At our recent campus-wide meeting, the Faculty Women´s Caucus voted to submit a resolution of censure of the President and the Provost at the next Faculty Senate meeting. The resolution focuses specifically on central administration's lack of leadership and unilateral decision making on the issue of race relations. We would like to offer a brief sketch of some of the background behind the resolution and the reasons for our decision to move forward on this.
This has been a tumultuous year on campus in the arena of race relations, a year marked by: controversy over the dismissal of the Commission on Racial Justice and Multicultural Education; a nationally visible student hunger strike; a deteriorating national reputation; and a lack of leadership in bringing interested and committed parties together to work on these issues. These events have led to the perception that there has been no forward movement in this area and a fear that we are quickly losing ground in relation to any successful diversification effort on campus.
There is little consensus among us about the specifics of how best to deal with these problems, and we do not necessarily agree with all of the arguments of the administration's opponents on these matters. But we do agree that administrative silence, vacillation, and lack of collegiality have contributed greatly to the problem. As a result, many students of color have lost faith in the administration´s efforts and the Faculty Women´s Caucus shares this sentiment. Individual Caucus members have expressed their concerns directly to the President and/or the Provost to no avail. Thus, our belief that unilateral decision making and nonresponsiveness is a managerial characteristic of the present administration.
While the central administration´s handling of issues of racial justice and diversity is the immediate impetus for our actions, we believe that it is indicative of a much broader leadership problem. We refer to a pattern of leadership characterized by long periods of inaction punctuated by occasional flurries of unilateral decision making. We as a faculty have had major concerns about central administration actions and inactions in the areas of financial exigency policy, grievance procedures and many complaints about the nature of personnel decisions. When we consider the continuing serious budget problems, enrollment questions, and low morale throughout the campus community, we are worried about the overall health of UVM, in the present and in the future. We have come to the conclusion that these problems are becoming too serious to ignore; that we as faculty members must face them directly.
We feel that it is our responsibility, as a faculty, to assert our role in university governance by formally conveying our disapproval of the actions and methods of the central administration. The censure motion has a long history in collegial bodies as a legitimate vehicle to exercise faculty voice. The formal definition of censure is an official expression of disapproval passed by a legislative body. In our case, we use it to express our disapproval of the administration´s handling of race relations specifically, but also in the current state of the university, in general. We use it to express our disapproval of a management style that we find antithetical to a collegial model and we identify unilateral decision making as a specific problem in this regard.
We have heard concerns expressed about the effect of a censure motion on the University and we have taken these very seriously. After much thought, however, our conclusion is that in this case, inaction is more dangerous than action. We fear that the current state of affairs at UVM will have permanent implications for our ability to move forward on many fronts, race relations being only one. UVM´s national reputation is at stake and, hence, our ability to attract funding, quality students and excellent faculty. We believe that the same combination of lack of effective leadership and unilateral decision making characterizing issues of race describe campus governance in general. We feel that on the issue of race relations, we must take a stand on moral grounds. On the more general issue of ineffective leadership, we fear that if we do not take a stand now, it may soon be too late.
For these reasons, we encourage you to come to the Faculty Senate meeting on March 12 and to support our resolution of censure.
[UVM Overview] [1777-1933] [1984-1989] [1990-1994] [1995-1996] [1997-present] Racism Home Page