A faculty evaluation of Ohio University President Roderick McDavis in October praised him for efforts to improve diversity and criticized him for not improving faculty compensation, but data show faculty perceptions don't align with McDavis's actions.
In the Faculty Senate evaluation, 77 percent of respondents said McDavis promotes and supports diversity as a core value among the faculty. But 80 percent of faculty who responded said they were dissatisfied with the president's efforts at maintaining or enhancing faculty salaries and benefits. Responses in a 2007 survey were similar.
Data from the Office of Institutional Research, however, show faculty compensation has increased 13 percent since McDavis became president in 2004, while faculty and staff diversity has increased 0.76 percent. Since 2006, when the university began including graduate students in the count, student diversity has increased 3 percent.
Faculty Senate Chairman Joe McLaughlin said the evaluation really measures faculty perception of the president, so he was not surprised with the responses or the data.
We all know that improving diversity is a core goal of President McDavis. It's something that is closely associated with him and that probably explains why faculty perceive improvements
McLaughlin said in an e-mail, adding that while faculty have made progress in compensation, other university decisions temper faculty praise for McDavis's initiative.
Improving faculty compensation is a top Vision Ohio priority - to which OU has committed an additional $2.4 million over the past three years. McLaughlin noted, however, that faculty did not receive raises this year while their health care costs rose.
This undermines goodwill created by the faculty compensation initiative and is perceived as accurately or not giving with one hand and taking with the other
he said, explaining that those cost increases - in co-pays, deductibles, etc. - may not appear in the Institutional Research data.
McDavis's Chief of Staff Becky Watts said the difference between the evaluation and the data is informative because it shows her office should be getting data out more.
I need to do a better job of sharing information in a proactive way. Perceptions are formed by the information you receive
Watts said. If that's their perception
then that's their reality.
Watts added that the president has been working on improving diversity on campus, but that that sort of initiative takes more time to take hold than improving faculty salaries, which can be done just by adding money to the compensation pot.
I guess its not surprising that those numbers are moving more slowly because it's not a direct action that you can do like compensation is
she said.
Given the faculty perceptions, McLaughlin called on the president to make further improvements in faculty compensation his first priority.
Despite the fact that [administrators] have had to contend with a difficult economy
their commitment to [faculty compensation] ... appears to faculty to be somewhat weak
he said, adding it leaves faculty to wonder whether the commitment to improve faculty salaries
as has been done for upper administrators
is real or a PR campaign.
Watts said the faculty compensation initiative is still a top Vision Ohio priority, and while the university is constantly re-evaluating its strategic plan and its progress on the priorities, improving salaries for faculty is still at the top of the list.
