22 April 2016
Dear UW
faculty colleagues,
The following
message has been approved by the AAUP executive board for distribution to
faculty.
UW President
Ana Mari Cauce circulated an email to faculty, staff
and students (14th April) stating the current interim Provost Baldasty has performed in his role for the last 13 months.
In February, President Cauce organized an 11-person
advisory committee, chaired by Dean Jim Jiambalvo and
Professor Kate OÕNeill to advise her on whether to appoint him provost and
executive VP for a term of up to three years. She has invited the campus
community to Òhear a presentationÓ by Dr. Baldasty
on Tuesday 26th April at 2:30pm in the Henry Art Gallery. We are then invited
to Òprovide feedbackÓby
30th April via Catalyst.
We have been
here before. In 2011, when President Young announced a preferred candidate for
Provost, AAUP's national organization sent a letter
reminding President Young of AAUP's opposition to secretive searches. In
addition, the UW Faculty Senate passed the following Class C resolution (12 Dec
2011, attached):
Senate
resolution, 12/1/11: "WHEREAS, the recent search for Provost did
not provide the tri-campus community with an opportunity to learn of the names
of the finalists for the position nor to meet the finalists publicly
before a "preferred candidateÓ was identified; therefore
BE IT
RESOLVED, the Senate expresses its clear expectation that future searches for
academic administrators will again include open public forums with finalists as
a means of gathering broad faculty input before a decision is made.Ó
Once again,
only one Òpreferred candidateÓ for Provost has been identified, with an
appointment for up to three years. It is unclear in this case whether any
search has been conducted that involves more than a single candidate. The
committee tasked to evaluate the preferred candidate Òthe Advisory Selection
Review CommitteeÓ indicates that there was no formal internal search process.
Among the many
reasons that open searches are important, another key issue is that open
searches allow the discovery of candidates who might bring more diversity to
our campus administration. Indeed, UW's own Handbook of Best Practices for Faculty Hiring
informs us of the importance of striving to "attract a highly qualified
and diverse pool of candidates" for faculty searches. President CauceÕs race and equity update on 19 April 2016 stated,
"we are 100% committed to listening to your concerns and making changes
for the better. Together, we can make progress toward equity and inclusion and
toward building the kind of university and world that will allow ALL of us the
opportunity to realize our human potential.Ó It is difficult to see how
foregoing an open search for Provost, the top academic officer of the
university, is consistent with the UW's own diversity goals.
In some ways,
the current situation is even worse than that in 2011, because:
1. Unlike
2011, there appears in this case to not have been even a formal (if secret)
internal search process with Senate/faculty involvement, but simply a
presidential selection handed down for (advisory) "review";
2. The
lack of a search blatantly goes against a Senate resolution (12/1/11)
formulating shared governance expectations in future Provost searches;
3. The
current process threatens to formalize, through precedent, a Provost selection
process that eviscerates shared governance and unilaterally increases
presidential powers.
The provost is
the chief academic officer of the campus, and it is therefore of utmost
importance that there be a broad search that involves faculty involvement in
the selection process. The resolution passed by the Faculty Senate in 2011
should be adhered to, triggering an open search. We urge the Senate to consider
this as soon as is possible, and we remain committed to the belief that no
appointment should be made without an open search.
AAUP-UW
Executive Committee, 20th April 2016
_