Back before the term started, members of the EMU faculty, myself included, organized an “Assembly of the Faculty” to discuss vital issues for EMU. I spoke on the matter of “creating transparency” at Eastern. I argued that the reasons so many problems erupt into scandals at EMU is because of the willingness of upper management to withhold information from members of the community; along with the willingness to lie on ocassion. I argued that the problem is institutional, not personal, yet it is endemic to upper management. Provost Don Loppnow echoed, sincerely, I am sure, much of my argument in his thoughtful comments to the Assembly. Now, two months and more later, I want to open a dialog on transparency. Is it easier now than under Fallon to get basic questions answered? Is the administration more forthcoming? Who has tried to get information, and gotten it? Who has been given the run around? Who has been promised information, and not gotten it? Who even cares?I won’t mention, right now, any of the handful of issues I have been involved in finding information on. Suffice it to say that these are issues involving health, security, safety, and planning for academic facilities, as well as budgetary questions and academic support services for students. And sadly, on none of these issues have university officials at the appropriate level willingly provided any documentation or other answers without the threat of Freedom of Information Act requests or other forms of pressure. Many are the dodges that Welch hall officials and their subordinates elsewhere across the campus use to avoid answering questions. And many administrators, privately, decry this state of affairs. At the Assembly of the Faculty, I argued that creating transparency at EMU would be easy, if upper management would exact a penalty for those of its own who dodge, delay, withhold, evade, or lie when it comes to providing information to members of the EMU community. Until that is done, there is no accountability. Evidently the current Welch Hall leadership is unable to put such a system of accountability into place regarding transparency, and the costs to EMU for this failure are immense. Any suggestions for who to fix this problem?
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IMHO, the solution begins at the board level. Until the board conducts it’s business in an open, honest and transparent way, how can we expect our top level administrators to behave properly. When an organization is rotten, it’s rotten from the top down, and the board is at the top.
EMU Lifer: New boards need training and education. I don’t believe the EMU board has ever received any training — only briefings from administration (and in rare, rare cases, a conversation with faculty or other EMU employee). I actually feel a little bit sorry for them being thrown in the deep end. Unfortunately, being thrown into a complex situation causes most people to fall back on their experiences and biases. This is natural. I think we have, over the years, seen a lot of that on the EMU board. The board should take better care of itself. Someone on the board should take responsibility for “board development” and go talk to, e.g., NEW.
Mark, I agree with you. Transparency *is* important and it *would* and *will* offer some protection against future scandal as well as improving current processes.
The lack of progress on improving transparency is disturbing. And the fact is that you’re right — reasonable requests for information are treated as though they were unreasonable and ignored until the legal apparatus of FOIA is invoked. Then, the charge to the requester for the FOIA request is ridiculously high — a “nyah nyah so there!” moment from whoever grants the FOIA.
But is it rigid (rotten) administration (per EMU Lifer), CYA-obsessed administration, barely competent or incompetent administration and staff, or lousy processes? My observations leads me to believe it’s mostly lousy processes (which doesn’t speak well to the administrators creating or implementing those processes) and some rigidity. I could be wrong, but no matter what the reason, the environment should change.
And for those of you out there in blog-land who think this is just more faculty whining — I want EMU administration to respond to reasonable requests — if requests are unreasonable then they should say so (and why).
I *get* *it* that responding to requests for information is an added burden of work. But look, if stakeholders ask for information, then the mere fact that it’s being asked for should be an indication that the information, maybe, should be made easier to get. As we all know, the excuse that “the computer won’t let me” is bogus and just an excuse for inadequate information management and process.
Do we need a specific example of more stonewalling? Here’s a small current example: how about when will full-time (non-AAUP) employees get the option to have their offices re-keyed in the wake of the theft of the master ring?
EMU Lifer, I agree with much of what you say: Board members need to act within the law, which means they must not try to make administrative decisions, or to direct the behavior of administrators or faculty, unless they do so in formal, open session, where the Board can make policy. But that some Board members may be secretive is no excuse for others to do the same. The culture of dysfunction includes the way the Board has done business in the past, but it also includes those admnistrators who are willing to lie and unwilling to answer questions directly.
EMU is so royally badly managed, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Management could fix the problems of transparency by imposing discipline, including punishments and docking of pay and terminations, for officials who are not truthful and forthcoming. A few examples of such discipline being imposed on some of the less forthcoming administrators would quickly reform the behavior of others. What I propose here is nothing radical – it’s common management practice elsewhere to discipline officials who violate stated policies, and EMU’s stated policies are all in favor of transparency. And yet there is so much lying at the top and so much dissembling and so much delay.
Susan….New boards? The present board is not made up of newcomers. There’s a ton of experience with Wilbanks, Hawks and Incarnatti. My point is that the board has always operated in a clandestine manner. Most major decisions are made behind closed doors with little or no public discourse. If they would act in an open and honest manner, and demand honesty and integrity from our administrators the problem would be solved. But they choose to operate in an atmosphere of secrecy, given to wheeling and dealing as any good politician would, serving their own special interests.
By the way, I see the new indoor football practice facility made the paper. It was announced at the same time as the Pray Harrold renovation in an Echo article. 45 million. How do decisions such as this get made without any real input from the EMU community? Oh ya, read my statement above. Although originally intended to be funded with donations, my fear is that they are going to somehow find a way to quietly get funding for the project with money from Lansing.
Oh ya, and I love how they put the spin on about it being a “student athlete academic center”. Ha Ha Ha, that’s a good one.
Wilbanks and company don’t need training! They have what they want, control at the Board level. Everything else serves their agenda. Get rid of Wilbanks and the people he has installed at Eastern and the problems will take care of themselves.
Alum, who are the people Regent Wilbanks has “installed” at Eastern? And EMULifer, what are the instances you’re aware of the regents controlling things behind the scenes? Isn’t it illegal for the Board members to make decisions without formal, open meetings, with agendas available to the public in advance? What EMU administrators would be so gutless as to take orders from a Regent whose instructions are, on the face of it, contrary to the letter and spirit of the state’s Open Meetings Act? Any administrator with brains and a backbone who was confronted with such illegal behind the scenes manipulation should easily be able to document this interferrence, and pursue legal recourse. I am confident that the county prosecutor’s office, which has recently investigated other local violations of the Open Meetings Act, would be interested in investigating such alleged abuses and violations of the law.
And if any Regents do engage in this kind of manipulation, it could be readily countered by an administrator who valued ethics and lawful conduct above retaining their position in the Administration. The Regents can’t fire anybody without having an open vote on doing so; and they cannot legally force any administrator to fire anyone without also having an open discussion of the issue. Allegations that such practices have occurred are either untrue, or, if true, evidence of a duality of dishonesty and unlawful practices, among both the Board members and in the upper Administration.
My understanding is that any one who has information about such micro managing by individual Regents should bring it to the prosecutor’s office. And under the law, as soon as an employee brings forth such a charge, as I understand, it would be far less susceptible to pressure or termination than before they brought the complaint forward, because at that point such retaliation would be tantamount to proving the validity of the complaint. Of course, I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice: this is just my opinion on what the public policy of the state of Michigan is in such a situation.
So: is it a real problem, this behind the scenes manipulation by the Regents? Or is it a dodge used by gutless administrators who don’t want to accept responsibility for their own actions and inactions? Lastly, if Regents are engaged in this kind of behind the scenes unlawful micromanaging, are they so stupid as to think that the administrators they are bossing around are not documenting every single interaction they have with the Regents, for later use? I think the Regents are very intelligent people, and I don’t think any of them believe that the Governor wants them to engage in violations of the Open Meetings Act.
I urge anyone with real evidence to bring it forth. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the truth be known, and let bad practices be exposed, and let them cease.
Mark:
During Wilbanks’ tenure as Executive VP he installed his unqualified cronies (friends/relatives) in several positions: 1. Director of the Corporate Education Center, 2. Director of Alumni Relations (almost was appointed as Athletic Director), 3. Athletic Director, 4. Director of State and Community Relations, 5. Athletic Director for External Relations. 6. Secretary to the Board of Regents. 7. His sister was given a job as a Secretary. When Shelton was President most of these people were fired (if they had not already left) when Wilbanks left to go over to the Foundation. At the Foundation: He had a direct reporting line to the Director of Development for Athletics on the Organization Chart. He appointed this person to be the Director of Eagle Crest etc. Sam Kirkpatrick and the then Foundation Chair fired this person and sent her back to the Foundation. You may remember that soon after that Wilbanks retired. For a while we had a lull in the nepotism, but now you can see it in the following two positions, one that has been filled most recently – the current Secretary to the Board of Regents and the most recent position filled at the Foundation – Associated VP for Development. Oh, don’t want to forget about the fact that the current VP for Development and Executive Director of the Foundation won’t be around long. Basically thought of as being incompetent by his current staff – has a great difficulty in talking to people of wealth and communitcation with top volunteers. I know all the real names, but sorry, can’t reveal them.
Well, Alum, quite a bill of indictment you have here. Most of it is entirely unfamiliar to me, I admit, but I much appreciate your
making the basis for your charges against Regent Wilbanks plain.
I stand by my basic point in my comment above: If the Regents meddle behind the scenes, their ability to do so exists only because of gutless administrators who tolerate that, rather than speaking out (and thus, yes, risking their jobs) in favor of the University’s interests and the requirements of the law. If there is a problem now with the kind of meddling Alum alleges exists, and if an administrator stood up to it, there’d be a outpouring of support for that principled and ethical administrator from within the EMU community.
Also, Alum, are you saying that Ms. Jackie Kurtz, the secretary to the Board of Regents, is a relative of Regent Wilbanks? I assume that Laura Wilbanks, who has a top job at the Foundation, is a relative of Regent Wilbanks, but I don’t know for sure.