Western Michigan University administrators defend president after criticism from faculty

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KALAMAZOO, MI — Western Michigan University administrators defended the school’s president this week in response to criticism from the faculty union of his leadership.

Board Chair Lynn Chen-Zhang said in a video posted on the Board’s website that the challenges WMU faces are not new under the leadership of Chairman Edward Montgomery. On the contrary, issues such as declining enrollment and shrinking state funding preceded the university president, but administrators believe he is moving the university in the right direction, Chen said. Zhang.

Chen-Zhang’s statement came in response to a Jan. 12 letter from the Western faculty union. Members raised concerns about the president’s performance in the letter, as well as in public comments at board meetings and with the passing of a vote of no confidence in Montgomery.

The union’s vote of no confidence in the president cited declining student enrollment, low faculty morale, a lack of communication with faculty, and a lack of focus on the university’s academic mission.

At the same time, Montgomery was given a $75,000 merit bonus and an increase in his annual salary by the board of directors – an increase in his compensation that board members said was tied to his performance appraisal. completed in December 2020.

The university has since denied a Freedom of Information Act request from MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette requesting documents from the president’s evaluation process. WMU also denied a similar FOIA request from Western’s student newspaper, the Western Herald.

In his video response, Chen-Zhang said the board assessed the president’s navigation during the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic and compared his compensation to presidents of similar institutions.

“The pandemic posed an existential threat to the university as the university leadership faced severe headwinds of polarized public opinion, competing priorities, incomplete and shifting information, and great uncertainty regarding registrations and state funding,” Chen-Zhang said. “In December 2020, we felt that the university was finding its place during the most difficult period in its history.”

The chairman of the board said the board believes Montgomery has demonstrated his dedication to the university in many ways, including donating $182,000 to WMU “without fanfare.” With her current pledges, her donations will exceed $200,000 by the end of the fiscal year, she said.

In an 18-page document titled “Responding to a Changing World: Progress Under President Montgomery’s Leadership,” the university outlined the ways Montgomery worked to improve the university, including solutions to its problem of registration and its work to secure various sources of income.

“The letter that WMU-AAUP sent to the Board of Directors indicates that President Montgomery’s leadership has led to ‘little change or action’ and that his leadership has not ‘influenced our direction as a university substantially “.” the document reads. “This assertion, and the letter as a whole, indicates that there is a chasm of understanding about where UGM is now and how far it has come since the fall of 2017.

“This chasm no doubt contributes to our very different assessment of President Montgomery’s leadership.” reads the document. “As the governing body of the institution, we are hesitant to comment on the operational affairs of the university, as that is the domain of the president and the president’s cabinet. But today, we are pushed to set the record straight.

WMU-AAUP President Cathryn Bailey, in a statement to MLive in response to Chen-Zhang’s response, said there were still areas of disagreement with the board.

“While I appreciate the board’s detailed response, there are many points of disagreement both about the very real issues facing our university and how to address them,” Bailey said. “In particular, I am concerned about the lack of importance that the board seems to place on campus voices and perspectives. After all, it is the students, faculty and staff who know best what is really going on.

“Certainly WMU-AAUP will continue to vigorously uphold the values ​​our members hold dear.”

In the document, the board says the “systemic challenges” faced by WMU upon Montgomery’s arrival are not easy fixes. The board explained how enrollment at WMU had been steadily declining for 15 years before Montgomery arrived, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has caused enrollment issues for nearly every public university in Michigan.

Under “solutions,” the board said the university’s creation of a new curriculum and budget model is helping to attract students and creating new programs to bring students onto the campus. Under Montgomery, the university also overhauled its tuition model to support enrollment, the board said.

WMU has reduced tuition fees for international students and increased financial aid to match the increase in tuition fees, the board said. The document describing Montgomery’s successes also highlighted the Bronco Promise, a new full scholarship for low-income students, and said the university is currently seeking to fill a new position – associate vice president for management. registrations.

Montgomery’s focus on improving facilities at WMU is also a strategic move to attract new students, the board said in the document.

“Without a doubt, we are not where we want to be in our enrollment and increasing our output from students who have applied and been admitted is our most critical step,” the board said.

Another major criticism of Western’s faculty chair was engagement and communication about key campus decisions and approach to handling the pandemic.

The board responded to that concern, saying Montgomery recognized there was room for improvement. The document released Thursday lists examples of faculty participation and engagement as evidence of Montgomery’s collaboration, including campus town halls, employee engagement survey, contingency task force at the fall, monthly meetings with faculty and student group leaders, and the newly created office hours of the president.

The document also includes details of Montgomery’s work to secure funding resources for the university.

“This work to diversify our revenue has been among President Montgomery’s top priorities,” the board said.

The board highlighted the Empowering Futures giveaway and a recently launched comprehensive fundraising campaign with a working goal of $1.25 billion.

“The donation itself is a manifestation of the president’s focus on diversifying Western’s resources and the confidence donors have in the course of the university,” the board said of the donation. of $550 million announced in 2021.

Chen-Zhang said in his statement that the board agrees with the faculty on the university’s challenges and the two should work together for the betterment of WMU.

“From our perspective, we believe that Western has made and continues to make significant progress under Chairman Montgomery’s leadership in areas that will develop our competitive spirit,” Chen-Zhang said. “We hope and intend that our detailed view of progress not only provides assurance, but also provides insight into how we, as a board, define success.

“We are focused on today, but we are also focused on the year, the decade and the century ahead.”

Whitney DeCamp, AAUP local faculty president and vice president, said Western’s board is working to “create an aura of optimism about all things Bronco.”

Union leaders said in a post on their website, dated January 24, that while there is much to celebrate at WMU, anyone critical of the university is not taken seriously by the board. administration, but is rather seen as “naïve and resistant to change”. , unable to understand the profound impact of the pandemic on contemporary higher education.

The union said the board’s recent decision not to release details of the chairman’s performance appraisal is further evidence of their resistance to critical voices.

“The facts surrounding the professional performance of the president, whom our university pays like an elite corporate CEO, are obscured behind a painstakingly constructed public performance complete with smiley faces and rainbows,” the union said.

Also on MLive:

COVID-19 cases double, triple in many Kalamazoo area school districts in January

Schools aim to ‘hire their own’ teachers through high school program for staffing, diversity shortages

Although still triple previous record, University of Michigan COVID-19 cases decline

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