Yesterday's Student Senate election was one for the books. Out of 4,408 people who voted on the confidence issue, 3,426 voted no confidence in President McDavis. Razor thin margins between winning candidates (Will Klatt lost by a mere 17 votes) only added to the excitement. Compare an evaluation of McDavis by 4,408 students to an evaluation of President McDavis by the Board of Trustees and a strange thing happens: the trustees' evaluation starts to look about as relevant as an opinion piece in Tiger Beat Magazine.
Last Monday, student inboxes were treated to another email from R. Gregory Browning, chairman of the Board of Trustees, explaining when and how the trustees will evaluate President McDavis with input from stakeholder groups. One would imagine that an e-mail concerning an evaluation of our president would at least mention the student vote of no confidence and the upcoming evaluation by the American Association of University Professors. It mentioned neither, and the message was obvious: The trustees are the only people who have any business evaluating our president.
That message was even clearer in 2006, when the AAUP conducted their evaluation of President McDavis and several other top administrators. When it became clear that the survey was to be conducted independent of Faculty Senate, OU's Director of Legal affairs sent an open (and particularly nasty) letter warning the AAUP not to use any Ohio University resources or campus mail to distribute the survey to faculty. A group of faculty decides to distribute a survey about the performance of top administrators, and what is Ohio University's response? It closes off a traditionally open communication system (campus mail) and warns the distributors not to use so much as a spare piece of paper.
When President McDavis and Provost Krendl spoke to Faculty Senate this week, there was talk of a need for civil discourse and a level of respect that should be maintained. Where was that respect in 2006? Was it civil to ban a group from using campus resources that are normally available to any campus group without review just because administrators didn't like what they had to say? Lecturing faculty about civility and respectful discourse less than a year after unleashing OU's legal department on them seems downright hypocritical.
You might have noticed that the student vote of no confidence did not meet the kind of opposition that the AAUP survey did. Does this mean that top administrators have changed their attitudes about who should and shouldn't be evaluating them? My answer would be an emphatic no. The student vote of no confidence attached to the Student Senate election ballot hasn't met direct opposition from the administrators because they have a vested interest in the perceived legitimacy of Student Senate and, by extension, its elections. They (our trustees and administrators) probably know that attacking the student vote of no confidence in the same way that they attacked the AAUP survey would mean attacking Student Senate, their shining star of shared governance.
But aren't the trustees the best people to be evaluating the president anyway? Should students and faculty really be running around conducting unauthorized evaluations of McDavis and other upper-level administrators? The trustees would argue that they have the best interests of this institution at heart, and maybe that's true. This institution needs an objective evaluation of President McDavis' performance. Problem is, the trustees can't even seem to send an e-mail without constantly reaffirming their support for President McDavis. For better or for worse, the time has come for an objective appraisal of the leadership qualities of our top administrators, and the trustees have proven that they aren't capable. They've already decided that they want to stand behind our president. The time for standing behind people and acknowledging emotions has passed. It's time for change ' real change. And we're waiting.
Columns represent the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Post.
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Doug Cloud
