 "Photo: Elizabeth Sorrell")
 "Photo: Elizabeth Sorrell")
Get ready for a fight. HSU’s faculty and administration are in a power struggle.
A 2008 report by the consulting firm Keeling and Associates found that HSU leadership is internally split and ineffective. In 2008, the Western Association of Schools & Colleges’ (WASC) accreditation team shared the same sentiments.
The Cabinet for Institutional Change (CIC) was created to set goals for reform and to recommend ways to accomplish those goals. The cabinet has 13 members: five faculty, two students, two staff members, two administrators, one community member and the provost. The majority of the cabinet members attend or attended HSU.
The Cabinet’s final report, released in February, calls for the General Faculty Association’s (GFA) elimination. The General Faculty Association of HSU will disappear if a recommendation by the Cabinet for Institutional Change (CIC) is implemented.
Every faculty member, coach, counselor and librarian belongs to the GFA by default. The roughly 370 members vote for a general faculty president who speaks for the entire faculty. This is a similar model to the president of Associated Students for whom students vote.
“[The report] does not say, ‘abolish the student and staff associations,’” said Senator Martin Flashman during a special meeting of the Academic Senate on March 2. “There’s a lot of restructuring in the Senate and for the students, but there is no administration restructuring.”
Provost Robert Snyder said the elimination will be beneficial for HSU. “The faculty is the group with the power on this campus. To say ‘woe is me’ is to ignore the power differentials,” he said to the Senate.
Flashman said the recommendation is an attempt by the administration to decrease faculty power. Flashman said it is retribution for the GFA’s vote of no-confidence in HSU President Rollin Richmond.
In a largely symbolic effort last May, members of the GFA voted 128-4 to have Richmond step down from his position within two months. Ten months later, Richmond remains president.
General Faculty President John Powell said, “We don’t have the power to dislodge the president, and we don’t have the power to disagree.”
Provost Robert Snyder said the GFA president does not represent the faculty because he can vote however he wants without consulting the faculty. But, as Flashman pointed out at the March 2 meeting, “The faculty voted for the no-confidence, not just John Powell.”
During an interview with The Lumberjack, Powell added, “I think it is ironic that the Provost accuses me of not being accountable for my actions. I’m elected by the faculty. I help give the faculty a visible public voice.”
Academic Senate Vice Chair Michael Goodman also spoke at the March 2 meeting and pointed out that Powell has been elected twice. “The GFA is accountable. It elects a president. That’s the accountability,” he said.
One stipulation in the recommendation concerns Senator David Heise. It calls for the representatives of the students, staff, faculty and administration to each have a vote on the university-wide senate. The number of representatives has not been decided yet.
In particular, Heise worried about the administration having a vote. “They already make the final decision,” he said.
Academic Senate President Saeed Mortizavi continued on the same thread. “Every day I am reminded who makes the decisions,” he said, referring to the administration and the recent actions against the Academic Senate’s recommendations to keep the German and Applied Technology programs.
Senator Jay Verlinden said, “I don’t know how this is any business of the Academic Senate. The administration is meddling in something they shouldn’t be.”
Flashman agreed. “Let the faculty restructure itself,” he said. “To eliminate [the GFA] goes beyond what’s appropriate.”
Senator Daniel Faulk took it one step further. “The CIC did not address institutional change. It didn’t change the administration. It’s just an illusion, not real change.”
Faulk asked, “Why is the CIC only concerned with the senate?” Faulk said he heard the administration threaten the senate if it did not do what administration wanted.
Senate Finance Officer Scott Paynton was one of the dissenters. “The bulk of conversation is about getting rid of the [GFA]. That’s like putting the cart before the horse,” he said.
Paynton wanted the Senate to accept the recommendations in principle and hash out the details later, all in the spirit of solidarity.
Goodman added, “I want to thank the CIC for their hard work and for their efforts to create civility.”
After the discussion, the Academic Senate voted in favor of letting the general faculty vote to decide its own fate. In addition, the Academic Senate will be restructured into a university-wide senate.
Powell said it’s implausible that the faculty will vote to eliminate the GFA.
Powell quoted Kathryn Corbitt, the only surviving member of HSU’s first GFA, who said, “I can’t see this as anything more than a power grab.”
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