Faculty Dissatisfaction with AppState Chancellor

 

Stella Anderson

At Appalachian State University, the Chair of the Faculty Senate has always gotten time at the first general faculty meeting each fall to address the entire faculty, with the administration present, to report on problems and on-going activities that affect what is actually mandated in the operational Code for the university system, in short, something called "shared governance" (which implies input by the faculty).

The Chair of the Faculty Senate this year, Stella Anderson, had her 10-minute address ready, but she got cut off the program by Chancellor Everts. (Maybe the chancellor had gotten wind of some of the complaints Anderson intended to air.) Not only did Everts unilaterally end last Friday the tradition of the Faculty Senate Chair getting time at the podium, but she also cut out traditional addresses by the chair of the staff council and the president of the Student Government Association. In other words, nobody actually hopeful for and dependent on the promise of "shared governance" was allowed to speak. Only the Chancellor.

So shut out of that general assembly, Stella Anderson recorded her speech on video and published that on YouTube (titling it ominously "Breaking With Traditions"), and in the calmest tones, supported by a slide show, she recited an extensive laundry list of grievances about the chancellor's "lack of adherence to system policy," including the high-handed rewriting of the Faculty Handbook that ignored faculty input and which simply redounded to more power for the bosses and less for the faculty.

Anderson's bottomline: "There is nothing more fundamental to faculty when it comes to shared governance than the policies that affect faculty employment. There is no greater 'test' of shared governance than work done in drafting and revising [university] policies." 

The current reputation of Chancellor Sheri Everts on campus seems to have hit what may be rock-bottom. The consensus holds that she is breaking a trust.