Political science department endorses A-Senate vote of no confidence
The Central Michigan University Department of Political Science has joined the two other academic departments to endorse the Academic Senate's vote of no confidence against University President George Ross and Provost Gary Shapiro.
The vote, which was passed by a 52-percent majority at the Academic Senate's Dec. 7 meeting, addressed issues of academic prioritization, shared governance and information sharing among other concerns expressed by the CMU community.
Associate Professor David Jesuit, interim chairman for the department, said the endorsement, voted on at a department meeting Thursday, stems from concerns regarding shared governance, which encompasses a significant amount of the university's decision-making process.
"We would like to return to this notion of shared governance where we have a community that works together," Jesuit said.
Earlier this month, the sociology, anthropology and social work and philosophy and religion departments endorsed the Dec. 7 vote. Robert Noggle, chairman of the philosophy and religion department, told Central Michigan Life that the endorsement stemmed from a lack of shared governance, development of the College of Medicine and Academic Prioritization.
In the past at CMU, Jesuit said the administration had better included faculty members in decisions made regarding academic programs.
"I’ve been here since 2003 and I think that in the past, it seems that there was more dialogue and discussion," Jesuit said. "The administration seemed to be more in touch."
Department Chairman Orlando Perez is on sabbatical leave for the spring semester, but was a member of the Academic Senate when the vote of no confidence was held. Perez said along with shared governance, the Academic Prioritization of the CMU College of Medicine has been a concern for department members.
"I think one of the things that perhaps concerns the faculty the most is that the administration is yet to assure the university that money from existing programs will not be diverted to the College of Medicine," Perez said.
Perez said department members can understand the administration categorizing CMED as a Priority 1 program, but they need to be honest about the absence of data for the developing school. He said political science programs classified as high priority require significant amounts of data and reports for the Academic Prioritization system.
"Don’t try to fool the university community by saying, 'Well, the program has been evaluated the same way as any other program'," Perez said. "Here’s a program where there is no data and it’s ranked at the level of programs where we do have data."
There was no opposition to the endorsement among the department's members, Perez said.
