KU leaders bully faculty instead of listening to them. That must change | Opinion
Faculty governance is a lofty yet fragile aspiration. Its purpose within the academic institution is to hold those in power accountable for actions that affect faculty rights.
At the University of Kansas, governance has become limber and weakened — almost to a point of no return. So much so that a few years ago, the faculty voted in favor of creating a union to meet its needs regarding equity and fairness because the faculty senate seemed incapable.
Fast forward to today. Two governance leaders, in their roles as presidents of their respective governing bodies, fielded a vote of confidence within the bodies they govern. They asked university senators, who universally represent the schools, departments and units within the university, to activate their role as senators and distribute the survey widely to those they serve in said role. Senators, up for the challenge, did their job. They distributed the survey, and within one week, it received more than 2,000 responses.
As Faculty Senate President, I am one of those leaders. One week before KCUR reported the results of the survey — which it received from an open records request to the Kansas Board of Regents — I received a phone call from the university administration in which I was directly told that if a number came out in the press from our poll, the administration would intentionally focus on discrediting my reputation as a scientific scholar.
That threat has now come to bear, and university administration is using its lofty public relations team to argue the faculty and university senate presidents are rogue agents who developed an “unscientific” process specifically aimed at tarnishing them. No matter that I, for example, have expertise in survey methods and data innovations and that I worked on as a senior adviser for evaluations and experiments to the chief scientist of the U.S. Census Bureau before arriving at the University of Kansas. Without pointing to any specific policies, processes or procedures, the stance is that governance leaders are acting outside of governance roles, and I am left wondering if I am living in a localized episode of “Mad Men.”
If the role of governance leaders in a shared governance model is to get approvals from administration leaders for their actions, then yes, we worked outside that process. But faculty governance is held bound by Faculty Senate rules and regulations, and policies approved by its senators, not the approval of administrative leaders.
In fact, this inferred approval the administration is seeking is exactly what has weakened faculty governance, and it is why we used a grassroots approach. Had we used the formalized systems the administration has in place for administering surveys, which also require the approval of administrative staff, the survey would have stalled.
It should be concerning to all that KU administration has chosen to spin up a story attacking governance leadership integrity instead of doing the hard work of reflecting on why 1 in 5 faculty members took the effort to vote on the confidence of KU leadership as it relates to budget transparency and priorities — and why around 80% of those who did vote do not have confidence in their leadership.
The choice to threaten the reputation of governance leadership and devalue the voices of thousands within the university as an official stance is just that: a choice. It is a strategy commonly used to deflect responsibility.
Leadership by bully tactic is not strong leadership. It is not healthy leadership.
Healthy leadership in this instance would be to acknowledge the vote, show genuine concern over whether KU’s leaders were doing the hard work to bring its faculty along with it, and begin to repair the process by helping faculty have a genuine voice in the stark choices being made in this perilous time when it feels like so many in society have given up on higher education institutions of thought, inquiry and innovation.
Real leadership would be to show care and concern about the people behind the 2,000 voices in this vote — even if the belief is that these voices are somehow in the minority.
Honest leadership would not immediately attempt to discredit the reputations of the leaders within its shared governance space.
It is not too late. I am still hopeful those leadership qualities can come through at KU. In the meantime, feel free to read the report and results of the vote. The survey was distributed equitably through governance structures with a goal to simply to create space for faculty voices to be heard — whatever those voices are.
I am doing my job. Now I am asking university administrators to do theirs.
Misty L. Heggeness is co-director of the Kansas Population Center, associate professor of public affairs and economics and faculty senate president at the University of Kansas.