Unilateral Decision Making

The Faculty Federation has consistently promoted a collegial process of shared governance as the proper and most effective way to work with faculty as an association of professionals. This process assumes mutual trust and respect between the administration and faculty, as well as shared authority.

It is the position of the Federation that faculty has proper and primary authority over decisions related to instructional matters of all kind, curriculum, class assignments, continuing contract, faculty evaluation, student development, counseling services, and learning resources. The administration's recent actions have shown that they do not agree.

In a series of unilateral decisions, the administration:

• removed faculty department chairs,
• hired numerous new administrators,
• changed override procedures,
• increased class size for online classes,
• changed the criteria for canceling classes,
• altered the long standing requirement for student orientations,
• replaced three faculty counseling positions with non-faculty positions,
• altered the balance of the curriculum committee and
• changed the release time provisions for the Faculty Senate leadership.

The administration unilaterally took all of these actions after the faculty engaged in a thoughtful and democratic exercise in the change of representation leadership.

The results of these administrative initiatives are:

• disintegration of collegiality,
• decreased ability to assist students,
• heavier teaching loads for faculty,
• inability to accommodate students in cancelled classes,
• disruption of the student orientation process,
• continued decimation of faculty counseling positions,
• reduced faculty power in curriculum decisions,
• loss of evident respect for the Faculty Senate leadership, and
• continued damage to faculty employment satisfaction.

It is difficult to reconcile these actions with the administration's claimed interest in student success, excellent customer service, collegiality and increased employment satisfaction for faculty. For example: even as such decisions were being made, Drs. Wallace and Green were meeting with Faculty Federation negotiators, openly and specifically claiming a vital interest in "improving the employment satisfaction of faculty."

Actions speak louder than words!

The administration is now caught in a dialectic of failure. Every such "disconnect" between what is said and what is done will further rend the already torn fabric of trust between faculty and the administration. Where there is no trust there can be no faith in leadership. Without faith in its leadership, the administration can only attempt to fulfill its function by authoritarian dictate, which further damages trust and faith.

What we are witnessing is an ever-accelerating loss of meaningful collegiality, clearly evidenced by a growing number of unilateral decisions damaging the very foundations of the College's mission and goals.

Such actions will continue to undermine the functionality and community standing of this college that so many of us have worked years to build.