It seems one of our unsuccessful Police Chief candidates may have brought more controversy to campus rather than stemming the propensity to scandal that we already have had and are soon (I hope) to overcome:
“Police chief candidate no stranger to controversy”
This is more evidence that finalists for the EMU presidency must be thoroughly scrutinized before selected.
That’s an excellent point, Publius! I hadn’t thought of that, but now that I do, it certainly gives pause.
Adding to Publius’s comment above, the EMU Students
need (and I know weren’t) to be part of the EMU Presidential Search and Police Chief process.
Regardless if a third party firm is seeking out presidential candidates or police chiefs…The EMU Student Body should still have a say as should the rest of the EMU Community (Professors/faculty/etc.)
For example: Thomas Sidlik created the original “Presidential Search Plan” which as far as I can tell did not include Students. It sure didn’t include Greg Jones who I would think would have a public statement about it if he was given a say.
(it’s also worth noting that the EMU Student Senate and Student Body President no longer post anything on here much less defend with actual Evidence/Facts any of the statements I have brought up on emutalk.org. If the EMU Student Senate and President were doing a fine job on these issues and other issues then where’s the proof? I would love to see some proof.
Instead…. The EMU student Senate absolutely provides NO WAY for anyone to hold them accountable to the EMU Student Body. There doesn’t seem to be any way for me to issue a question to them and ever expect an answer regardless if I am a student or not.)
By giving Students some say in the search process for Police Chief I think it would shape the list of requirements expected of candidates…Like perhaps asking candidates if they are comfortable with issuing public statements and being open and honest with crime statistics with the EMU Students that the previous Police Chief wasn’t.
I brought this to the attention of Greg Jones many months ago only to hear him Laugh it off like it was nothing. I fear that the EMU Student Senate under Greg Jones’s leadership has been completely asleep at the wheel. I get treated by the EMU Student Government as the enemy when ultimately if they would listen to me I think it would be to their benefit.
But I wouldn’t hold my breath at all and expect any Student Government member to push for any of this when they haven’t even BLINKED at the recent travesty with Thomas Sidlik’s plan.
It’s amazing to me that the only people who actually would do a good job fighting for the EMU Student Body are people who are not in POWER in the Senate or as Student Body President. Instead we have to live with a bunch of professional politicians who don’t really do anything worthwhile for anyone.
I don’t know if there were student representatives on the search committee for Police Chief, but there were open forums in which students, faculty, staff, and the general public could interview each of the final candidates for the position. I believe anyone that attended any of the forums were encouraged to provide feedback to the search committee. So to say students were not given a say is not correct. It may not have been as much representation as some would like, but I think it was progress.
I would be curious to know how many students actually attended the forums or even the forums this week regarding safety and security. I don’t recall any forums when Cindy Hall got the position.
I also think it is much more important in the search for the new President because that certainly would have more impact on the University and directly on the students.
@Wayne,
I have always been vocally AGAINST the “open forum” as anything worth while for the EMU Student Body. There’s litterally nothing OPEN about an Open forum.
We had similar “open forums” with students when eventually John Fallon was selected.
Those “open forums” are not the same as student representation or student voice.
I have never actually witnessed an open forum so stop me when I say something innaccurate about them below:
1) Students or anyone who attends to so called “interview” the candidates is not informed of any concerns or issues that the meeting hosts may have with any of the candidates.
By this I mean there are no background checks going on are there?
2) Even if there are testimonials or witnesses speaking on behalf and support of any candidate, there’s no real background check for the audience members to be made aware of regarding the witness?
In this case the audience/students/faculty would like to know whether the witness is a buddy/friend/whatever or someone that is unbiased?
3) No evidence much less proof is ever given out crediting the individuals or groups responsible for the feedback that such feedback given during the Open Forum ever influenced any decisions being made in the search process.
4) No reading of the Search Plan or Display of the Search Plan with any requests by the audience members to issue feedback on the plan if they take issue with the plan ever occurs.
If I am correct on all 4 points…. Then I have to laugh at calling these forums “Open Forums.”
Any meeting held which ultimately is nothing more than a “Sit and Listen” session like a typical EMU Board of Regents meeting is ultimately useless and broken.
There has to be evidence of the meetings legitamicy that the community can and does have some influence on the process.
P.S. When the hosts say, “Please send us your feedback.” Is that it? write a bunch of concerns on a sheet of paper and send it through cyberspace or whatever?
Personally, I would appreciate even better the ability to schedule appointments with any particular HOST official and discuss my concerns before I went and filled out a form.
The problem with Universitys like EMU is that virtually all EMU Board of Reagents members make it impossible to actually do that.
Jeff, a bit of fact checking: Greg Jones is on the current presidential search advisory committee, as a rep. of Student Government. The Board of Regents selected a carefully balanced set of representatives of university constituencies: That’s a fact, even if you have an irrational dislike for Mr. Jones. And the meaning of an “open forum” is clear from the words themselves: an “open forum” is a forum open to all who care to attend. Wayne may have called it an interview, but I am sure what he meant is that open forums are part of the on campus interview process for finalists in selected searches, such as the DPS chief search recently concluded. Your one-size-fits all attack on the value of open forums, on the integrity of members of the Board of Regents, the ability of the search committee to do its job, and on the value of community members’ having the opportunity to meet candidates for top jobs, strains credibility, imo, Jeff. Your comments here reek of a screed, not a critique, and I urge you to think and write more carefully and precisely if your goal is, as I assume it to be, to have a constructive impact. Consider just this Jeff: If you assume all efforts to provide opportunities for input on searches will go no where and are dishonest from the get-go, isn’t that likely to be, at best, irrelevant and at worst a self-fulfilling prediction?
Even though there is a “student” on the committee is true, saying the committee is fair and balanced is very subjective. I do not believe it is very balanced. YES, I think the people who are on it are very good people and represent their people well.
I do not feel the Graduate Student Voice is at the table. Greg, with all due respect, is not a Graduate Student. He understands what the undergraduate student needs are. Who is the one at the table grilling these Candidates on Graduate Student Needs? Who there there to ensure we have a Candidate who will value research? Yes, Bob Nealy is on the Committee and he is doing a fine job of trying to get that voiced heard. But the voice that solely represents the Graduate Students, all 5,000 of us, is not there.
Now some of you may think I am saying this because I personally am not on the committee, that is not way I take issue with the committee. I take issue with the committee because there needs to be a voice that will stand up for the students who do research on a day in and day out basis. The support for research at this University is falling if not completely gone. That next President will have to be a champion on this issue if EMU is going to stay a High Quality Regional Research University.
I hope when I look back at EMU after I am gone…..I can still be proud of the institution I love dearly and will put my name on the line too ensure we are making steps forward not backwards.
Oops wrong posting!
Point of Information: There was a student representative on the DPS Search Committee.
This is totally off topic, but maybe one of the bigwigs here could post a new thread to help get this information out. I saw this on the EMU Police website and thought it was great information to to get out to the EMU community.
http://www.emich.edu/publicsafety/eas.mpg
Oddly, I also found a youtube video of the same thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT-RGFwW7QM
From what I have heard, this video was completely produced by one of the officers for the Police Department. Very professioanlly done!