David! I heard the Board bought out the Chancellor’s contract! Incorrect. The Board failed to vote him an extension of his current contract, which expires August/September.
But they voted to hire a search firm!
Yes, they did. Searches take time, and search firms are VERY busy. Even if they come back later and vote him an extension on different terms than today’s (details confidential), they’ll still want to be in the queue for a search firm because any extension at this point would likely not be for much time —a new Chancellor will be needed at some point.
So what does this all mean?
- The Chancellor will be at work bright and early tomorrow, unless he takes a day off. And that will be the case through at least August.
- The time is NOW for faculty to begin speaking about the critical importance of being on the search committee. Last search, there were six faculty out of forty members. UNACCEPTABLE. If there were problems leading to today’s vote, it wasn’t because no onesaw them —FACULTY saw them more often than not, and first! And even if an extension is later approved, the conversation about a transition will continue, so we must still make our case.
- We are still going to press our compensation goals. This does not change because of an imminent transition, but it does make getting bandwidth a bit more difficult. The Executive Committee will shortly be requesting feedback on the comp proposal, as we will besending an executive summary to all faculty before Spring Break.
That is all for now.