Ohio University’s president and provost will lose an annual evaluation process, yet some on campus argue the administrators’ views will be widened by a broader survey of the university.
OU’s Faculty Senate is collaborating with the Administrative and Classified Senates to create one survey to gauge opinions of all faculty and staff every year.
Elizabeth Sayrs, chair of Faculty Senate, said the resolution to create a comprehensive survey of OU passed in April 2013 and will completely replace the senate’s original survey.
The previous survey only looked at OU President Roderick McDavis and Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit and had been in use since the 2009-10 school year.
The comprehensive survey should be available to faculty, staff and administration by Spring Semester 2014 and will occur annually, Sayrs said.
“I think some of the benefits are that we’ll be able to find what the broader population thinks,” Sayrs said.
The past survey of McDavis and Benoit was discarded because fewer faculty completed the survey in recent years and the results lacked specific focus on the president and provost.
“There was a very strong response the first couple of years, but as we’ve done it annually the responses have dropped off,” Sayrs said.
In June 2011, the Faculty Senate survey, which polled Group I and II faculty, received a 24 percent response rate for McDavis and a 21 percent response rate for Benoit. A majority of the responding faculty was not satisfied with either administrator in all but one area, according to a previous Post article.
Jennifer Kirksey, McDavis’ chief of staff, said the president looks forward to reviewing the new results of the survey.
Sayrs met with the chairs of Administrative and Faculty senates over the summer to research the format of the survey and identify areas of the university to focus on in order to make it accessible to faculty, staff and administration.
“So many of the (topics) involve staff, so we think it’s important to get a whole snapshot of the campus, including regional campuses,” she said.
Bonnie Behm-Geddes, chair of Classified Senate, said she is excited that classified staff can take the survey, which was originally offered only to faculty.
“Classified staff would have an insight that maybe administration or faculty hasn’t seen,” Behm-Geddes said.
The three senates next plan to meet with the Office of Institutional Research to figure out whether they can gain useful results from the topics surveyed, and then they will meet with survey companies to begin implementing the survey.
Once on its feet, the survey will go to all three separate senates to be passed, Sayrs said.
“It’s good timing in the life of the university to do a comprehensive climate survey,” Sayrs said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
