session. This unprecedented
decision was based on concern about the breakdown in the process of
shared governance and the absence of hard evidence supporting these specific
changes. Subsequently, Vice-President Gordon graciously met with Social Science
faculty, listened to our concerns, and shared a vigorous exchange of ideas.
We have an opportunity to rebuild the partnership between administration,
faculty, staff, and students by postponing the summer school changes and studying
how to increase summer enrollment.
As you vote on future university policy, I appeal to you to ask
whether faculty, staff, and students were consulted during the formative stage
of decision making, and how these changes will affect their morale.
In closing, we cannot enjoy the strengths that come from community
unless we act as a community.