Ohio University administrators are considering using an outside group to compile faculty evaluations of deans, the provost reported Monday, triggering an unexpectedly fierce debate in Faculty Senate.
The senate questioned the wisdom of outsourcing, the motives for the change and whether the surveys used by the non-profit group conform to the Faculty Handbook.
Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl, who oversees the dean's evaluation process, said spending between $3,000 and $4,000 to use the Kansas-based IDEA Center will save Institutional Research the task of organizing survey data, in turn saving OU stress and staff time. She added that Institutional Research has seen budget cuts at the same time the state is demanding more data, so the office has little time to spare.
The switch was suggested by a committee charged with reviewing the evaluation system after problems with university mail and accusations of foul play interrupted last year's evaluations.
Last year, The Post fought administrators for access to records of individual survey responses, which are anonymous. OU turned over records after The Post hired an attorney.
Some faculty said committee members were concerned the group, which included the chairs of last year's evaluation committees, was trying to develop a way to circumvent public records law. Krendl and others in her office said the switch is not a result of the requests from last year, but that having an outside party keep the records will help avoid accusations of tampering with the completed surveys.
She maintained that the change isn't a direct response to the records requests, but an effort to avoid the other problems from last year that put her office on the defensive against allegations of mishandling the surveys.
Joseph Slade, one of the committee's members, said there was some anxiety about information getting into the press, though he said the concern seemed to come more from administrators than faculty.
I always found it something of a red herring. That if you wanted to have confidential conversations that's fine
but ultimately there's nothing you can do about the public records aspect he said, adding, (The committee) was a genuine effort to come up with a way to more meaningfully evaluate the deans.
Slade, who opposes hiring an outside group, said he's not sure that goal is being accomplished anymore, given the administration's move to keep with its usual policy of, 'Don't question what we do just shut up and obey.'
The provost's office shared the plan with Faculty Senate executives in early January and with Sherrie Gradin, the chairwoman of senate's Professional Relations Committee, on Jan. 15. Krendl said that, given the reaction to the plan she got from senate executives before this month's meeting, she was surprised by the way the discussion turned.
As I went through the processes
there just weren't any concerns raised
so I didn't anticipate any concerns
she said. I didn't really anticipate problems ... So I'm still trying to process what their concerns are.
But Gradin and Faculty Senate Chairman Sergio López-Permouth said they don't totally understand the whole proposal and that the senate hasn't had enough time to review it. Gradin said her committee looked briefly at the proposal at its Feb. 4 meeting.
We said to each other we didn't have a problem with doing an online survey
but we didn't know about the specifics of this one
she said.
Most of the process will remain the same as in previous years. Each college will have a dean evaluation committee made up of faculty that will use a data summary generated from the surveys to compose a report for the provost. The difference is the data summaries will now come from outside the university, a move Krendl said is to make impartiality very clear, and unless OU pays another fee to IDEA no one will receive the individual surveys. Because the university would own the report, obtaining IDEA Center's reports would require issuing a public records request with OU.
Faculty Senate is also concerned because the traditional survey from IDEA asks for demographic data such as whether the respondent is tenure or not, and how long they have been at the university. Such questions, many faculty said, conflict with the Faculty Handbook, which forbids asking anything that could lead to the respondent being identified.
Krendl, though, said there isn't a chance of identification because traditional demographics (like gender and race) aren't used and no one will see individual surveys. OU does not intend to request those, a move IDEA says is typical of its clients.
Some faculty also said they hoped to use the same questions as in past years for consistency and easy trend mapping. To create some continuity in the evaluation committees themselves, the evaluation review group suggested having staggered three-year terms for committee members.
The provost will meet with Gradin and senate executives today to discuss proposed changes to this year's dean evaluations.
- Chris Kardish contributed to this report.
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