Editors note: This is the first in a five-part series detailing the evaluations of Ohio University deans. Only five deans were evaluated because first-year deans are not evaluated.
Although they gave a positive dean evaluation, many faculty members in the College of Health and Human Services charged that the dean favors certain schools and does not fairly allocate the budget.
While the majority of faculty responded that Gary Neiman, dean of the college, met or exceeded expectations in almost all areas, many charged that he favored the School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences and tailored the budget to benefit that school.
I favor units that are excellent. I will try to provide resources for the most excellent units in the college
Neiman said. My attitude has not been to split up limited resources evenly so everyone can become mediocre.
The committee that conducted the evaluations, with members appointed by Provost Kathy Krendl and Faculty Senate, found that most of the negative comments about Nieman's performance centered on perceived favoritism.
One way to possibly minimize this is to be more transparent in decision making. For example clearly explaining the rationale for allocating resources to a particular school in the college according to the report.
Kathleen Rose-Grippa, director of the school of nursing and the only director in the college to respond to a request for an interview, countered that she has not seen any evidence to indicate favoritism.I think he's done fine. He's increased our recognition. He's increased our participation with external bodies
she said.
Yet the college does have funding problems. Neiman said that the college is the most over-enrolled and understaffed in the university and that in his eight years as dean, enrollment has increased 25 percent while the budget has increased by small increments.
There are several other high-quality programs in the college
which with adequate resources could achieve national prominence
one respondent wrote.
The evaluations, which are anonymous, also charged that the dean did not effectively communicate his budget planning decisions. Nieman received his lowest rating in the fiscal management category.
Nieman said that he would glean constructive criticism from the comments and try to improve his performance, adding he will probably be more transparent in decision making and engage faculty more before decisions are made.
I can't mandate that people will agree
but at least people will have the opportunity to see the rationale behind the decision making.Of the five dean evaluations conducted this year, the College of Health and Human Services had the largest number of faculty responding, which was about 70 percent of the eligible faculty.
Krendl will review this evaluation along with evaluations of the deans of the colleges of Engineering, Osteopathic Medicine, Honors Tutorial College and University College. She will use the information to issue recommendations for the deans later this quarter. Deans in their first year are not evaluated.
Krendl declined to comment about the evaluations and added that her official response will be in the form of a letter to the deans.She added that these are mid-stream reviews. Every five years the colleges conduct a comprehensive reappointment review, unless prompted to earlier by two-thirds of the faculty.
The majority of respondents said that a comprehensive review was necessary. The committee, however, said that this finding did not agree with the results of the survey and that there must have been some confusion with the question, so they recommended that a review was not necessary.
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Sean Gaffney
