PVCC Puma Press: April 2006

The PVCC Faculty Senate presented a resolution to college president, Dr. Mary Kay Kickels, on Friday, Feb. 16, expressing the Senate’s “aim to immediately initiate a process that returns the administration, the faculty and supporting policy groups to a position of shared governance, collaboration and trust.”

As reported by The Puma Press in December 2006, relations between PVCC’s faculty and administration had soured over the past year because of disagreements over the manner in which important hiring and budgetary decisions have been reached.

The Senate resolution cited the diminishing of shared values of “‘collaboration.., ‘integrity,’ ‘communications,’ ‘respect’ and ‘Stewardship of our resources’... in the pattern of day-to-day operations...” as a cause of deep concern among faculty.

To enable faculty to coordinate a strategy for officially addressing its complaints to administration, Faculty Senate president James Patterson appointed two committees at the close of the fall semester. One is a budget committee which will explore how and why budgetary decisions are being made by the college’s administration. It will also take faculty concerns over those decisions to administrators with the hope of resolving them.

The committee, which Patterson intends to have a long-term duration, will meet regularly with Dr. Jane Saldaña-Talley, vice president of Administrative Services, who is closely involved with the college’s budget decisions. As of the Puma Press deadline, the committee and Saldaña-Talley have met twice this semester.

“They’ve been telling me in general that it’s been good, open communication,” says Patterson of the meetings.

In addition to establishing the budgetary committee, Patterson requested PVCC’s existing Golden Gavels to assemble into a Golden Gavels Committee on Processes. The Golden Gavels is a committee of all former PVCC Faculty Senate presidents who meet as a body for a specific purpose when called upon by a current Senate president.

Patterson asked the Golden Gavels to assemble on behalf of the school’s faculty to determine a procedure for addressing faculty concerns with administration. Specifically, the Gavels are focusing on the process of decision-making that has occurred at PVCC over the past year.

“I figured what better group to go to than people who have been in my position previously,” says Patterson.

The Golden Gavels has drafted a proposal recommending changes in the procedure by which the current administration arrives at decisions that significantly impact the college.

When the Faculty Senate presented its resolution to the president Feb. 16, it officially asked Kickels and all of PVCC’s presidents, vice-presidents and deans to meet with Patterson, Faculty Senate president-elect, Jeffrey Lace, and the Gavels to discuss the Senate’s proposed process for improving “shared governance and open communication.”

Patterson had hoped to arrange the meeting by the end of February, but the sheer number of busy invitees has made scheduling a time and date challenging. He is working quickly to find a convenient time for all parties involved and insists that the meeting has not been delayed by reluctance on the part of any invitees to attend. In particular, he credits Kickels with an eagerness to attend “an open meeting.”

“The president and the administration welcome this,” says Patterson. “I was very pleased with their attitude. The president did not hesitate in saying ‘yes, I want to meet.’”

"I have received and accepted the resolution in a very positive spirit," says Kickles. "The vice presidents, administrative deans and I look forward to the opportunity to meet with the Faculty Senate representatives as requested to advance the conversation for process changes.”

Patterson sees the receptiveness of Kickels and the rest of the administration to the meeting as the most recent signal of a shift in attitude that has been noticeable thus far in 2007. He believes that progress has been made in healing the wounds of last year’s faculty-administration tensions. “It’s being repaired,” he says.

Patterson, who cites regular bi-weekly meetings now held between Kickels and himself as a sign of progress, is cautiously optimistic that major differences dividing the college’s faculty and administration can be surmounted by the time his presidency expires on May 3. However, he wants to expedite the timeframe in which dialogue yields results so that he does not pass the problems on to his successor.

“I don’t want to leave things hanging for the next guy (Lace),” says Patterson. “Right now, the faculty are very interested in deeds and not words.”

Still, deeds begin with dialogue, and in that respect relations are progressing. The next three months will be critical in determining how well faculty and administration will be able to work together into the future.

“Good relationships are not going to occur overnight,” says Patterson,” but we’re well on our way to making some necessary adjustments.”