Dear Colleagues,


In anticipation of the upcoming meetings of the Faculty Senate and the General Assembled Faculty, I offer here some suggestions for questions we might pose to the administration. These are questions that have arisen from conversations with various university personnel over the past year. I realize many of us have already collected and posed a number of similar queries. Please forgive any duplication, and know that I offer these in a constructive spirit born of my devotion to an institution I have served for seventeen years. 

 

1. How much money does the administration hope to collect or save by demanding a cut from grants awarded to the University faculty?

 

2. How much money does the administration hope to save by insisting that staff members teach classes like Freshmen Seminar and English 121 only after business hours? 

 

3. Why has the Provost written that he will no longer allow faculty to receive extra service pay for extra service, like interviewing prospective honors students on Sundays, even when funds have been reserved to provide this pay?

 

4. Does the Chief Academic Officer see any worth to attending departmental meetings to see how faculty are doing and to seek their input?

 

5. Why hasn't the administration responded to complaints about the untimely compensation for faculty teaching in the summer terms?

 

6. What ever happened to the $500,000 promised to support General Education Reform?

 

7. Does the Provost really think (as he intimated in yesterday's paper) that faculty work less than administrators and therefore deserve smaller salaries? Does he not realize that college professors work an average of 53 hours a week? (See http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2001/pdf/51_2001.pdf). 

 

8. Why has the Provost chosen not to follow official university procedures by evaluating the deans and directors under his authority? Does he not realize that if deans and directors are exempt from annual evaluation, it makes it difficult to expect department heads, faculty or staff to submit their EDOs and EDEs?

 

9. Will the administration be willing to guarantee never again to withdraw money from private scholarship funds and gift accounts to meet general university deficits? Do they not realize that if department heads and directors do not maintain exclusive control over such restricted funds that donations intended to support specific programs will be threatened? 

 

10. Will the administration agree that deans, directors and department heads have an obligation to serve as vigorous advocates for their programs, even when such advocacy involves them in disagreements with the administration? 

 

11. May we know exactly how Mr. Lupton's $25 million has been spent so far?

 

12. If it's true that there exists between $300,000 and $500,000 in operational carry-over funds from last year, why did the administration feel the need to take all of our travel funds?

 

13. How serious is the Provost about imposing term limits on university administrators?

 

14. How does the administration intend to pay four new faculty members $200,000 each next year?

 

15. How much money has the SimCenter cost the university at this point? When will the Center become self-supporting? 

 

16. Given the Chancellor's own expertise in Public Communications, why did he feel the need to hire a PR person like Missy Crutchfield in the first place? Did he not suspect that it would appear odd to hire the daughter of a major supporter at what appears to be an inflated salary?

 

17. Why have we had four different Provosts in the past six years? And why have we recently lost such seemingly devoted, long-time employees as Judy Fry and Susan Cardwell? 

 

18. Does the Chancellor think it is wise to divorce himself from all matters pertaining to academics, leaving all such matters in the hands of a new Provost, however capable he may be?

 

19. Why has the Provost introduced  - without having prepared an impact study or even to discuss the issue with a single department head - a formal proposal to the Faculty Senate to move all the science departments from the College of Arts and Sciences into the College of Engineering? 

 

20. Is the administration aware that the faculty and staff at this institution will have very little tolerance for any stock administrative utterances like "I was only trying to save jobs," or "we really do care what you all think," or "it didn't cost the academic side of this institution anything to increase administrative salaries?"


Note: I have endeavored to confirm the facts imbedded in the questions above using multiple sources. Please let me know, though, if I have included any inaccuracies, stated or implied, and accept my apologies. 

With great respect and concern for the health of our university,

Gavin Townsend