By MATT BROWN, Multimedia Director.
A special meeting was held by the Board of Trustees on April 29 covering what board member Dee Dee Wacksman called the, “president’s evaluation and recommendation for her – whatever – salary increases.” The board, “decided [they] should have a special meeting to have more emphasis, more importance, on this evaluation process.”
To echo, board member Robert Emrich said, “our concern was many fold.” Emrich explained, “we were late in the game and rushed and not doing the job that we really felt we should be doing.” Emrich referenced the responsibilities of the board and its bylaws, pointing out that the third bylaw is to evaluate the president.
This meant that the board had to devise some new instruments or modify some previous instruments used in relation to evaluating the president. Board member Michael Nash explained that Survey Monkey, a free online tool to create surveys, was the chosen platform, containing two parts: “review and comment on the President’s goals and process/ratings on specific areas.”
Nash continued that, “this [rating system] has been used in the past.” The rating scale has four options, “don’t know/ development needed / acceptable / effective.” The areas to be rated are: “community relationships, relationship with the governing board, educational leadership, business and finance, personal qualities, goals and objectives.”
According to the board’s timeline, they will do the evaluation in June. All nine board members need to make an evaluation for it to be an “evaluation of the board,” according to Emrich.
President Goodnow advanced the meeting, discussing her future participation in a “360-degree review.” According to the Harvard Business School, a 360-degree review, “focuses more directly on the skills and contributions that an employee makes.” Feedback is designed to show how others view his or her, or in this case Goodnow’s, performance in areas such as leadership, teamwork and interpersonal communication, among others.
Displaying 19 colleagues to perform a 360-degree review, President Goodnow said when she was first hired that she, “came in and said I am conducting a 360 with every member that reports to me.” The nineteen colleagues were:
DIRECT REPORTS:
- Loyce Brown
- Jennifer Carroll
- Pam Clark
- Reva Curry
- Deb Lutz
- Margaret Mosqueda
- Andrea Ursuy
- Barb Webb
CLOSE WORKING RELATIONSHIP:
- Talisa Brown
- Tom Caylor
- Sheryl Jensen
- Larry Ramseyer
- Kay Schuler
- Michael Wood
SENATE LEADERSHIP/FACULTY AND STAFF EMPLOYEE GROUP LEADERS:
- Justin Bamberg
- Martin Finney
- Monica Hernandez
- Tom Kienbaum
- Liz Ullrich
Board member Karen Lawrence-Webster voiced concern, saying “I think [faculty] should have a greater voice with this tool – 360.” Emrich followed, “I would create a whole new section called faculty. The faculty is so underrepresented in all of this.”
Goodnow questioned if the “faculty in their discipline areas could evaluate what I do with economic development?”
Goodnow continued, “How is this feedback going to make me a better president? When you look at a 360 instrument it should be about: how can you be a better president? Evaluations should make me a stronger president.”
Lawrence-Webster then suggested administering the PACE faculty survey during the same time as the 360 review so that the faculty feels a part of the evaluation of the president. Administered every other year, the National Initiative and Leadership Institutional Effectiveness (NILIE) says the PACE survey, “provides a snapshot of how your institution is performing, highlights areas for growth and identifies opportunities for improvement, and provides a starting point for strategic planning.”
Goodnow then asked the board how many faculty members should be added to the list of 19 names for the 360-degree review. Board members Diane Middleton and Kimberly Houston-Philpot expressed concern with adding faculty, with Houston saying, “we’re so far down in the weeds on this because other people know how to do this.” To which board member Earl Selby interjected, “I interview faculty once a month and they’re not in the weeds!”
Nash pushed forward, stating that he would, “like the PACE available, and read through with themes picked out.” Nash didn’t know if the 360 was the “right way to collect that.”
Voicing a an amendment to the motion, Lawrence-Webster wished to add five faculty members to the list of 19 360-degree review prospects. Board member Michael Rowley moved and supported the amendment.
“The faculty has a voice in the college and they are not significantly represented in this process,” said Lawrence-Webster. After some deliberation, Rowley expressed, “it almost seems random and I don’t want [faculty] to feel excluded,” before calling a roll-call vote.
The amendment failed to pass, with only three (Lawrence-Webster, Wacksman and Selby) voting ‘yes’.
In response, Emrich motioned to add three faculty members instead of five, with Lawrence-Webster supporting. The three faculty members would be chosen at Goodnow’s discretion. Rowley then called a roll call vote, with the amendment passing with only board member Mary Morrissey voting against.
Voting on the whole motion, ending discussion, all board members (except Selby, who was absent) voted to pass the motion. With no trustee comments, the special board meeting was adjourned.