On Tuesday, President McDavis and several top administrators appeared at a Town Hall meeting. I was out of town Tuesday, but I had the chance to view the forum live on the Internet. I admire McDavis, Krendl and others for being willing to field hostile questions despite my belief that Town Hall meetings are best confined to actual towns and organizations with hopelessly antiquated ideas about public relations.
In all seriousness, there were some difficult questions posed at the meeting and the responses given by President McDavis, Provost Krendl and Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt (among others) are worth examining closely. In my experience, the tone of an answer is as important, if not more important, than the information conveyed. Nowhere was the tone of the meeting clearer than just before 1 p.m., when McDavis fielded a question about shared governance and budgeting by reiterating the creation of the Student General Fee Advisory Committee.
That committee, composed almost entirely of students, will make recommendations to another budget-planning committee, which will then make its own recommendation to President McDavis. This means that the Student General Fee Advisory Committee's power is restricted to making recommendations that don't even go directly to the president ' they go to another budget-planning committee. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that there is something vaguely unsettling about a committee that advises another committee.
The creation of the Student General Fee Advisory Committee is old news, but McDavis' choice to reiterate it says something about prevailing notions on shared governance. Our president seems to be saying that student membership on a committee is akin to shared governance. And, the worst part is that he isn't alone in this belief. When the decision to create the committee was made public earlier this year, Vice President for Student Affairs Kent Smith called it shared governance in its purest form (The Post, Feb. 8).
If you believe that shared governance can be achieved through student membership on university committees, forums designed to hear student grievances and a Student Senate with the power to pass only non-binding resolutions, I have two words for you: Mission accomplished. If you're like me and you define governance much in the same way that Merriam-Webster does (authoritative direction or control), you can probably see why shared governance is a misnomer for our current situation. As far as I know, we do not have binding authority in any sector of Ohio University governance. Our most important and hardworking advocates, Student Senate, can only suggest what the administration or Board of Trustees ought to do.
There's a phrase I'd like students to begin using; it's a phrase that I think describes our situation perfectly: Suggestion box governance. We make suggestions and voice our concerns at one of the many rap sessions offered on campus, and they listen. We write columns and letters to the editor week after week, and they listen. Whatever you think about the administration, they are listening. They listened before the Oasis closure; they listened after the athletic cuts (although I personally am tired of talking about them) and they've been listening as students across campus ask for shared governance. Listening just doesn't seem to be getting us very far.
My intention here isn't to trash the administration for trying (and God knows, they're trying). I don't imagine that they're power-hungry bureaucrats who delight in making decisions they know we'll hate (as they do in my crudely drawn cartoons). They're just humans doing their best. And, don't forget, they're very busy.
I think they're sticking to suggestion box governance because we seem to be willing to settle for it. The first step toward shared governance is to stop settling for suggestion box governance. Do not allow them to call committee membership shared governance. Continue to question why Student Senate has to remain a senate in name only. If you have the time to attend a forum, ask about shared governance and press the issue (you have my permission to use the phrase suggestion box governance as a talking point).
Shared governance will become reality if, and only if, students are given binding power over the actions of our university. We don't want all of it, but I think we deserve some of it.
This column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Post.
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Doug Cloud
OU students settle for G
