Leading questions
The survey students are being asked to complete in review of University President Michael Rao makes little sense.
Especially with questions like those on the survey sent by the Board of Trustees to students, faculty, staff and alumni earlier this week.
“President Rao is an effective leader,” the survey’s first category states. It lists criteria for responses as “consensus building,” “fiscal management” and “accomplishments.”
How are students supposed to know if Rao is an effective “consensus builder”? How are they supposed to know if he is effective at “fiscal management”?
What do those mean to your normal student? How do these categories even relate to students?
From students’ perspective, Rao hasn’t been effective in fiscal management and neither has the Board of Trustees, for that matter, because tuition continues to rise.
Other questions ask if students feel Rao is a visionary leader, an external leader, an academic leader and a leader of diversity.
One question that was missing from the student perspective — “Rao is an off-campus leader.”
Why it matters
Students have little knowledge about University President Michael Rao’s performance
For the majority of the time, Rao is off campus performing his job. Most students have little or no contact with him.
It’s entirely possible for students to go through their CMU career without being in the same room as Rao — and most students don’t know what his job entails.
So why ask them to fill out a confusing survey reviewing a man about whom they know almost nothing?
The Board of Trustees hopes to bring the CMU community in on its evaluation of Rao — that’s fine. But there are more effective ways of doing that than presenting a survey that many students aren’t even likely to understand.
An open forum, for example, would present student opinions in a more open way. Students could tell what they think of the president’s job performance without being constrained by categories and criteria that only apply to people who work with Rao on a consistent basis.
If the Trustees and the university want to involve the CMU community in the review of Rao, they should do so in a meaningful way.
This survey feels like an empty attempt to make the community feel like it actually has a voice.
