Sent: 2010-05-05
From: President Bill Perry
To: Employees
Subject: President's Report on Third Year Performance Review of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to report to the campus the outcome of my third year review of performance for Dr. Blair Lord, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Background:
As you may recall, in March of this year I sent an email to the entire faculty and staff, requesting feedback from certain pertinent campus constituencies as part of the third year review process. The wording was, in part:
An integral part of the third year review process is the use of the Administrative Feedback Instrument as provided in IGP 31. Respective constituent groups listed below are asked to submit the Administrative Feedback Instrument. Participation is encouraged, but is voluntary.
Details on confidential submission of completed forms to me follow at the end of this email.
Campus Constituent Respondent Groups.
For Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Blair Lord:
* All faculty
* Deans, Department Heads, and Directors in the Division of Academic Affairs
* Vice Presidents
* Division of Academic Affairs direct reports to Dr. Lord
Feedback from Campus Email:
Out of the constituent groups comprising approximately 700 individuals,
93 responded. The responses were sent to me and opened by me. The responses were opened in the presence of University General Counsel for counting purposes. Two of the responses were unsigned and therefore, by policy, were not used in the remaining process.
Additional Factors in the Third Year Review:
In addition to the internal evaluations, I used three other sources of
information:
* Interviews with academic administrators from other Illinois universities and the IBHE * The aggregate of my annual reviews of the provost's performance for Fiscal Years 2008, 2009, and 2010, which consist of an annual letter from the vice president stating agreed upon goals and progress toward previously set goals, followed by a meeting and finally a letter of evaluation.
* The overall academic progress of the university during the provost's time of service.
Analysis of the Administrative Feedback Instrument:
I tallied the responses to the questions on the Administrative Feedback Instrument. Many respondents wrote comments, as allowed, and I read those. The written responses were, in the main, thoughtful and thorough, and I thank those who provided those responses. I have not shared the individual responses with Provost Lord. I have, however, provided him the aggregate analysis that follows in this document.
The response rate of approximately 13% was not as large as I would have preferred. There are, of course, multiple interpretations of the rate.
My experience in university- or college-wide reviews of administrators is that individuals who have strong feelings one way or the other about an administrator are the ones most likely to respond.
The responses to the questions in the administrative feedback instrument varied widely. Overall, the percentage of responses were as follows:
Agree or Strongly Agree-46%; Disagree or Strongly Disagree-34%; Neutral-7%; Unable to Judge or No Response-13%. This split pattern was generally in evidence across the items.
In order to better understand these results I studied the written comments supplied by the respondents. The two stated categories for written comments were "strengths" and "areas for improvement." The comments may be summarized as follows:
Strengths
* Encourages teamwork
* Has enabled growth in Study Abroad, EIU Reads, National Student Exchange * Maintains confidentiality * Evidences professionalism * Ability to understand complex issues * Supports a strong academic environment * Strong ability in management of fiscal resources * Fiscally responsible, strong understanding of budget issues * Appropriately delegates responsibility * Supportive of international student enrollment * Strong command of university policies
Areas for improvement
* Provide open lines of communication between the provost and the faculty, and improve communication with the faculty * Become more accessible to the faculty and seek common ground on unresolved issues * Be more prompt in dealing with decisions * Broadly express his vision for academic affairs in the university * Be more collaborative and consultative * Provide more transparency with respect to decisions, especially with respect to search processes * Be more open to divergent opinions
My overall judgment, based on the comments, is that the "disagreement to strong disagreement" responses have to do with a provost's role in shared governance. Structurally, the provost's position is one with great influence and thus, decisions taken by the provost are the most likely to generate controversy. Moreover, with time, the more decisions that are made, the larger the set of campus individuals or groups who may disagree with the decisions, or who may believe there was procedural deficit in arriving at the decisions. My overall judgment is also that the "agreement to strong agreement" responses have to do with provost's administrative acumen, experience, judgment, and progress that has been made in the academic affairs of the university.
Analysis of Additional Factors:
External peers state that the provost represents EIU very well and the university's interests assertively; that he is extremely professional in dealing with external constituents, bringing strong knowledge of higher education issues in Illinois and knowledge of national issues that have impact on Illinois higher education; and that he has been especially effective in the development of a longitudinal data system, peer institutions for data studies, and educational program approval processes.
In my annual reviews of performance I have found that the provost has upheld strong standards of quality in promotion and tenure cases; has enabled strong recruitment for diversity in faculty and student populations; has met enrollment goals; has continued the development of EIU reads; has advanced and supported integrative learning; has been extremely supportive in getting the Doudna Fine Arts Center operational; has managed the academic affairs budget extremely well; has enhanced collaborations with the division of student affairs; has promoted student research and scholarship at the undergraduate and graduate level; has extended the first choice graduate initiative; has enhanced study abroad opportunities; has supported enhanced offerings and outreach in the fine arts; has supported the deans in development of the comprehensive campaign for EIU; and has been a strong proponent of the center proposals that have emerged in the campaign planning process.
Prior to my arrival in July 2007, the provost began work on some of the initiatives that successfully continue and enabled achievement of several institutional goals, inclusive of reaffirmation of institutional accreditation by the North Central Association. Accreditation reviews of individual programs have been successful. During the provost's tenure the average salary of full professors have progressed from the 20 to 30 percentile range of Master's University nationwide to the 50 to 60 percentile range, according to AAUP reports in Academe. Similarly, among peer institutions identified for contract negotiations, full professor salaries have advanced from 91% of the mean to 104% of the mean. Other professorial ranks have advanced as well.
Conclusion on Performance:
My assessment is that Provost Lord's performance is very strong. The provost will begin a concerted effort this coming fall to address the items listed above under "areas for improvement." Those areas are extremely important for future effectiveness. The provost will encourage faculty and administrator participation in that effort, as do I. The provost and I will review progress in the areas for improvement in April 2011.
A More General Conclusion:
More generally, I have concluded based on the review that perceptions of shared governance at EIU differ, and those differences lead to differences in evaluation of the provost by members of the campus community. I believe the elements of shared governance at EIU need to be reconfirmed and promulgated, to support stronger shared understanding of it. This fall, I will convene a panel of faculty and staff to review shared governance at EIU. The objectives of this panel will be to analyze and reconfirm the structural elements of shared governance at EIU; to analyze and reconfirm the roles of the office of the provost and various groups and offices in shared governance at EIU; to and to make recommendations to enhance the transparency of operation in shared governance, especially with regard to the role of the office of the provost; and to comment on the relative alignment of shared governance at EIU to shared governance principles promulgated in the "Red Book" of the American Association of University Professors and the more recent Association of Governing Boards "Statement on Board Responsibility for Institutional Governance." This analysis is not an analysis of the current provost's performance; rather, it is a structural analysis. I believe this analysis is critical at this juncture, due to the potential for unprecedented changes in higher education in Illinois in the near term.
Final Comment:
I wish to thank all campus members who participated in the review. You contributed your time and thoughtful responses in the process. Your participation enabled a thorough review.
Bill Perry
President
