Speeches from Faculty Assembly

What a turnout yesterday for Faculty Assembly! 102 Benton was filled and the mood was buoyant. If you were there yesterday, talk to your colleagues about what you heard and about the powerful feeling of being a faculty united. And make sure to vote. Ballots will be distributed by email soon.

Over a dozen tenured, librarian, and TCPL faculty got up on the stage to speak out in favor of reinstating the All-Faculty Committee for Evaluation for Administrators. Faculty dismantled management’s spurious case for suspending the committee. They explained how feedback makes organizations and leadership stronger. They want management to work with us, not against us.  

Several faculty shared the texts of their speeches with us. Read them here:

• Cathy Wagner: “A strong organization is made stronger when it seeks constructive feedback from all its stakeholders”
• Ron Becker: “To “end a process in which…leaders get feedback…suggests serious fragility of leadership, not strength” 
• Shashi Lalvani: “”Top 10 Reasons Why We Should Evaluate Administrators”
• Kate Rousmaniere: “I support FAM, particularly in the face of what I see as declining faculty input”
• Ginny Boehme: “This is not right, and if you agree…vote in favor of…the immediate reinstatement of this committee”
• Theresa Kulbaga: “Shutting down this committee sends a signal”
• Daniel Hall: “[T]he committee heard that some administrators were intimidated by the process … if true, I suggest the issue is with the administrator, not with the evaluative process.”

In response, management was silent. No arguments were offered in favor of suspending the committee — wisely, because there are no reasonable arguments in favor of suspending the committee.

Whatever the Board of Trustees decides from here, the best way to leverage faculty’s united power is to put it behind your FAM negotiating team. If you’re not already one of the majority of faculty who have joined, become a member of FAM before the holidays. Contact your FAM liaison or sign up for a visit here: bit.ly.com/FAMMembership.