2011-12 Administrator Survey Written Comments

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September 10th, 2012
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Comments on Interim Dean Coltman, College of Arts & Letters

The university would be better served if Interim Dean Coltman would:

Run an effective chairs’ meeting rather than just casual give-and-take “chatting.” English is given a free ride, it is bankrupting the college with small-cap writing courses.
We need to conduct a Dean’s search.
Become the permanent dean. she’s fantastic! So is Wenying.
remain our dean!
Go back to the classroom–but you would have to ask students if that would better serve them or not.
Advocate for the College of Arts and Letters to the higher administration.
Continue to be the strong advocate for the College that she now appears to be and if she would find ways to use her budget to support faculty.
Remain in the position permanently.
Be hired as a permanent dean.
acknowledge that she is unsuited to be dean of the college and resign.
Go back to her department and a search committee be established to find a new, more effective dean.
be made permanent dean.
make decisions based on facts and reports, and not anecdotes.
Be replaced with an external hire.
be retained as our Dean. She has worked extensively to promote our over-worked and under-funded college, and has worked intimately with chairs to find the cuts that will hurt the least. She is fighting for every penny to preserve faculty hiring of retirement positions, and has worked with us to document the real affects any more cuts would have on this college–not anecdotal, but with facts and figures out the ***. I know, I have filled out more charts and excel spreadsheets than I ever knew existed.
Dean Coltman (other than the instance below) has been a neutral interim dean. This is a thankless job with a revolving door. I commend her for enduring the difficulty but hope that the administration will bring in strong outside leadership and allow them to stay long enough to be effective.
If Dean Coltman would realize that in agreeing to take on the duties of the interim Dean, she needed to commit herself to a forty+ hour work week devoted to the administration and running of the college. This needs to be done in an impartial and professional manner, free from all appearance of bias and indecision. She needs to advocate for all the faculty and the college as a whole. By what I have seen, I have lost respect of the professional nature of the Dean’s office. Poor management is not enough; confident, professional leadership is necessary.
Resign
Stay
Thy working a full workweek, and lay off the hair and nail appointments during work hours.
Engage faculty in curricular matters.
be replaced
resign
Communicate with faculty directly,and provide more enthusiasm for academic and scholarly research.
return to playing the piano.
try to find more outside funding for the college, even though this is difficult in these times.
be provost
by removed
remain in her position for a few more years. We surely don’t need external searches in this time of budget restrictions, and we are happy with her work.
have had a chance to find her footing before being thrust into several crisis-driven situations, ranging from SACS to IFP to budget nightmares.
Stay as Dean for several more years
Coltman as dean….she’s laughable. There just are’nt enough words to describe the sheer incompetence of her office, and someone needs to look into her administration practices during the last year.
Remain as Dean
Coltman was the worst possible choice for dean of this college and besides just being nicer than Manju, she is completely in over her head as dean. She is so unprofessional, and has no sense of budget, but she is great at following the provost’s guidelines and decisions which is just what they wanted in administration, much to the demise of the college’s integrity. The faculty need to search for another dean immediately, she simply cannot last, or all hope of self-governance is lost.
be consulted more/listened to more by the Provost and the President
Actually make decisions and stick by them. She constantly waffles on decisions, doesn’t ever stand up for the college, and reinforced existing unequal distributions of resources.
Be more organized and assert the needs of the college more forcefully.
Perhaps delegate better, perhaps manage her time better, perhaps both. She wants to address individual concerns and issues of small programs, but they can fall between the cracks.
Not be pressured to reduce the budget to the point that the academic programs will suffer.
Pack up her piano and leave!
stay on as the permanent dean.
Not expect such rapid turn around. Hurry-up-and-wait is a sign of poor leadership. Not all of it is her fault as it comes from higher up, but she should know that expecting rapid responses is a sign of poor management and creates resentment and discontent down the chain of command.
remain as Interim Dean until budgetary issues improve (!) that we may attract a better pool of applicants for the Deanship.
fights very hard for our college as budget cuts continue —
Be immediately named permanent dean

Additional comments about Interim Dean Coltman:

She is a good person who seems overwhelmed by her position.
Best dean with whom I’ve worked. Open and honest. She cares about the college and about the departments. Dean Coltman and Wenying put in extraordinarily lengthy days. They possess limited staff and resources yet manage to accomplish a great deal.
she is doing a great job despite these ridiculous financial restrictions
Ineffective at best–does not always have the facts at hand–or misstates the ones she does have.
The current Dean and Associate Dean appear to have no vision for the college, and are spending most of their time dismantling our programs to appease the higher administration’s quest for “efficiency.”
Dean Coltman appears to me to be a good administrator and an advocate of the faculty. As an interim dean, however, I’m not sure how much influence she has at the higher levels of the administration.
Considering the state of the College when she stepped up as Dean, she has done very well. College morale has lifted since she stepped in, and she is accessible, for the most part, to faculty. Unlike her Associate Dean, she shows sensitivity to the anxieties of the faculty who feel threatened by the policies of the current state government.
Coltman is nicer than the previous dean, but that’s it. She has confirmed by her devastating lack of leadership and unprofessional bearing that she is not dean material. She was only appointed because she would be just another yesman for the administration and not challenge them in any capacity. She has demonstrated this repeatedly and the administration knows this about her. The other candidates for interim dean would have been far better choices.
Interim Dean Coltman is a very weak dean as are the associate deans. With a university administration completely staffed by scientists, and as it moves to push the STEM programs and marginalize further Arts & Letters, she has not offered a strong defense of the liberal arts. It is a scandal that there were no new or replacement faculty hired this past year. She is content to let the college wither on the vine while she takes care of more personal matters. . . .
She has made incredible strides towards improving morale under difficult circumstances and despite the utter lack of support from the central administration.
Interim Dean Coltman is inexperienced and during her time as dean has been entirely ineffective. She can’t seem to make decisions and does not have leadership qualities. She has poor judgement, does not understand the academic programs in the college, and has made a series of disastrous decisions. She is not able to lead the college and is over her head, lacking the basic skill set required of a dean. She was a poor department chair, and a terrible choice for even an interim position. We need visionary leadership for the college, and she does not fit that bill.
I think Dr. Coltman assembled a good team of associate and assistant deans in our college and has gathered those forces well in our fight. I give her credit for finding strong partners in this area.
Dean Coltman’s release of Susan Reilly as the SCMS Director was poorly reasoned and orchestrated. The domino effect of this decision will be felt for some time. It has created a divisive atmosphere in the SCMS and left a vacuum of leadership and future vision in what was once one of the most vibrant areas of the college.
Do not believe the “yes men/women” who parrot the “all is well” attitude. Just stating that morale has improved does not make it true. There are those of us who do not wish to bring more shame and embarrassment on the college (unlike those who have personally benefited from it with last internal upheaval that they brought about) and have kept their own counsel. Do not be fooled, however, that there is no dissent, however, at the clear lack of leadership and advocacy for the *whole* college.
Keep up the good work!
Self serving. In it for the money
Needs to be more communicative with all levels within the College–not just Chairs.
is doing her best in a bad situation
Lynn Appleton does all her work for her so you might as well hire Lynn.
At a time when the college is in real crisis, Coltman is not the person to be dean, she has no leadership skills, and no direction.
I like Heather (and Wenying!) personally very much. She is certainly a breath of fresh air after the viciousness of Manju and Bill. But I do believe she is a little out of her depth. I don’t think she really has the knowledge or skills required to deal with all the managerial, administrative, and (especially) financial matters that are being thrust upon her. That might not be a terrible problem if she could count on support, training and perspective from experienced supervisors, such as a well-established provost. Unfortunately, the provost is newer and less experienced than the Dean. They both seem to be failing about as the university lurches from one crisis to another.
She doesn’t seem like a fighter for our college. Many terrible decisions were made recently that effected faculty incomes and she did not go to bat for us with the Provost. Needs to advocate more strongly.
Incompetent. The third floor’s principle agent for mayhem and wholesale destruction of programs and academic wherewithal in the Arts and Letters wing.
She has assumed a job under difficult circumstances and has promoted fair treatment and respect for the faculty that was sorely needed. She has also become a cheerleader for faculty accomplishment.
Doing a good job under incredibly difficult circumstances …. Too bad that Pendakur left such a mess behind….
incompetent and self serving
I’m not sure it’s fair to assess Dean Coltman at this time. As I note above, she stepped into the job in a terrible moment. I often feel like she’d been forced to play catch up in a race that’s faster than any of us are used to. That being said, it’s unclear to me how effective she’s been at resisting rather arbitrary decisions from the Provost. I feel she would have been a more effective dean if she had had at least one year to find her footing before all the crises started.
The college needs to sort out the budget crisis with accurate information and full disclosure from the administration – not hire an expensive outside firm and go through a search for a new Dean at this time
Coltman needs to resign immediately, and go back to music, but not as chair….she should earn her keep, and teach a 4-4 load to make up for what she has cost the college during the transition.
She truly cares about the College and works extremely hard towards it best interests. She is committed to the position, intelligent and well suited to the position.
Coltman is a terrible dean, really. she is so two-faced in dealing with faculty.
It is useless to evaluate Dean Coltman or any other Dean since the Provost and the President do not listen to them and rarely consult with them.
Although the interim dean and the associate dean would like to serve the college well, they are clearly not prepared to handle the challenges of the budget crisis and the other major challenges related to the management of the College.
She’s disorganized, which leads to errors we can’t afford in this era of budget cuts and heavy-handed upper administrations
She should be appointed the permanent. An internal search was conducted when she was appointed.
She need to progressively protect the College. It’s clear she has some animosity toward specific departments. Grow up and stop the treehouse politics.
Considering that Coltman was selected as Interim Dean by Interim Provost Alperin over more experienced and outspoken candidates (Engle, Poulson, Xu), who were supported by the faculty, it is very commendable that she has promoted the college very effectively during a difficult year.
Her enthusiasm, commitment, positive approach, warmth and encouragement have provided much needed healing in this college. Her skills as a communicator and consensus builder are impressive. She is the hardest working dean this college has seen, and is eager to learn and willing to admit mistakes. She is confident and poised but not egotistical and truly acts interest interests of the college at all times. She balances competing interests well, always striving for compromises. She thinks big: and is hugely creative, imaginative and innovative.

Comments on Dean Coates, College of Business

The university would be better served if Dean COATES would:

Duplicate himself so that other academic units on campus could be better managed.
Resign. He is incapable of making sound decisions and avoiding favoritism. He is not after a sustainable business school. He is for looking after the interest of his buddies.
Check on his department directors a bit more. Allow faculty to provide evaluations for department directors.
gets healthy
should have resigned at least a year ago;
This question is mute since Dean Coates has announced that he is stepping down from the dean position.
be able to stay on and continue as Dean. He will be sorely missed. A class guy and tremendous leader and administrator.

Additional comments about Dean COATES:

Coates and the associate deans are all terrible academics with virtually no research accomplishments; they decisions as per this very low standard
Dean Coates is probably better than I imagine but he does not COMMUNICATE with the faculty so who knows what he does or does not do.
The previous provost mention communication as a weakness of this dean and even mentioned that changes needed to be made. I never noticed one iota of change in the way the dean communicates with the faculty.

He also does not adhere to process. The faculty governance process is a joke in the COB. Since the administrators don’t give a crap about what the faculty think, the Assembly should be abolished because operating the appearance of faculty governance is a huge investment in time.

I think Dean Coates has made some really poor decision about the composition of his team members. I genuinely hope that the central administration makes radical change in the College of Business. Appointment of S. B. would be a disaster for the college.

I hope that his medical treatment goes well and look forward to his return to the the faculty after his sabbatical.

Comments on Dean Carter, College for Design and Social Inquiry Comments:

The university would be better served if Dean CARTER would:

go back to faculty position
-Not tell the rest of the faculty that staff were being fired before letting those staff people know
-Help the schools and programs grow – find creative ways to ensure we can keep classes and faculty/adjuncts rather than just shrink the programs
-Support the Directors of the programs
-Be a stronger advocate for the programs
-Make better use of limited funds
-Be more professional in meetings with faculty
be reassigned
involve faculty more in decision making..make more regular appearances at faculty meetings.

Additional comments about Dean CARTER:

None

Comments on Dean Bristor, College of Education

The university would be better served if Dean BRISTOR would:

stand up more for the COE.
Reorganize the teacher education unit. It should be one department, not two. This is a waste of money.The college needs a three to five year course rotation for offerings. The lack of planning for course offerings (last minute changes) is a problem for most students and faculty.
Stop allowing so much mediocrity in the COE, demand better quality effective chairs who are responsive to the students and faculty.
Needs to make sure her chairs do not play favorites with faculty, unequal depts. and roles, and class loads.
Take a stand instead of backing away from confrontation when one department is holding another hostage in matters of program approval, dissertations, and movement of faculty. She should hold her department chairs accountable for their behavior and decisions.
Be awarded ample funds for the COE
quit being selfish.
be more fair with all depts and faculty, plays favorites
consult with faculty
Remain as involved both locally and at the state levels; we enjoy a wonderful reputation as a college due, in part, to her involvement.
Returned to the position of Associate Dean. She was excellent in that supportive role.
Consider moving back to the Associate Dean role. She is a hard worker and will do exactly as told to do. Some of her department chairs come from a traditional “old school” mentality and need to step aside as well. Old ways of doing business are respected in many ways, but we also need fresh perspectives and leaders who understand adult learners and graduate education markets.
Be willing to bring people together to reach consensus; work in a transparent manner rather than behind closed doors; learn more about how to lead and support scholarship, since that is definitely not her experience; be willing to make tough decisions even in the face of controvers7

Additional comments about Dean BRISTOR:

She is a very nice person. She tries to please the people around her which is a good quality, but not always possible in her position. This college needs stronger leadership and more communication with the faculty.
Dr. Bristor is an administrator– an excellent paper manager, but does not have the key leadership quality–vision. She is often hard put to see the road ahead.
She is well-liked by faculty, for the most part. Her image would be improved if she would wear her hair in a more professional way such as up or even shorter.
Nice person
Good leader
Kind and spiritual
To laid back
not fair to all
allows poor leadership from her chairs
not responsive to our students
mediocrity rules
Dean Bristor needs to develop some backbone and make the tough choices. She should be more concerned about faculty morale, resources, and scholarship and less about NCATE. We lack the resources to do our jobs, but will be investing considerable time and effort on NCATE accreditation. This seems to be all we do as a college. One round of NCATE ends and the next one begins right away. There should be consideration given to NOT pursuing NCATE. If enough SUS deans banded together, took a stand, and presented the fiscal arguments, there is a good possibility that NCATE could disappear. It was only due to the whims of one governor that we started on this road. He is no longer in office and I don’t believe our current governor and legislature really care about this issue.
Wise, intelligent, fair, compassionate . . . .
Treats faculty of color with respect.
has weak chairs
needs to advocate ore for faculty
take care of students better
change all chairs
evaluate all admin in the coe
raise the travel money amount
get rid of red tape
improve student services office for our students
It is comforting to know Dean Bristor is there as we face very troubling financial times. Her institutional history
She does not have a State -level or national level constituency/platform that allows her to be an effective advocate for Public Education.
Dean Bristor is well-liked among some, but she has only worked here at FAU and thus, she does not have a perspective of what a quality College of Education is at major universities. The College is organized around a K-12 school mentality and needs a fresh perspective about serving adult learners, higher education markets and cross university inter-disciplinary clientele. She is respected and is a hard worker, but perhaps she should consider moving to an Associate Dean role and encourage FAU hire a fresh face with new ideas about contemporary markets. A new interim dean to shake things up might be interesting! The future of our College is graduate education, especially with the State Colleges taking over teacher education programs and schools not supporting administrative training. We need strong leadership in graduate education. We need strong programs/ alliances with the State Colleges and across our own University.

Comments on Dean Ilyas, College of Engineering

The university would be better served if Dean Ilyas would:

become the permanent dean.
If he would be appointed permanent Dean.
be allowed to function more freely without strict control from the provost’s office. He has an excellent relationship with the faculty and should be allowed to work with them to heal the wounds created by previous hostile administration.
continue as a regular Dean

Additional comments about Dean Ilyas:

He is an excellent leader with a very pleasant personality.
He has excellent credentials and should be given proper opportunity to put the college back on track and seek necessary concessions from the faculty for building strong academic and research programs.
1) No one works harder than Dr. Ilyas. In terms of time and effort he leads the College by example.
2) Dr. Ilyas’ communication with and accessibility to faculty is the best among all FAU Engineering Deans that I have seen.
3) Dr. Ilyas has the vision how the college should grow. I wished that he had the resources to implement all his plans.
4) Shortly after stepping into the interim Dean position he had to make very bold personnel decisions. He acted very decisively and won wide support by the faculty to such steps.
5) He chose to hold on to his old Associate Dean for Research until his intermi Dean status gets resolved. It is obvious that his dean duties take all his time, so our college is effectively left with no research leadership. Resources must be found to hire a full time associate Dean for Research.

Comments on Florida Atlantic University Schools Administrators:

The university would be better served if Principal/Director Ferguson would:

Communicate with more faculty rather than only the small circle; answer email in a timely manner; be available to talk with faculty on an individual or small group basis
Continue to develop and promote personnel from within the school, providing opportunities for growth rather than allowing quality teachers to leave Henderson for other opportunities.

Additional comments about Principal/Director Ferguson:

Dr. Ferguson has been a ray of sunshine to Henderson. She is proactive rather than reactive. She gets things done and does it with vigor and enthusiasm. She truly cares about the teachers and makes them VERY happy! 🙂
Dr. Ferguson is an effective leader who has made incredible changes to improve our school while valuing the great work being done.
Dr. Ferguson has significantly improved the culture of the school; she has also had a very positive effect on faculty morale.
A wonderful addition to FAU and AD Henderson/FAU High School! We are luck to have such a competent administrator!
There have been many changes this year at Henderson as a result of Dr. Ferguson’s work, many of them most positive for our students. I know she has worked hard to spend funds which we have lost in years past and has greatly upgraded our technology. I do believe she cares about our students being happy and successful. However, as far as faculty are concerned, many changes have not been so positive. I find the professional atmosphere to be oppressive.

The university would be better served if Assistant Dean THOMAS would:

No comments

Additional comments about Assistant Dean THOMAS:

Assistant Dean Thomas has done an amazing job leading Henderson. He will be greatly missed in retirement. His work ethic is commendable and abilities to make things happen is amazing!

The university would be better served if Dean Bristor would:

Help to engage faculty in work that is recognized at the state/fldoe level such as the work at FSU, USF, and UCF

Additional comments about Dean BRISTOR:

No comments

Comments on Dean Rosson, Graduate College

The university would be better served if Dean ROSSON would:

Devote more time to improving graduate programs and more time thinking about how to better serve students.
Eliminate the Graduate College. All this office seems to have done is create paperwork and headaches for our graduate programs.
Interact with the faculty! I have been at FAU for half a decade and don’t believe I have ever met Dr. Rosson. At various times, a number of past and present deans have attended departmental meetings, which provided faculty with an opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, and express opinions directly related to our discipline. Dr. Rosson has never attended such meetings. I wonder what he does?
resign….just another horrible appointment by the administration….
Listen more to people outside your small circle, and respect different opinions that may not coincide with your own. Try not to micromanage departments or force fixes on procedures that are not broken. You’re not always right.
Communicate

Resign immediately!

be replaced with a competitive person who has credentials
be re-assigned to a college or department where his expertise will be better valued
eliminate the Graduate College altogether. It is an unneeded, unwanted extra layer of bureaucracy that is obstructionist in everything they do.Or, Dean Rosson should resign and let someone competent do the job.
Resign.
The rules for graduate programs change weekly and notice is not given to advisors.
resign
Barry is a great disappointment. He has made an unbelievable mess out of the Graduate College, screwing up even the most basic tasks. The labyrinthine and Byzantine forms are an obvious example. The style guide for theses and dissertations is a new nightmare. I’ll grant that the old style guide was probably too simplistic and outdated to be helpful, but the new one is incomprehensible. The mere fact that his staff is now holding continuous seminars to teach grad students how to comply with the requirements is an indication of how bad the style guide is. Surely it is waste of money to create arbitrary formatting requirements that are so finicky and intractable that we have to exhaust our limited resources and a disproportionate amount of our grad students’ energy trying to comply with them? If a reasonable person cannot figure out the requirements on their own, then there is something wrong with the requirements. The only other possible interpretation is that our graduate students are so dumb that they can’t format a document in accordance with a reasonable set of instructions. We do accept some graduate students who may be below par, most of them are bright and diligent. They (and we) deserve better than having to kowtow to a rigid, incompetent petty tyrant.
Provide good professional leadership to the staff in the graduate college. They are not very helpful and can be somewhat rude.
prepare to jump a rotting ship as FAU devolves into a teaching/service “university” with a football team.
be replaced.
streamline graduate processes and reduce paperwork, including the number of times a student has to fill out the Plan of Study. Can’t this be made interactive so that it can be changed online?
eliminate unnecessary paper work; stop making unilateral decisions.
Stop building a bureaucratic empire that does nothing but generate paperwork for those us working in the graduate programs…. We don’t know what this office is doing, most of the time, but we know it isn’t doing anything to make our programs better or more competitive
streamline the Grad College
respect strong research across areas
respect creative work
understand degree differences and respect them
resign…he is the worst
What a mess! The graduate college seems to be tied to the idea that more paper = better. Let’s not do forms the sake of doing forms! There seems to be very little communication between the graduate college and the faculty. Also – the graduate college should be interested in the provision of classes with the new requirements for minimum enrollment in classes
be asked to step down.
The Graduate College, in general, makes life more difficult for our graduate program…which obviously is the opposite of its function. Graduate programs should be left to the department and the colleges.
he is not much of a presence for faculty as far as i can see
focus more of his attention on the operation of the graduate college and make himself more available.
I am not sure we need this position. We seems to have a plethora of administrators.
From what I hear, our Ph.D. students are disappointed by some of their professors’ lack of knowledge and professional conduct. Yet, this is tolerated by the administration. It is absurd that certain departments are entitled to offer Ph.D. programs in the College of Business.
I am an active participant in the doctoral program of my unit. However, I don’t have any indicator that the graduate college does anything except require unnecessary paperwork. Again, there is no communication about what he does. I have never seen a meeting of the graduate faculty nor is there communication about graduate matters to the graduate faculty.
Streamline the paperwork process that he has created. It changes rapidly and makes very little sense.
Step aside. We do not need the large Graduate College operation we have in place now. The clerical type paperwork processes for POS and other systems were put in place without ensuring the university was properly prepared to implement them.The university would also be better served if he would stop spending money on external consultants to do workshops that our own faculty could do if they were paid and invited to do so.
too strict and top down
Take a closer look at the composition of dissertation committees, topics, and faculty qualifications in the College of Education. Faculty in Teaching and Learning are excluded from chairing committees and their expertise is not utilized on dissertations in CCEI, ExEd, and Ed Leadership. It is always a surprise to see defenses posted for dissertations in our content areas even though we have had no involvement on their formulation.
The Graduate College should be eliminated. It duplicates services. It is unfriendly to students and faculty. There is too much paper work required by the Graduate College. Forms are not user friendly. It is not realistic to complete forms in the manner required. THE GRADUATE COLLEGE HAS CREATED A BURDEN FOR STUDENTS AND FACULTY.
quit manipulating FAU for self-promotion.
Replace him and limit the directives from the graduate college.
The Graduate College should be eliminated along with the Dean. There is no need for this very expensive college without students.
step down
Rossen should leave, and get rid of this unnecessary graduate college…individual colleges can take care of their own graduate programs…this office loses student information at an unbelievable rate…they make up things as they go along…unprofessional.
Realize that not everything needs change.
Resign. His arrogance is beyond anything I have ever seen anywhere. I still cannot believe MJ Saunders promoted him to a Vice Presidential position when he did not apply for the job, but chaired the VP selection committee and then just moved himself into the VP job. Very slick.
Dean Rosson doesn’t seem to communicate with faculty on a regular basis.
Focus on being graduate dean only and not ineffectively divide his time with OSP. The graduate college needs to lead and coordinate graduate programs across FAU, not react to the decisions of individual programs.
must resign
Be fired.
Stop trying to be so controlling and trust the individual graduate programs a little more.
leave as soon as possible. He should have the decency to resign, since he has only contempt for the FAU faculty and students, but he won’t, so the president must fire him. Tomrrow would be a good time.
Step down as college graduate dean.
Dean Rosson is the “Dean of unintended consequences” various actions that appear to be unilateral have cost the students and faculty unnecessary time and frustration to address and correct. I know of no faculty member who trusts that Dr. Rosson will do anything that supports his best staff or that supports graduate education and promotes research.
Learns to listen

Additional comments about Dean ROSSON:

in no way shape or form suited to be graduate dean
At one time Dean Rosson was a collegial administrator but has become increasingly arbitrary as his tenure continues on. He needs to listen more and be less dictatorial.
Many students have had SEVERE problems with this College and particularly its staff: not returning phone calls or emails, having policies posted on the website that are not the same as the policies in the handouts, projecting a real adversarial attitude to students they are supposed to work with.
The Graduate College continues to be a mess.
I have always been somewhat surprised when Dr. Rosson makes pronouncements of new initiatives that I had supposed would already part of the graduate college mission.
I really can’t believe that after his disastrous work as Dean of the graduate college Barry would also be given responsibility for the Research Office. And, of course, what did he do? He fired all the new competent people who had just been hired to bring some professionalism to what had been a slipshod, amateurish operation. Of course, he has not fixed any of the fundamental problems that make it almost impossible to submit grants, like the Grants ERA system. Just when we had some hope that the “Office of Grant Prevention” might actually change, he has cast us back into the black hole of bureaucratic nihilism.
Approachable
where are the gap funds for research faculty? Other “research intensive” schools provide a steady flow of gap funding (even if it is minimal). Rosson has a stupid competition and gives funds to those who don’t need them!
Apart from Sponsored Research this is the most unfriendly and unhelpful department at FAU. They have been singularly unhelpful with Ph. D. students graduating, raising ridiculous and unnecessary hurdles.
Some of the extra checks and balances that he has put in place have been good, as is the more centralized approach. However, he is overdoing it a bit. Please, no more extra forms to fill in.
an outrageously arrogant man, who has nothing to be arrogant, or even prou about, except haveing fooled FAU into hiring him, and having got MJ to promote him.
How come we just noticed that we can save money by enrolling students for less credits if they have satisfied their degree requirements? A capable adminstrator would have done that years ago!
Leadership and inter personal skills seriously lacking
Unfortunately his effectiveness is limited by the college level deans.
Put more forms and processes on-line … why should we be signing forms over and over again, routing them from student to grad director to chair, in the 21st century?
inflexable and prone to attitude.
I have had very few contacts with him.
Policies from the Grad College often feel arbitrary and even punitive. The college itself, from where I sit, looks bloated in terms of administration.
resign, he is the worst
See below
He has no idea what graduate college is supposed to do.
Under his leadership we are steadily going in the wrong direction.
An unfortunate example of someone who’s incompetent to hold a high-profile position and ends up accumulating TWO critical, high-profile jobs! Unbelievable, especially for a university that claims to prioritize research and graduate studies…
I think the college could be eliminated to save money. I have seen no benefit to the university in having a graduate college.
Barry plays by the book/rules…FAU needs more of his no-nonsense approach. He is doing an excellent job.
I don’t know whether Dean Rosson is aware of what is going on whether he cares but the public needs to be informed how FAU Business School abuses tax payer monies to offer graduate programs.
Faculty need oversight of the Graduate College budget. Fees are charged students and Barry Rosson seems to have full control over spending funds without accountability to faculty.It is good that he is an advocate for Graduate Programs, but too much micro-management of the programs creates far too much work for faculty and students.
too many rules and not a good problem solver, too by the book
Dean Rosson should consider the individual needs of Colleges rather than using a “one size fits all” policy.
Very biased prejudiced against people of color.
Respect faculty of distinction and find ways to facilitate their scholarship at FAU.
they need someone like fred hoffman
rossen is rude, arrogant and egocentric, does not listen to others, obsessive about creating layers and layers of unnecessary forms…will not listen to experts…basically, his position is redundant and he is not needed.
Dean Rosson seems to be a decent person personally, but his leadership style is very arrogant and he clearly has little idea how to effectively manage graduate programs. His disregard for faculty input continues to be distasteful. The systems he has created have fueled nightmares for students and faculty alike. One would think that an engineer would have a better idea of how to create effective systems for necessary paperwork. Instead, he has created busy work for everyone associated with the Graduate College. Returning Programs of Study for minor typographical errors (and for things like not listing courses in the order they appear on transcripts) is uncalled for. He never should have implemented the massive paperwork requirements for students and faculty without electronic systems in place to facilitate the flow of paper. Further, he has little respect for faculty and hires external consultants in areas where our own faculty have expertise.

Comments on Dean Buller, Honors College

The university would be better served if Dean BULLER would:

Get more of a backbone. Be a more decisive leader.
retire
focus less on writing books and more on solving problems at the HC
resigned

Additional comments about Dean BULLER:

prestige and morale of the honors college has plummeted under his administration
Dean Buller spends too much time in Saudi Arabia and neglects his college in this time of crisis.

Comments on Dean Miller, University Libraries

The university would be better served if Dean Miller would:

make changes in his staff.
be more hands-on in arbitrating personnel problems, instead of leaving it all to the assistant/associate deans who, in some cases, are irrational, vindictive and punitive.

Additional comments about Dean Miller:

He says his management style is to find good managers and stay out of their way. But his definition of “good” seems to be “as long as I don’t have to deal with it, I don’t care if the managers are abusive to their staff.”

Comments on Dean Bjorkman, College of Medicine

No comments

Comments on Dean Smith, College of Nursing

The university would be better served if Dean Smith would:

be able to fullfil and continue with the vision and path she established for her Deanship
Continue to be the Dean of the College of Nursing
Listen to all voices
increase her visibility with the faculty

Additional comments about Dean Smith:

Oustanding, supportive and generous to share her lessons learned from her impressive scholarship record.
Has a unique view of nursing that is contemporary and universal
To be fair – she got this job because no one else applied. The fact the college can’t even attract applicants says a lot. The in breeding at this college is awful. The college needs a visionary leader to move it forward.
Dr. Smith is a very caring administrator who is new to her role.

Comments on Dean Perry, College of Science

The university would be better served if Dean Perry would:

This comment has more to do with the university than with Dean Perry — The university should recognize the impact the College of Science has on the general profitability/productivity of the school as a whole and provide Dean Perry with more resources to enrich the faculty experience (e.g., more money for TAs, more money for travel to conferences etc…). It seems like strategic planning at the College level reaches somewhat hard-of-hearing ears at higher levels of administration.
he is an excellent leader and good for the university
resign
have direct lines of communication with the higher administration.
Be fired.
Start to see that all the departments in the college of science are really important rather than just one or two.
keep up the good work; but raise the college from being a poor relation in the university, and raise the poor relations in the college.
Confront the administration over the summer cuts in courses
Dean Perry should fight for the faculty and the students. Not every crazy idea coming from the top administration has to be implemented literally. He knows that some of the new ideas about increased teaching are nonsense, yet he implements them.
Find a way to disuade the higher administration from micromanaging departments and specific areas within Departments. We know our fields how best to support the missions of the dept., college, and University.

Additional comments about Dean Perry:

Dean Perry is a terrific leader working in tough economic times. He certainly “reaches out” to faculty in a personal way, and it is appreciated on our side.
He was hand picked by Brogan because he is a nincompoop who is easily manipulated by the higher
administration. He has been an unmitigated disaster for the College of Science and has stood by while the College of Medicine is rampaging our resources.
Does not treat all departments in the college of science fairly. He has favorite departments and does not appear to be interested in getting the best out of all the departments in the college.
FAU’s best dean
Hang in.
Outstanding Dean. Other Deans can learn from him

Comments on Dean Pratt, Undergraduate Studies

The university would be better served if Dean PRATT would:

Be given more authority over substantive policies.
Get out of his office and speak to faculty who teach our students Seems to engage in “make-work” projects for faculty, so it appears that he is doing something useful.
be a model for other administrators.
Pratt needs to be become the university provost immediately and save us from ourselves.
Resign.
state what his job includes so that we can effectively evaluate him.
Does the best he can in this unsettled times. Gives a level of security to all.
Make decisions that promote the quality of undergraduate education that will lead to degrees of value for FAU students.
left
Ed’s a nice guy and seems fairly competent, but we must remember that he’s largely responsible for the new core curriculum because he rammed it through the faculty governance systems. The poor design of the system was obvous from the start. The most glaringly obvious problems were with the assessment system, which was clearly unworkable. Now, of course, we’re facing accreditation, which has ripped aside the veil, and we have to publicly face the fact don’t have a credible system of assessment for the core curriculum. This is Ed’s fault.That aside, Ed is overworked and his office is understaffed. He can’t possibly succeed and is a victim himself of random and incompetent management. It’s obviously impossible to rapidly increase enrollment AND maintain standards AND improve retention all at the same time without a LOT of money, much less when the budget is being cut.
Continue to serve as Dean of Undergraduate college
Dean Pratt is in many ways of the best of the deans here at FAU. He has always taken an interest in faculty participation and training and recognition.
ask the deans and the chairs how his office could help improve undergraduate education at FAU ….
get to know more faculty – get out of his office – serve the students and advocate for their education
Make Ed Pratt provost, president or even dean of the College of Arts and letters, he is a person of real integrity, has real academic credentials and would be a refreshing change from the mind-numbing decisions made by Diane Alperine
It seems like the dean of the Undergraduate College could be in charge of the Honors College too. We have too many administrators.
Show more initiative in addressing the needs of effective undergraduate education instead of just maintaining the status quo.
No opinion.
be a bit more forceful.
grow a spine and stop tolerating the farce that his opinion (or ours) matters to his bosses.
Seriously and responsibly look into whether ‘student learning’ is taken seriously by the College of Business administrators and faculty.
Too many rules and needs to get back into the classroom too out of touch with students and teaching.
Why do we have an undegraduate dean?
go back to teach again
too out of touch
follow-through with good ideas and plans.
Keeping doing what he is going. While I do not agree with him all the time, he approaches his job very professionally and respects faculty input.

Additional comments about Dean PRATT:

In a terrible situation, Dean Pratt at least shows respect for faculty governance and is willing to engage in dialogue with faculty about what goes on in the classroom.
The undergraduate college is also a mess.
Dr. Pratt is consumed with timely graduation without doing the data mining to determine exactly why our numbers may be where they are. He is always helpful to me when I have questions relating to my own department’s undergraduate issues, which I truly appreciate. However, I don’t appreciate his concept that every degree should be light enough that students should easily be able to pursue a double major. In most schools and programs, a double major is discouraged as we generally prefer that students put more focus into one degree rather than dilute two into what would be more appropriate as certificate programs. I can’t really think of any degrees where doing double is possible within the graduation time frame the university is pushing towards.
The fall IFP assessment was a real mess. They didn’t seem to know what they were doing.
Dr. Pratt is doing a good job, particularly with promoting undergraduate research and honors.
Dean Pratt appears to be effective in his role.
Sad to say that I’ve been teaching here for 15 years and have never had any interaction or hear anything about Dean Pratt.
I am not sure what Dean Pratt does. In terms of leadership, it may be there but it is not visible at my level. I have been here for a number of years and don’t know what he does to lead undergraduate programs. It all seems to take place at the individual college level. Thus, I think there may be some redundancy in the effort — thus an opportunity to save money in the current situations
go back in the classroom full time
I have no idea who he is. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Dean Pratt is one of the few administrators who is actually making a real, tangible (i.e., $$$) effort to support and promote research at FAU.
a very good man.
is a puppet for admin
Impact on the UG programs is limited by the college Deans
A more collegial spirit would be welcome.
He understands and respects faculty governance processes and systems. I do not work with him on a daily basis, but I repect him based on how I see him conduct his business and how he treats faculty.
Dean Pratt seems concerned about faculty and students. He seems to make decisions on the basis of what is best for students, the university and faculty. He is quite reasonable when presenting information to faculty.

Comments on Associate Provost Abbate

The university would be better served if Associate Provost Abbate would:

Give him more authority and responsibility. He is a great agent for change and has a clear, forward-thinking vision.
Build a stronger sense of identity and community among Broward faculty and students.
Conduct joint faculty meetings with Broward faculty. He needs to keep people in the loop.
talk to the faculty
stand up for faculty.

Additional comments about Associate Provost Abbate:

His personal agenda gets in the way of his responsibilities with FAU.
Seems like a nice guy – I just don’t know what he does in this position
Invisible
Please don’t sell out the Davie/Broward campus.

Comments on Associate Provost Eliah Watlington

The university would be better served if Associate Provost Watlington would:

Make herself more known. I hardly know who she is, which in a Taoist sense is good because at least she is not making herself known in a bad way. But she seems to be invisible. I wonder who is steering the ship, who is looking out for the partner campuses. The deans in Boca certainly are not; quite the opposite.

I am not sure that this is a needed position.
Take a summer pay cut like many faculty.
Communicate with faculty/staff on the northern campuses.
Have more of a presence, communicate with faculty more openly, let us know what she is doing for the campus in terms of its place within FAU.
largely invisible, I guess this is why she was appointed (without consulting anyone)
It’s difficult to say much because she is the least visible campus head that we’ve had so far. She rarely makes her presence known or felt. A mystery.
She seems pleasant enough, but is so invisible that I don’t understand the reason for having her position.
If every administrator understood how to engage faculty and staff in daily decisions as Dr. Watlington does, the university would be better served. She is a mentor, coach and caring administrator to so many FAU employees.
Needs to communicate more with faculty.She is rarely seen on campus.
consider and address the needs of the TCC
decide if she is part of the College of Ed or the provost’s office.
Not present at all, not visible, works from home too much.
Ensure the growth of the Treasure Coast Campus through advocacy for new programs, recruiting new students and work at building exisiting programs.
Has never been a professor or did publishing or research, is not tenured or know what it is like to be in a T&P line and do the work. has only taught kindergarten.
She has kissed he way to the top without ever being a professor or real administrator, most faculty cannot respect her in her position, FAU has set her up for failure.
Be given more time to spend on the campuses and consult faculty to the academic units.
step down and allow some one with tenure and a rank of prof be in charge, she has never had tenure or been a professor ever
she is never present or visible
works from home too much
stop kissing butt
take a big cut in pay for lack of exp and level

Additional comments about Associate Provost Watlington:

Dr. Watlington is divvied up so that she cannot get work done on either front; neither the College or the Campus gets its due.
My limited experiences with her have been positive.
Very mediocre, we need someone of quality who has held rank of assist, assoc, or full professor and knows what it is like to be a professor, someone who is present and available and not doing her work from home. Hard to track her down where she is or what campus, works at home mostly. Makes too much money for being able to work at home all the time. Needs to be a T&P professor for a few years to get “real” experience before being an administrator, she is too lame as is.
poor role model for faculty and students
paid too much for never being around
weak leader
no experience as a professor or teacher/researcher
she just kisses butt to move up, but has never even been a professor and she is never present or available
take a cut in pay
Why have administrators given high pay during the summer when classes are cut and associate provosts are really not necessary for functioning of the university’s main goal-teaching.
The leadership style Dr Watlington promotes excellence; she is able to bring out the very best in each employee. She is known as kind, fair and ethical. I cannot imagine working at the Northern Campus without her!
She seems quite competent, but I do not work with her on a daily basis.
She is invisable.
Assoc. Provost Watlington is fine when she is available. She needs to be seen more and communicate more often. She is always polite and friendly.

Comments on Provost Brenda Claiborne

The university would be better served if Provost Claiborne would:

have a more sensible summer policy. Cutting entire curricula out of summer makes no sense!
Follow SACS guidelines in the manner that every SACS accredited institution does.
Consult with faculty more, work with faculty governance.
make appointments of competent and trustful administrators, particularly within her office. After this first year, she must have realized that most of those positioned to supposedly help her honor faculty governance processes are inept, a list that begins with the former Interim Provost.
Pay closer attention to what faculty tell her about teaching/research/service.
be fired! She doesn’t seem to understand all the time and effort faculty are putting in trying to find solutions to the budget cuts. Apparently she doesn’t trust our Dean and consequently our chairs.
Provost Claiborne is an accomplished faculty member with some administrative experience, but she is not suited to be a provost.
hold herself to the standards that she hold everyone else to.
Why don’t administrators get out of their offices and talk to students and faculty?
Take more time to understand the particular workings of FAU.
Trust faculty to make decisions in the best interests of their students; take seriously faculty concerns about the curriculum; avoid micro-managing the curriculum; avoid issuing last-minute mandates relating to the minimum & maximum size of courses.
be replaced by someone competent
Clairborne should resign immediately before she makes any more decisions that reflect the complete unpreparedness for the job and forces us into situations from which we cannot recover.
Serve as faculty at FAU so she can appreciate what it is like to be a faculty member at FAU.
immediately resign so the university can hire someone else. She is about the most incompetent person ever to hold that position at FAU, and that’s saying something.
make an effort to be in touch with faculty.
resign.
Resign.
Within the first year to have accusations of unprofessional behavior directed at one’s actions is either a sign of unprofessional behavior on one’s part or poor leadership in dealing with one’s colleagues on another.
Having to explain to the provost the basics of a variety of disciplines and how they are run is embarrassing for both the one doing the explanation and the one having to receive it. The appearance of dictatorial actions and coercion has done nothing for the morale of the University. Undue panic over the SACS process and reliance on less than competent administrators simply exacerbates an already “stretched” system. Taking it out on the faculty with draconian focus on enrollment figures and credentialing smacks of one being “over their head” in terms of preparedness.
Resign
Leave. This administrations’ decisions have increased tension with faculty. The decisions about summer and capacities are outrageous. I consider leaving FAU because of the atmosphere that has been created. What a disappointment.
Open her mind to diverse options.
The morale of faculty at all levels is at an all time low because the perception is that dollars are valued more than academics.
learn difference between a university and an elementary school
Hold a townhall meeting to decide on summer classes and also utilize reserve funds to get through this one-time budget cut.
resign….Fau needs experienced leaders with the capacity to carry the university forward. She has demonstrated that she has no capacity to do the job for which she was hired. And she clearly does not listen to faculty who are smart enough to solve their own problems without her input. Just because an administrator has a title, doesn’t mean they have the credibility in their decisions. Faculty are very aware of this.
I’m concerned that Provost Claiborne is simply overwhelmed, if not incompetent. She hasn’t been here very long, and I don’t feel I know her or her work well, but the accreditation process has already turned into a swirling vortex of comically stupid decisions.
get out there and meet with faculty. understand their issues needs
incorporate these into decision making process
show some leadership in these tough times
be fired
Decisions about credentials and summer classes were harsh. It wasn’t necessary to interpret SACS so rigidly on credentials. The summer courses were also handled poorly. Simply because classrooms were too small to hold large numbers of students, they were cancelled for the summer. And class sizes were increased without consulting faculty. This is an academic matter that should involve the faculty.
return to the arid climes of New Mexico.
It’s too soon to tell how well Provost Claiborne fulfills her role. It is unfortunate that she arrived in the middle of both a budget crisis and a SACS evaluation, which complicates administration considerably.
leave FAU
do everything necessary to AVOID cutting classes, in a university. It is as if a shoe shop stopped selling shoes. Cutting classes should not be an option. Period.
Work more closely with colleges and faculty in making decisions that impact pedagogy, such as summer schedules and cap sizes.
leave
the students, the faculty, and the press need to occupy the administration building until this person is relieved of having anything remotely to do with being a provost. This is catagorically the worst hire in the history of FAU. Ranks even higher (in being worse)than the president’s hire, which continues to confirm that the best thing about FAU is the faculty and the students….hands down the very best, too bad we are governed by such colossally poor administrators
resign immediately and go back to the classroom…..
would radically change her management style. She should be told that a Provost is not a dictator and that faculty are not servants but rather the people whose work is essential for the university to continue and prosper.
Provost Claiborne should consult more and certainly listen more to people she is supposed to represent (i.e. not the BOT or the BOG!).
Actually value the faculty! She makes terrible decisions (see: SACs, class caps will be moved to class size 4 days before the semester started, cancelling summer classes because they weren’t offered last summer) with seeming disregard for any consideration of what faculty actually do. She is doing a terrible job. The worst part is that I agree with many of her decisions, but she makes and implements them in such a clumsy, insensitive fashion that she undercuts all of her potential gains.
Consult faculty, staff, and Deans about curricular decisions…and economic ones if she is in the dark about what courses and programs make money…and which ones don’t.
Communicate transparently with faculty and respect their contibution to important discussions.
be fired
Resign.
form direct lines of communication with deans and department chairs
Visit faculty/staff on campuses beyond Boca.
Make an appearance on other campuses. Get to know faculty who are not at Boca. Seen her ONCE all year, for about ten minutes.
teach our undergrads for one day.
Not micromanage
Stop micro managing.
Resign. She is not competent at all in the position of provost and the university would be better served if she stepped down.
Accept the request of faculty to meet her when the faculty is treated unfairly, unresponsibly, and unethically by their supervisors. The reputation of a public institution cannot be maintained by ignoring problems.
Review the history of what departments have accomplished and they way they have received “certification” in the past. Learn to listen and trust her deans,rather than trying to change everything her first year. Acknowledge that some areas are better taught by practitioners in the field. Allow for exceptions from the rules to better the quality of education. Be more flexible.
delegate and trust, rather than micromanage
too soon to evaluate
Replace Associate Provost Diane Alperin
It is a bit early to assess Provost Claiborne. She seems very likable in person and although I have not met her personally, I think that she seems approachable.One concern I have heard raised by colleagues is that she needs to rely on the people below her more. Some have recently commented that the central administration is micromanaging. Perhaps that is an artifact of the budget crisis, but I have seen some summer scheduling decisions that don’t make any sense, for students or from a cost/benefit perspective. It is puzzling to me that there is not some mechanism that permits the units to correct these decisions. If central administration does not let the units make constructive feedback that is heard, we are in trouble. I fear that some decisions in the budget situation are made from a political perspective because I can think of no other rational explanation for some of the things I see going on.

Stay the course; vasilating directives imply lack of leadership.
Engage with faculty whose Colleges are not prioritized in the FAU Strategic Plan of the University, namely faculties of Social Work, Nursing, Education, etc.
Replace some of her deans with loyal, effective leaders. Too many deans are blaming her directly and indirectly for major problems. For instance, the course scheduling for Fall and Summer has been a huge problem for FAU. The deans (and thus, department chairs) say the Provost is keeping them from doing what they want to do. She needs a new team in place and she needs it very soon.
Keep doing what she is doing. This is a stressful time, I know. Communicating with faculty (through the University Senate and Budget input systems) is encouraged. She is calm and encouraging. Thanks!
New and learning, give her another year.
writes to us and keeps us informed
communication with the Provost’s office was bi-direction.
resign.
NOT have come to FAU.
Become faculty for a year so she could understand the FAU academic environment.
get in the classroom again
publish more
It would great if Dr. Claiborne would set some time aside to visit faculty meetings in each department and hear faculty concerns one-on-one.
open up clearer lines of communication with deans and faculty.
Resign.
communicate!
Put administrators on half pay for the summer and use the savings to keep faculty and students in the classroom. Faculty without summer teaching salaries find it difficult to continue their funded research projects.
Provost Claiborne implements all this nonsense about increased teaching, even though she must know that this has a terrible impact on research. It would help if Claiborne spent her efforts on finding ways to save money by closing some campuses and by reducing the number of administrators. Then there would be more money the pay decent salaries to active researchers.
Avoid micromanagement of faculty and departmentsoccured. Such actions promote distrust and send the message that the faculty are not competent. The vast majority of us do much for the university, excel in our fields, and do much for our students, colleagues, and faculty that is not caputured in our annual reviews (for example, fundrasing, community outreach, meeting with students on weekends or at nights or answering their questions via email during these times.
Stop micromanaging

Additional comments about Provost Claiborne:

There seems to be a double-speak from the upper administration. On one hand, they say they believe in faculty governance and comments. On another, they often make unilateral decisions without fully explaining their rationale and without warning.
She sent a lovely email stipulating that the summer offering will be robust and 2 weeks later she sends orders to cancel half the classes…flip flopper and lier!
Her strengths do not match the job description.
She has been sending emails to faculty to keep us informed–unfortunately they are all bad news messages from on high announcing decisions that DO NOT SERVE OUR STUDENTS. The decisions have been made without seeking input from faculty.
The Provost seems like a very nice person. But she has done a terrible job of communicating with faculty and as a result, her decision making seems arbitrary and heavy-handed. The debacle around course sizes is only the latest example.
She is really not prepared to be a provost.
The provost is very incompetent and not very respectful of faculty and of disciplinary protocols. She believes that “one size fits all” and so has forced dumb rules on departments arbitrarily that aren’t good for students or faculty (e.g. the three-hour rule), and make no academic sense. When caught in her own contradictions and can’t admit her mistakes, she stubbornly holds to her bad position regardless of the cost to the university. Her ignorance of academics outside her own field, especially of the liberal arts, is staggering and dangerous. Plus, she is not always honest in her dealings with faculty. She needs to go.
She is widely considered inaccessible, even to her immediate subordinates.
Apparently this Provost has not been in the classroom for a long time, or she would not be requiring last minute work, reports, analyses, etc., from faculty who are trying to meet the mission of the University. Imposing last-minute enrollment increases on faculty who are set for the semester is unconscionable. This Provost’s policies are some of the reasons I am leaving FAU at the end of this semester.
She has book smarts, but is an entirely ineffective provost with little to no understanding about how to run the academic programs in a university. A miserable failure and a liability to the future of our academic programs.
The randomness of budget cuts is surprising given her background, I’m not sure who is in charge of thoughtful implementation of our resources. I am also surprised at the level of rigidness in interpreting the SACs directives towards credentialing. When one pulls up the SACs description of credentialing, it is clear that the university is ignoring several paragraphs of discussion regarding appropriate credentials in order to enforce FAU’s mission, whatever that is.
Basic research to seek out individuals who have a proven record of accomplishment both in terms of scholarly and administrative output is in order. Relying on the most vocal and/or sycophantic is unhelpful and counterproductive. There is too much potential at this University that is being wasted through an unwillingness to make reasoned, soundly-researched decisions and arguing for them with clear evidence and support.
Does not seem to know what is going on in the university.
I appreciate her sincerity.
It might be too early to tell but so far I’m not impressed by Provost Claiborne’s leadership.
1) Provost Clairorne is yet to develop a clear academic vision as to how FAU should improve its national standing. It appears that SACS Accreditation preparations take up all her time and energy. A Provost should always think big.
2) Her recent micro-management of the Summer 2012 course schedule has caused suffering to many students, some were left with no graduate courses to take, others were left with no senior electives.
3) There is no evidence to indicate that she has been an inspiring team leader to our Deans.
Leave. Hire someone who has academics in mind.
While publicly presenting herself as supportive of faculty, she nevertheless makes decisions that demonstrate contempt for faculty. She treats deans like highly paid staff members. She demands perfection at all times, yet So clearly lakes the ability to ask the same of herself. Clearly she is overwhelmed and unale to cope with the stress of this situation and her responsibilities. She has minimal communication skills, both in email and verbally, and is frequently condescending, judgmental, biased and cold. She micromanaged to a large degree and clearly has little trust in or regard for deans.
She should not be so condescending to the Deans. And she should consult with the faculty before making academic decisions such as class size. And,she should be careful about giving the COM a free pass on credentialing issues; needs to be consistent. Has an autocratic approach which will not serve her well at FAU.
stop undermining the quality of undergraduate education at FAU through cutting and gutting resources and faculty personnel.
Provost Claiborne should discourage arbitrary decisions such as classroom caps being imposed from the outside or across the board regardless of discipline, class function, etc. This should definitely not be done without consultation with each college individually. Upcoming summer session is an example with its arbitrary 24 student minimum regardless of whether the class is a lab, a studio art class, or a lecture.Faculty members who have achieved the rank of full professor and have made many contributions to FAU over the years should not be prohibited from teaching graduate courses, especially when SACS does not prohibit it.
She’s too new for us to know much about her but she seems to have handled the summer teaching policies very poorly. Why completely centralize all decisions? She doesn’t seem to have any confidence in the deans’ abilities to manage their own budget. Why not let the decisions be made at the local level, where there is more expertise? If there’s going to be a cut, just say so and let the deans and chairs figure out to meet their FTE targets within their budgets. It is a very bad sign to see this kind of micromanaging coming from her…..
Bad decisions are made without real input from the faculty, and they are then dictated without any evident concern for procedures, contract agreements or promises, educational quality, or programmatic integrity.
There is no transparency. There is no open communication with faculty.
It is too early to give fair judgement.
Too new to evaluate progress.
early days yet, so far she has no clue though
I am concerned that Provost Claiborne is implementing broad, one size fits all policies across the university without considering the particular needs of individual departments. Such broad policies might be relatively easy to implement and defend, but they limit the flexibility of departments to define their own priorities and make their own choices. I worry that some of the broad policies are short sighted and will have long term negative impacts by creating intense competition among departments for FTE’s and by limiting departments’ abilities to develop degree programs that attract students and funding. I feel that since Provost Claiborne started at FAU the working atmosphere is becoming more and more dominated by a sense of frustration and unfairness.
I really have not seen much influence from the provost thus far.
She seems to be excellent,but it is impossible to pin anything down.
It seems as though provost Claiborne would prefer keeping high salaried administrators on the summer payroll over keeping students and professors in the classroom. She offers lip service regarding the hardships students and faculty would suffer from summer cancellations yet does not trim back the excesses of administrators salaries- especially over the summer. Why should any administrator get full pay for overseeing a partial, weak summer program where faculty are demoralized and not paid any salary. Many of these same faculty will work the entire summer on their research with NO remuneration.
New to job. Ways to go.
Decisions often seem to be “one size fit all” Ex: raising caps to meet room capacity. What’s more disorienting is that policy seems to change one day to another, which particularly robs me of faith. I don’t mind leadership I disagree with but when things keep changing, leadership looks indecisive, which leaves me disoriented.
Really has no idea what she is doing as provost, and needs to be fired…seriously the worst hire ever.
really has no understanding of FAU and is very insecure in decision making. Cannot accept when she could, might be, or simply IS wrong.
The corporate style management, and the top to bottom approach are not effectvie ways to run a university: they’re not even effective to run a corporation. A provost should have a better understanding of the particularities of programs on campus and Dr. Claiborne has showed, so far, a dictatorial approach that indicated nothing but a deep ignorance of the university she’s supposed to help administer.
It would seem to me that the provost, as the chief academic officer of the university, should be concerned when students threaten faculty and students in classroom. Instead of pushing this off on the office of legal council, it would have been great to actually hear from the provost.
She seems to know little about FAU, but insists on making “strong” and stubborn decisions which hurt the students and faculty anyway. We all know we are in a budget crisis at the moment, but we should work together to make decisions to help the university. Acting unilaterally, as Provost Claiborne (and President Saunders) seem to want to do is harmful to education AND to the economic health of the university.
The debacle about summer teaching this year could have been avoided with clearer communication & cooperation with faculty.
I find Provost Claiborne to be disrepectful of faculty and deans. While I appreciate data-driven decision making,
her attempts to mirco-manage the work of the colleges diminishes the scholarly atmosphere of the univeristy.
FACULTY are very concerned about bodget constraints and the ways that we keep being asked to do more work, while certainly not being paid more. Above all, Provost Claiborne should protect our current teaching load for faculty who have active research agendas.
she’s still getting her sea legs, we look forward to her constructive impact
She’s been at FAU for the entire school year and we haven’t seen her once at a faculty meeting on the Jupiter Campus. I wouldn’t even recognize her if I saw her.
She’s good at making sure information is communicated by email, but needs to be more of an advocate for keeping FAU viable.
she is an inexperienced bottle neck creating academic havoc
Making sure we get her title right (or address her properly) is pretentious. Work on what MATTERS.
I like her periodic emails to the faculty. She does better than most other administrators in communicating what is going on.
The quality of life in our diverse communities are not determined by the advances made in soience and technology alone. Quality of life has to do primarily with health care services, social services, public education, infrastructure and the welfare of the community.
I like her personally and she is very articulate and sincere. I hope she is successful at FAU. She needs a team of anonymous “kitchen cabinet advisors” who will tell her what she needs to hear, not just what she wants to hear. Reliance only on Deans and the President’s Staff (and those at the top) for information will not serve her well in the long run. She needs her ear to the ground more. She needs to put her communications memos to deans on the web or share with faculty because her message is not already communicated the way it she likely intended it be communicated.
We need a 3-5 year course rotation of offerings to plan for student programs of study. Then, the university needs to stick with the plan. Last minute changes in the course offerings hurt students and cause many problems with student matriculation and graduation.
The period for priority registration needs to be changed. Students should be allowed to priority register for about two weeks ONLY. Then, open classes for open registration. Currently, non-degree students have to wait until a few days before classes begin to register and that system is a poor one in terms of enrollment management.
good asks for our input.
seems to care
makes too much money, the president and provost need to take extreme paycuts to save faculty and staff jobs.
Provost Claiborne is too top down with little regard for faculty and students.
Provost Clarborne needs to learn to consider the individual needs of Colleges rather than using a “one size fits all” policy.
Respect the Laws of the land and treat faculty with respect.
too insecure
I had formed no strong opinion until the summer fiasco. The one size fits all plan is illogical and ineffective. This is the first year in my 35 years here that a top down plan has occurred. It makes no sense.

Comments on Mary Jane Saunders

The university would be better served if President SAUNDERS would:

do some planning for the budget cuts rather than letting them get cobbled together at the last minute … and stop telling parents and students that the cuts won’t hurt the academic programs. The cuts will hurt the programs and she should not be afraid to say so.
Get Florida legislature to expand FAU’s budget.
be more accessible to all faculty and expedite the replacement of the incompetent team she inherited from the Brogan and Prichett administrations (e.g. D. Alperin, L. Glick, etc.)
give the faculty a raise instead of always favoring administrators and surrounding herself with assistant provost who make 6 digit figures while the faculty have not seen a consequent raise for years
Make better hiring decisions for university level administrators.
Raise academic admission standards–FAU students are not the best and the brightest. Stop saying everything FAU does is FOR the students when she supports canceling classes that do not have full enrollment. The very idea of canceling a class with a cap of 24 that only has 20 or 21 enrolled is ridiculous. Why don’t we just tell our students to enroll at UCF or FIU in the first place? FAU cares about the students? Saying something doesn’t make it true….
Take the side of the students and faculty instead of the Board.
be more transparent about resources and more concerned with cultivating faculty excellence. The university has been losing good people & will continue to do so, if she does not concern herself with the ever-increasing demands on faculty at FAU.
stop appearing everywhere to develop the cult of her image and spend more time protecting faculty and students from executive decisions.
She needs to surround herself by people smarter than herself (only faculty, however, not the people that are near her office)and listen to them.
President Saunders is trying to do the best she can in difficult times, and seems to be a good person. But she is surrounded by the wrong people and often follows very bad advice. She should go back to a more direct approach with faculty, and fire the provost!
Stop hiding behind her immediate staff and become more honest & transparent in her decision making.
resign.
I don’t get the sense that the president gives any priority to faculty satisfaction. As we are in the trenches, interfacing with students every day, maintaining a quality curriculum and retaining students starts with faculty motivation.
Make non-academic entities the primary target of budget cuts and administer the development of academics on campus (teaching and research) to improve the quality and effectiveness of the learning environment instead of just “how far can we push our capacity before it costs us”.
reduce the size of the administration, allowing for more faculty hires and better compensation for existing faculty.
Take a very extended leave.
Recognize that increasing the number of faculty relative to the student population is the only way to improving this institution. Work harder to improve faculty salaries (and hence morale) and improve startup packages.
become the leader she claimed she would be. She needs to eliminate the office of Strategic Planning and IT, fire its VP, and the empty suit in IEA, along with their support staff, and move the competent staff back to the Provost’s office, so we can see if Brenda Claiborne is the administrator we thought she would be. She also needs to eliminate the vice-presidency for facilities, and make it a division of financial affairs. Tom Donaudy needs to be taught a few things about what a university is and does–if he can’t or won’t learn, he should be fired. Every day Barry Rosson remains here, he harms the university; she must do something about him. She needs to give Jennifer O’Flannery a well-defined assignment, including raisning significant sholarship funds–which are badly needed, and which could free up tuition funds for hiring new faculty, and undoing the erosion of faculty compensation. If she can’t do it, there are people around who can.
Trim back the high salaries of administrators and the excessive number of superfluous administrators. She should focus on the primary goals of the university- teaching and research through the summer by faculty and students.
President SAUNDERS implements all this nonsense about increased teaching, even though she must know that this has a terrible impact on research. It would help if seh spent her efforts on finding ways to save money, e.g. by closing some campuses and by reducing the number of administrators. Then there would be more money the pay decent salaries to active researchers. Just not raising salaries and making everybody teach more is the worst decision ever!
find way to bring her husband to FAU.
Need to still prove her good leadership skills
make her many activities in support of the breadth of our students, faculty and our University community clear. Many think she only supports the foorball team and raises money for board-driven programs, yet she supports so many aspects of the university, including all of the FAU men’s and women’s sport events and keeps our public face good. She also knows about our burrowing owls. I think she is the first president to know where they live and know where to find them.
Understand the history and the constituents. Stop micromanaging. Recruit senior leaders for their quality and commitment rather than their willingness to agree
Put resources back into the Northern Campuses to build new and existing programs. The TCC is the only university in three surrounding counties. There is a need for programs at this campus. Our administrators need to study this area and recognize the potential for growth. It’s unfortunate that IRSC seems to have more of a vision for this untapped pool of students.
Resign.
have upon her arrival and the start of the budget crisis restructured the budget so that the reserves were no longer relied upon as part of the operating budget. How else do you explain that FAU is the only SUS institution that is facing furloughs, campuses closing, reabsorbed lines, etc.? Why does every other institution have a budget that doesn’t rely on selling out the stadium to host outside events in order make ends meet? What happens to the Kaye Auditorium? How do they meet their budget, they are also unfunded and have to run a commercial enterprise in order to be a viable presence on our campus. This is a lot like being foreclosed upon, and it didn’t have to happen.
Resist micromanaging and focus on development opportunities for FAU. Provide strong independent leadership.
Realize that increasing the administrative population of the University in time of financial crisis is not effective. It has lent itself to creating an air of mistrust and low morale. Surrounding oneself with “colleagues” with whom one is comfortable but who are woefully ill-suited for the job does not show leadership. It shows panic (at best) and incompetence (at worst).
Resign
support faculty in a fair way. How can we be a research institution with threats of teaching more? The objectives of FAU must be made clear. There are conflicting messages about research and teaching,
SO insecure that everyone suffers. Stop yelling and throwing tantrums – listen and learn and communicate.
Find ways to cut budgets that include consideration of the importance of academics to the overall value of the University. She should also reconsider the ridiculous idea of growing the student body rapidly and focus more on finding fewer, higher quality students and thousands of students who are often barely literate.
stop encouraging the provost
leave
surround herself by people who will give her good advice and not fire them if they don’t tell her what she wants to hear.
I’m impressed with President Saunders, but the structural problems at FAU are formidable, severe, and intractable. I fear she won’t be able to make any progress solving them because of the combined effects of a useless and incompetent board and the budget cuts from the legislature.
So far very good but needs to supervise the Provost better.
take the next flight back to Cleveland.
listen to faculty complaints more openly. Sometimes administrators are making arbitrary decisions without fully understanding the consequences to individual colleges. Also, there needs to be a more vigorous fund-raising campaign on behalf of FAU.
Be realistic about what’s possible in this budgetary environment. Yes, it would be great to be a Research One university but is it realistic? If FAU couldn’t get lots of research funding during the boom years, why would it be able to do so now?
resign. She is terrible. Simply awful.
It seems President S. does not believe that all professors deserve a fair middle-class wage. New hires in Arts and Letters now have higher salaries than Associate Professors who have given 10-15 years of their career to FAU. Shame on you!!!
same as Provost in regard to cutting classes. It’s not an option.
Work more closely with faculty to make better decisions.
-there has been gross mismanagement at the U for years – President Saunders needs to step up and be better than what has happened in the past. She needs to disclose the real budget and funding sources.- layoff administrators she recently hired to save $.
-understand a university requires excellence across areas and depth in what is offered. There is no such thing as a univiersity that is good in only a few areas.

-hire administrators that respect education and
Already proving to be the worst president in FAU
step aside and stop fooling herself that she can lead
-listen to those who DO the work
-develop a strategy that is not fraught with contradictions -reconsider her top to bottom decision-making approach
Make decisions with more regard for faculty
Answered faculty questions. Had concern for faculty AT
Consult faculty, staff, and Deans about curricular
Realize we cannot become a research one university with *Or* work on the “research one” goal,
be fired
Resign!
Be more transparent about University funds.
Saunders needs to actually listen to the faculty. She
Treat UFF with greater respect. Consult with faculty
admit that the cost of her enrollment strategy vastly
MJ is quite good with giving speeches. I think she has I am somewhat concerned that what MJ says is not consistent with her I am also concerned that she and the Provost are As an example, I have been told that MJ has overruled the process to
Not just give lip service to academics but actually
Resign. She is not qualified for the position she
Look into whether the Provost’s Office
President Saunders needs to trust her deans and
recognize that the “old hats” at FAU are
Stop firing people if they say something you don’t like
work toward having goals that do not conflict with each
Keep leading (and your chin up) during these Carefully look at those in her inner circle regarding
Needs to be more visible
makes too much money, take a pay cut in this economy
“evaluate all admin and chairs formally,”
President Saunders is concerned only with the Medical
have maintained the level openness she brought with
stop privileging certain colleges (science, medicine)
advocate more for professors and students
get more pay and travel money for us to do research
be present and visit all colleges more at meetings
demand quality from your admin and staff
Allow departments and colleges to fix the summer
listen to the faculty
… use Quality of Life (UNESCO)indices, rather than
Keep doing the best she can during these trying times! I am disturbed by the recent media (social and other) about the
The jury is out regarding President Saunders and how
be concerned about all faculty in all departments and
I did not think she occupied an interim position
uplift the plight of faculty members –
communicate openly with faculty. Most of what I know

Additional comments about Interim President SAUNDERS: are paid less – actually wanting to work for the good of education and the students history. Sorry to be blunt, but the reality of her administration is that she fires people who disagree with her because she can, she surrounds herself by people who fail to give her good advice because she thinks she knows everything, and is so thin-skinned that she cannot make decisions that might make her appear weak, LIKE LISTENING TO THE FACULTY this university. This administration is going to undermine the academic integrity of the institution. (i.e. making FAU a research 1 university while cutting funding and increasing class caps and student numbers)
/> we are forced to let go instructors input. ALL. Cared about junior faculty. decisions…and economic ones if she is in the dark about what courses and programs make money…and which ones don’t. This seems obvious…and it’s troubling that this is not already happening. higher teaching loads, job insecurity for untenured intructurs, and extreme penny-pinching.*Either* focus on cost-effectiveness & suopport for student retention — perhaps even raising teaching loads for tenure track profs but keeping course sizes low — while cutting research requirments.
protecting 2-3 tenure line teaching loads, providing summer work to off-set our low salaries,and giving us time to research. has had sessions to talk to her, but it’s like speaking to a brick wall. If your opinion does not mesh with hers, it is dismissed out of hand. She needs to understand that one-size-does-not-fit-all with education, and what works in one program or discipline will not work for another. and UFF in a more meaningful way. exceeds the benefits; pay less attn to sports and more to inherited corruption; stop promoting more multiple choice education; give a hoot about democracy. done well in representing the university in public speaking roles. She seems to have a decent sense of what FAU is in the community. Her skills on a one on one basis could use improvement. I know of big donors ($50,000+) who have commented to me that she ignores them at some functions. I have met her about 10 times and does not appear to recognize me. I sent her an email once on a topic where she was soliciting input and never heard a word from her.
actions. I appreciate the strain of the budget crisis but she should not assure students that they will not be affected and then cancel classes they need to graduate. The faculty has to deal with the dissatisfaction of our customers when expectations are not managed.
micromanaging the units. I have heard quite a number of people comment on this and believe it could be a significant short coming if it continues. The number of times I have heard this suggests at a minimum, MJ is perceived as a micromanager. Faculty are best positioned to determine standards, course offerings, etc. and I know of a couple of incidents where the upper administration has overruled the views of the faculty. In the long run, I think this can lead to difficulty in managing the programs at the ground level. The upper administration may not appreciate the nuances that go into some of the faculty recommendations.
control admission quality in the unit. I understand that she wants significant access to education for students, but faculty have to maintain admission standards and deal with unprepared students. Admissions and upholding standards is particularly important for the professions such as nursing, medicine, accounting, etc. support it. currently fills. We need a leader who is more experienced during these turbulent times. is indeed doing their job. administrators and learn to listen to them. She should not be cutting salaries and adding new windows and a shower to her office. Her emphasis should be on the education of all the students, not the football stadium or the medical school. often elephants that could no longer get hired or “outside of school”. Less micromanaging. other. We are expected increase FTE and retain students when more and more is taken away from faculty. challenging times! She attends the University Senate meetings and a number of other events on campus – huge plus. This shows us that she cares and that she is available to answer questions and address issues raised. The communities like her very much, from what I hear.
their leadership. The “crazy girl at FAU” event was unfortunate, but the media/new media relations after the event could have been handled better. Why did the university not have a press conference immediately to address questions and assure the public that 1) the matter was under control, 2) the issue was isolated and 3) steps are being taken to address any underlying issues? Reputation management is important and I know the president understands that…but, her vice presidents and others need to step up and provide leadership because she cannot do alone. /> stop the mediocrity College. She says what she thinks people want to hear and then focuses only on her interests. her. over other colleges. schedule. neo-liberal market-driven policies to guide FAU into the future. She is a positive role model for women and represents our university well. The community and students like her. Most faculty like her, but have concerns about management issues within the university.
“crazy girl at FAU” and the “residence life” postings. I do not understand why Dr. Brown has been allowed to send so many communications that are causing these stories to have legs and continue negative publicity about our university. The university needs better reputation management leadership, not just media relations staff doing business the old ways. The same is true about the protest about the course offerings. President Saunders would be better served by changing leadership in some areas so we have a better image of our university in this age of social media. She needs some respected and trusted anonymous advisors to routinely give her a feel for the pulse of the university and about rumors. she is/will handle this budget crisis. To date, I am not impressed. all colleges. salary is one. about what is happening at FAU, I learn through the local media.

She seems very distant from the faculty and speaks in generalities that are very difficult to decipher. She needs to make more of an effort connecting with and explaining herself to faculty, as well as listening more effectively.
take care of your faculty before they all leave as they are grossly underpaid in the college of arts and letters especially. The advantages (financially and teaching load) of professors in other colleges are grotesquely unfair!
President Saunders is being hurt by a few of her hires, who are not well-suited for their jobs and therefore make it hard for the President to accomplish her goals for the university’s development. The gap between President Saunders’ abilities and those of some of her appointments is shocking.
President Saunders has apparently been tasked with transforming FAU into a privatized factory that will simultaneously save the state money and churn out as many diplomas as possible. I’m not sure she’s happy about the fact that this is what is expected of her, but in any event she’s going along with it. Most frustrating of all is the rhetoric about turning FAU into a research university that at this point convinces no one. Let’s just announce that the state has no interest in having a public education system, declare FAU private, and be done with it.
President Saunders represents the school well in the community. I was impressed by her op-ed in the Palm Beach Post in reaction to the state government’s proposed cutbacks.
FAU cannot be administered with the expectations of University of Florida and the resources of Palm Beach College. Growth is great, but not at the expense of quality.
worse than the last one and has some strange e-learning ideas
Only Saunders can claim that reducing a 60 million budget cut to a 30 million budget cut is a success.
Her personnel decisions have been awful! She has probably made more bad hires than all her predecessors combined, in a remarkably short time. She acts as though she has completely forgotten what faculty do, and is tone-deaf about how they think.
She should realize that the students and faculty are at the heart of a well recognized university, not excessive levels of administration. She should appoint a new dean of graduate studies who will work with and for the faculty and not be a “yes” man for the president.
When did Dr. Saunders become Interim President? Is this another example of our University making adminstrative decisions without consulting the faculty?
Need to do something about the serious morale problem at the University.
The jury is still out. Dr. Saunders has assumed the leadership of the university at a time when the ongoing fiscal crisis (much of it, admittedly, engineered by the legislature) makes an assessment of her performance very difficult. There are some concerns here, however. The idea that we can simply grow our way out of the budget crisis is suspect. Adding students without investing in tenure-line faculty and infrastructure, as Dr. Saunders appears to be doing, degrades the quality of education for our students. I’m also puzzled by the emphasis on online education. The university has spent lots of money to remodel the Boca Campus into a more traditional, residential university (e.g. dorms, football stadium, health club). Encouraging students to take courses online appears to be at cross purposes with the objective of the recent construction. There has also been a tendency to take a one-size-fits-all approach to the online model. In some disciplines, perhaps, online learning may be effective; I’m very skeptical of its value in the humanities and social sciences (my own area), which place a premium on critical reading, analysis, and interpretation, rather than a rote memorization and recitation of the “facts.”
She is impressive as a representative of the university & obviously very smart. She claims to be interested in students, but she needs to translate that concern into the conditions under which they are learning. Like many university presidents, she would be well-served if she thought creatively about resditributing some of the administrative resources to the faculty. I like her, however, and think she has made some good judgments.
She needs to listen and take some direction from the fine faculty here at FAU. She is too thin-skinned.
I wish she would bring in more liberal arts scholars into her administration. It is scandalous that the president, provost, and vp for research/graduate dean are all from the sciences/engineering fields.
Pres. Saunders has weak leadership skills. She has been invisible to faculty & staff, makes decisions based on inaccurate data, and has hired several high level administrators at lavish salaries while cutting support for students & faculty.
When I first heard President Saunders talk about her concern for the quality of the education provided here at FAU, I believed her. Now I don’t; not with increased class sizes, last minute decisions about course caps, less monies for support staff including TA’s, and the decision to increase a course cap based on the size of the room. What academic nonsense is that???
One of the worst president’s in FAU’s history. Completely incompetent and failing the university. She has dug us into a hole.
I feel my college has been deliberately marginalized, and the more I hear the President speak about our strategic plan, I realize that there isn’t going to be one that focuses on the strengths presented by our college. Even if her mission is that our college provides auxiliary support to the medical school, that concerns me as our disciplines are usually the ones that medical schools target when they are looking for strong candidates. How do we foster strong intellect, critical thinking and academic focus when we will rely on other institutions to provide these for medical school candidates–our college will certainly not be funded in order to provide this academic foundation for our own students.
The university needs someone who knows how to administer a universit
fire her immediately
This is a time for real leadership at FAU, and the President and Provost just don’t cut it.
Behind the Mary Poppins facade is a ruthless control freak administrator who fancies faculty as essentially hamburger.
Pres. Saunders has had to deal with the poor performance of those who preceded her.
Why didn’t the university have some contingency plans for dealing with the latest round of budget cuts? Anyone who watched Florida politics knew that some cuts were coming. Many people predicted that they would be big cuts. Other universities made plans. FAU did nothing, unless there are some secret plans sitting in a vault somewhere….
nobody needs a tyrant. I am delighted to learn from this prompt that she may now be ‘interim.’ That is the best news of the year.
There is no transparency. There is no open communication with faculty. Faculty in our college are hopelessly underpaid. FAU is financed on our backs and those of the students. Listen to faculty and give them the respect they deserve. Keep your personal notes and engraved paper weights for 10 or 20 years of our lives and pay us a decent wage instead so we can get ourselves out of debt and feed our children!
She does seem concerned, passionate and compassionate. I like her very much personally. I like her initiatives and her openness to faculty.
SACS process seems driven by fear and anxiety. Policies surrounding delivery of courses feel arbitrary,
It is hard to say how much she is is to blame for what is happening to the budget but it certainly wasn’t disclosed to faculty that the U had a large reserve of money – she rewards those who say yes to her – she needs to look deeper at who she rewards and supports – she has left the students hanging over cancellation of summer classes in a capricious manner, not taking into account differences in programs – she has not stepped forward to state CEARLY and directly what she is planning to do about fall classes and what her overall agenda is
Seriously, in these budget times….we are putting in windows in the administration building for a new hire of hers, and a bathroom next to her office…she lives, what 500 yards from the building….MJ…leading means demonstrating by example that you can do without at a time when faculty phone lines are being cut, travel is being cut, Summer is being cut, and faculty salaries are being cut…have you no shame Madame president….
Administrative philosophy is too top-down for university setting.
She seems to know little about FAU, but insists on making “strong” and stubborn decisions which hurt the students and faculty anyway. We all know we are in a budget crisis at the moment, but we should work together to make decisions to help the university. Acting unilaterally, as President Saunders seems to want to do is harmful to education AND to the economic health of the university.
Even after knowing her for a few years, I can’t really say much about her.
She says contradictory things about supporting excellence in all fields on the one hand, and on the other, supporting mostly STEM fields, and on the third, she doesn’t seem willing to cut administrative positions or salaries rather than academic programs.
She appears to be doing as well as she can considering the budget cuts. I think is would be better to close a campus rather than to hinder the education of the students by increasing class sizes and cutting viable programs.
She has no integrity. Such lackey to Tallahassee and big business.
While it is important for Pres. Saunders put a good face on how FAU will respond to budget cuts by keeping a positive climate for students, we also need her to acknowledge that these budget cuts are very harmful to faculty and students and university in general. They are not sustainable and do not lead to quality education as faculty have to work more for less.
An excellent President!!!!!
as far as I know she is not an interim president.
Interim President SAUNDERS? Interim? Really? Freudian slip anyone?
President Saunders seems to have effectively shielded herself from faculty input. E-mails and letters from faculty (even if endorsed by the Dean) are often ignored. It may be a good idea to set monthly President-Faculty open forums.
Not long ago our faculty received a e-mail directive forbidding faculty from initiating any contact with FAU BOT members. In that e-mail we were also asked to report to the Provost office any conversation initiated by a trustee. Has the BOT itself been consulted before such e-mail was sent?
President Saunders must establish a stronger community and local political support to herself as a President. We all pay the price if she is not successful in doing so.
President Saunders must improve her reaching out efforts to our local Jewish community. We do a great job in Lifelong Learning Education. The potential is there to be equally successful in the Jewish Studies and Holocaust Studies programs and in better utilizing the Florida-Israel Institute to promote closer academic collaboration with Israeli scientists and scholars.
The latest FAU Research brochure has nothing but Science. Would it be a good idea to change the university’s name to Florida Atlantic Institute of Science? We already have two biologists at the top who seem to be unappreciative of good research and scholar work done in all other FAU colleges.
And speaking of Science, more has to be done at no less than the Presidential level to much better tie FAU faculty and students to research done at Scripps, Max Plank and other local biotech institutes. FAU is stationed ideally and yet it seems that we are close to dropping the ball. What happened to the “Jupiter Initiative”?
Recent budget cuts have affected all Florida universities. Yet some universities (such as FIU) continue to hire faculty and strive aggressively to maintain ambitious research and education agenda. FAU in comparison seems to have drifted into deep coma. Even at times of severe budget cuts leaders must exercise vision and try to find a way to continue to invest.
I appreciate that she has a strong personality. I also appreciate the pay raise she offered in her inaugural year. She could use that strength of personality to make faculty feel more consistently appreciated by the administration.
President Saunders has clearly shown what’s important to her. She has no interest in protecting the faculty, engaging the faculty, or listening to them. Numbers matter, nothing else. Quality to be sacrificed for quantity, dissenters routinely ignored.
She’s an awful public speaker, too. Her interviews and speeches are stilted, and sound like she’s reading off a script.
Streamline administration before just cutting classes and adjuncts.
Bigger classes are not necessarily better.
Some classes are being cut at 23 students – this is ridiculous – if we have an adjunct teach such a course, the university is making money. The cut off class should be based on where FAU breaks even on offering a class. Cutting summer classes is unfair to students.
it is hard to imagine someone worse than her predecessor, or his predecessor for that matter, but lo, it is possible after all.
she should care as much for the faculty as she does for the students

I think that overall she has the tools to be a great president. I think expectations for positive change were high after Brogan. I don’t envy the position she is in at this time.
MJ is awesome
Pres. Saunders’ focus has been on STEM-related disciplines leaving aside liberal arts and the caring professions of social work, nursing, and education. The latter fields promote the development of a social conscience of our diverse communities. As a faculty member in the College of Education, I believe that the quality of life in our diverse communities is more closely related to quality K-12 education (and the work of FAU Education/Social Work, etc. professors) than to NSF grants and discoveries in biomedicine & technology. This is a matter of leadership and listening to all voices in the community.
She is a hard worker and I truly believe she is good for our university. But, she needs to get the right people in positions of leadership to 1) manage the media (our message is more than the newspapers and television), 2) student affairs (too many announcements about events that cause stories to have legs) and 3) get the right academic leadership in place who understand simple aspects of course scheduling and enrollment management (summer and fall scheduling has been a disaster). She is very visible and attends events at the Faculty Club, Faculty Senate and student events…all appreciated and respected.
President Saunders communicates with faculty but has bias toward certain disciplines.
We cannot increase FTE while sections of courses are dropped without the slightest consideration.
Also, I would strongly ask that President Saunders consider how faculty will be able to stay here and continue to live on the salaries that are paid, particularly if courses are taken away or summer pay is not granted. Most of us are barely making it as it stands with little/no raises in the past 5 years.
I think President Saunders is doing a good job, especially in light of the challenges put before her. She is articulate, gives faculty her time at meetings, attends events, and works very hard for our university.
I do think she should consider reducing the salaries and/or numbers of senior administrators on her team. I appreciate the fact that she has said she is protecting tenured and tenure earning faculty in the budget cutting processes. This speaks loudly regarding her values.
I like the fact that she set up a budget input system whereby employees can offer suggestions. This helps keep a door open for input. Thank you.
It is difficult for presidents not to feel pain when critics throw arrows, but I encourage MJ to try her best to not let the naysayers and hateful critics get her down.
Keep your eye on the prize – students and their success. Support faculty and their efforts to ensure student success.
go to all campuses more
stop the waste in admin at the upper levels.
less emphasis on sports
consolidate more depts. and colleges to save money
stop the mediocrity in poor chairs and the way they treat students and faculty
allow us to evaluate all admin and chairs in a formal visible way.
Forget about the Medical College. There is a greater university that needs your support.
Quit being a toy in the hands of right wing politicians.
Students have been hurt by the budget cuts and the course schedule is not robust, thus it would be better to tell the truth. Perhaps in the colleges favored by the president students have not been hurt by budget cuts.
conslidate small dept. and save money take a cut in pay
stop all the waste
evaluate all admin at every levle not just use this eval from UFF, but institute an eval for all chairs, deans, assco dean,s provosts, etc. more eval and more effectiveness expected from leaders
take a huge cut in pay
stop the waste

2011-12 Administrator Survey Written Comments

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