Results of 2010-11 Faculty Assessment of Administrators – Individual Comments

The university would be better served if Dean PENDAKUR would:

be reappointed to serve another term as Dean. Leave get rid of his tin ear. He has a way of saying things badly, so that they can be taken in the worst posssible way by the many faculty all too eager to find offense in the deans words. retire. He does nothing to make the college better. He is only interested in what will get donations from the rich and approval from the provost. He is completely indifferent to most of the disciplines in the college and makes no effort to learn about areas other than his own. Most of what he does is for show and not to make a real difference. He has lied to so many people and mistreated so many people that no one trusts him. He makes a great pretense of honoring diversity of opinion but he holds a grudge against those who disagree with him. This does not build a collegial culture. We have concluded that we cannot trust him. He lied about what was going on in philosophy and about the “secret” lobbying for Communication to provide a soft landing place for his friends while he let the rest of the department drift into a decline that would justify closing it. He acted irresponsibly and unethically in this matter. He lives in a bubble in which he is always right and everyone who disagrees with him is always wrong. He refuses to pay any attention to the unglamorous but essential operations of the departments, like their clerical support, and prefers to take a “beatings will continue until morale improves” approach to improving how we operate. Disappointing. FAU can do better. step down. He lacks leadership integrity, exhibits favoritism, bullies female faculty and chairs, knows very little about research, gossips and acts uncollegial in many other ways, and is a barrier to academic and research excellence. Attend charm school. Resign Resign or be fired Be more willing to admit when he makes a mistake. There are some faculty who will see him as a force of evil no matter what, but the vast majority of people want him to succeed. We appreciate the good ideas he has brought and the positive things he has done for the college, but there are other times where he digs in too much on an issue and gets defensive when others disagree with him. Resign or be terminated. act like a leader rather than a ruler. Learn to accept disagreement. Stop bullying the chairs and faculty. Stop telling us how it is done at a “real” university — we are tired of his implicit message that we and FAU are third rate. Stop pretending that he is consulting us when he is really telling us what he is going to do. He should definitely resign or be fired. Be given the funding needed to fulfill the goals of the College. Be given the faculty lines needed to fulfill the demands of the College. leave. He has failed to apologize for his abusive behavior, claiming instead to be the victim of a smear campaign. Stop acting to preserve his power and start operating according to principles of faculty governance. fire Lester Embree. Resign immediately resign step down as Dean of the College. resign or be removed from this office. He is authoritarian, self-indulgent, and cruel. If he is allowed to continue, the college will suffer. be fired. Pay an equal amount of attention to the present circumstances of our college as he does to the future. Be more decisive in dealing with (and even getting rid of) renegade eminent scholars who are destroying the college. The “scholars” seem untouchable and should be subject to a higher standard and the most rigorous evaluation. be consistent is his evaluation of faculty. Resign, be fired or otherwise relieved of duties. Actively advocate and promote the Graduate Programs. be more transparent. With the Dean and with most administrators, the atmosphere has become that faculty believe the administration has a clear and established agenda that they introduce to faculty only a bit at a time, without taking us into consultation, and basically not being fully honest about the direction of the college or U. Not be here. be reassigned to faculty and never serve in administrative capacity again reconsider faculty parking in the CU parking lot, which is empty Mon-Thurs until the movies begin after 5:00PM make faculty welcome and encourage respect among faculty and collaboration discusses overtly his vision of the college, so that faculty can assist and/or contribute to make the college a better working place resign immediately get rid of biased chairs Get fired Be fired. This is a career administrator who has no interest in the college beyond what it can do for him. He is highly prejudicial, without integrity, and without academic merit. He should not have survived as long as he has, it the fact that he is still in the position says too much about our lack of a Provost and the administration’s failure to pay attention to the academic and research needs of the college. He is, without exception, the worst dean we have had in my time here, which is considerable. WE MUST HAVE A CHANGE. listen to informed faculty and only act on something after seeking input from knowledgeable people – and taking that information into the decision making process create an atmosphere of collaboration, less of an attitude of fear and uncertainty in the college resign. It’s been 3 years since he came to FAU, and the damage he has done to this college is tremendous. Faculty morale is at the lowest point for a long time. His initial assessment of the college was shaped by a few people, and he began his tenure at FAU with the determination to do the following: discipline a couple of eminent scholars, undo the PhD programs, undermine Women’s Studies, and create a culture of fear among his chairs. His treatment of the eminent scholars has been so unfair that even faculty who didn’t like these eminents are sympathetic to them. He has handled Philosophy pooly, letting his personal feelings override the college interest. His failure to take swift action with Philosophy has led the department to the present chaos. Keeping secret the two individuals’ request to transfer to Communication threw this college into a deep crises. He neither consulted senior faculty, nor his chairs about his decision to terminate a junior faculty member in Philosophy. The culture of the college, as a result, is so poisoned by his unilateral decision that most junior faculty live in fear. Focus the college resources on research-generating and grant-generating activities. Be dismissed. Consider redistributing resources to a more fair and equal system; do more to encourage senior faculty members to be involved on campus; provide a more formal mentoring process for junior faculty members allow faculty who make less than 60K to teach 2 classes in the summer! be removed, and a search started for a competent leader of the college. He must first remove (immediately)his associate deans, who have zero credibility in the college and send them back to the classroom. The dean must then resign, issue a public apology for being such a poor dean, and go back to the classroom. Publicly apologize to all faculty and resign. Be mindful of faculty processes. The dean needs to make sure faculty feel heard and empowered to avoid making himself a target for criticism. He will aways need to make unpopular decisions. Resign, and sooner rather than later. His administration has allowed the philosophy department to fall into disrepair, and acted in an unprecedentedly authoritarian manner in firing one of the college’s brightest young talents, Dr. Niemi. The responsibility for this travesty and others lands at his feet, and he should have the balls to either step down or rectify his mistakes. But I doubt the administration at FAU, primarily the Provost, has the slightest interest in improving these particular academic matters. Shame upon them. Be fired! resign or be removed Leave, be fired, find another place to work, retire. resign and leave. His policies are self-serving and his behavior mercurial. resign Resign, frankly. Visit departments more often… resign (1) …learn about the college and the university. He jumps to conclusions and is impatient with discussion. Even when he is incorrect in his assumptions about the facts, he will not revisit his conclusions. 2) … tell the truth, get the facts, and deal with problems proactively. He dissembles when he should speak truthfully. The recent flap regarding the philosophy department is a good example. Initially, he averred that there was no foundation to the rumor that two philosophy faculty were applying to join another department. Five minutes later, he contradicted himself by going into a tirade about how it was their right as faculty to look for another department. He was so rattled that he didn’t seem to realize that he had tripped himself up. At that same meeting, he strained credulity by asserting that his role as dean did not permit him to interfere in this matter. Inasmuch as both people were administrators (the chair of philosophy and an associate dean), they reported directly to him. It does seem a violation of some basic principles of administrative responsibility that he permitted Headley to continue to chair a department while simultaneously trying to persuade another department to permit him to transfer into it. One would think that this would constitute a de facto act of job abandonment. The chair should either have been working wholeheartedly to solve the problems in the department or removed from the position. If Headley believed he was able to transfer out of Philosophy, he had no stake in finding a resolution. The details of the imbroglio do not reflect well on the dean. The dean made every attempt to shroud it in secrecy. He handled the entire philosophy matter in the most unbecoming way. It looked as if he was trying to find a safe place for his friends (Headley and Banchetti) so that he could close the department and lay off the people that he did not like. That is not the kind of move that builds confidence in a dean. In the end, the entire affair blew up in his face. It was this year’s best example of the problems with his approach to solving problems. He did not try to solve the problem when the philosophy faculty came to him to complain about the chair. He let it fester. Then, he tried to solve the problem in an underhanded way. Ellsberg’s recent visit prompted a number of us to discuss the ways in which Pendakur’s style resembles Richard Nixon’s: scheme, stonewall, dissemble, and try to destroy all challengers. (3) …learn how to talk with his colleagues. He is a bully and a martinet. He takes it as a personal affront if you do not embrace his position. He is disingenuous in his claims that he encourages frank discussion. No one disagrees with him to his face because (a) he never changes his mind and (b) he always finds a way to punish those who disagree with him. If he was making the college better, maybe more of us would tolerate his autocratic ways. But the college seems to be increasingly dysfunctional. I was no great fan of Covino’s, but at least he tried to get people to broaden their horizons and think about the college and the university.(4)….if he would realize that he is the one responsible for the negative opinions of him held by so many faculty. He had tremendous support when he first arrived. There was widespread enthusiasm at the prospect of new leadership. He squandered every ounce of that good will during his first year here. Take a pay cut. Resign. He lacks the personal qualities necessary to lead a college, including honesty, fairness, dignity, and discretion. He personalizes every decision, weighing nicely its benefits on the scale of his likes and dislikes. He constantly gossips about faculty foibles–to other faculty–in a manner unbecoming an administrator. When he chose not to renew the contract of a tenure track faculty member without any apparent substantive reason, he frightened and demoralized many other faculty members and made it more difficult to recruit new faculty members. His appointment and subsequent defense of the former Chair of Philosophy was an unmitigated disaster that showed the Dean’s inappropriate partiality and poor judgment. We may have had worse deans in our college, but Dean Pendakur does not meet minimal standards of competence. The question is why the faculty and the administration cannot seem to hire a competent dean.

Additional comments about Dean PENDAKUR:

Pendakur can appear to be charming, supportive and hard-working. He has been a generally good advocate for the college. But the real story of the college’s last 3 years is more complex and it is no secret that hsi administration has been controversial (if only FAU had delved more thoroughly into the SIU scandal).Pendakur has managed to almost completely destroy the morale and energy of this vibrant college and its outstanding faculty. His intimidating and unpredictable personality, coupled with his blatant favoritism towards specific faculty members and programs have marked him as untrustworthy. While posing as consultive, he makes decisions unilaterally and then presents them to his “management team” as fait accompli. His handling of the debacle in the philosophy department was deceitful and unethical. He has allowed Communications to engage in empire building at other departments’ expense – and this was embarrassingly transparent when Headley and Banchetti were allowed to secretly ask to be moved to that school. On a day to day basis, he is disorganized, easily overwhelmed, forgetful – alternating between cozying up to chairs and senior faculty to curry support and exhibiting adolescent judgments and behaviors when crossed. He claims to enjoy debate, but woe betide any faculty member or chair who stands toe to toe with him in honest disagreement. He is unable to manage a college of this size and scope and unable to create an open atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. He has passed off as “jokes” countless insulting and offensive comments. He places a huge amount of work on the shoulders of Stockard and then assigns Banchetti simple tasks that she then turns into needlessly complex and overblown projects. He does not have the set of skills required to be a good administrator. He just is not the man for the job. Dean Pendakur made me feel very uncomfortable during a meeting with myself and some other faculty. He made a comment about my appearance that he might have intended as a compliment. But it was clearly sexist. I am not in a position to discuss this with anyone, or report my discomfort. I understand that this sort of comment is not unusual for him. Dean Pendakur is the best Dean that this College has seen in its history. He has weathered all of the unjustified attacks against him with a great deal of professionalism, grace, and humility. He is a very friendly and engaging person, who is blessed with a delightful sense of humor (which probably helps him in dealing with this College). This dean is the best we’ve had in my (20+ year) memory. He’s not perfect. But I respect him more than I do the self-serving motives of those seeking to bring him down. He still doesn’t know much about the college. He makes statements about our programs that are not accurate but no one dares to correct him because he is notorious for always having to be right. The situation in the Dept. of Philosophy should have been addressed much sooner than it was, rather than allowing it to fester, persuading colleagues into believing that Philosophy faculty were advocating to disband their department, and causing consternation and dismay among School of Communication faculty. The President and the Provost know of the dean’s poor leadership and the faculty’s lack of confidence in him, have considerable evidence of his abusive and demeaning manner, as well as his total lack of leadership, Its time for a change Apart from the numerous instances of unprofessional conduct i am certain will be recounted by many other faculty in the college, Dean Pendakur does not seem to have a good grasp of the considerable work that he could and should be doing in his job. His work hours are short, but i don’t know that this is of significant consequence since I don’t think he knows how best to direct his administrative attention. Even when he formally seeks advice from college faculty on important college matters (e.g., the budget advisory committee), he runs the meetings in such a manner that no substantive decisions get made. He then makes decisions in consultation only with a very small group of his friends, although claiming to have acted on the basis of broad consultation. A big disappointment. No vision, poor judgment, plays favorites, untrustworthy, self-serving. And what kind of self-proclaimed leftist calls his chairs his “management council”? And then makes snide comments about the way that the corporate model has penetrated the universities? He might as well be Henry Ford, for all that he cares about democracy and the well-being of his employees (aka his colleagues, although he doesn’t think of them as such). Under the current dean, faculty are demoralized and demotivated; there is rampant favoritism to promote the few who would go along with the status quo and the decisions imposed from above. I feel that Dean Pendakur has been unfairly targeted for many problems now facing the faculty. He is not a racist, sexist, homophobe, anti-semite. And it is unfortunate that this discourse about him is so vocal and present, where it seems to me that most faculty either have no opinion about him or actually like him. Though Dean Pendakur sought to change his image after last year’s evaluation, for which he exhibited endless whinning to all of the departments, He still does not understand how to lead without seeming as though every action is a kneejerk, poorly condsidered and unaware of consequences. He still micromanages(perhaps less overtly)but he still he seeks to lead by veiled threats and emotional bluster. His disingenuous attempts at comradery are condecending and embarassing. His meeting style is tedious, taking more time than necessary to explain the obvious and using moments to self congratulate in a desperate attempt to seek respect. He is a person to be feared for his pettiness and his capacity for retribution. There simply is not enough space in this evaluation to list the problems of the College as a direct result of his tenure as dean. He is absolutely the worst dean this college has ever had. The best thing Diane Alperin and the President could do to save the college’s credibility is fire him immediately. It is a shame that the administration continues to enable a sad situtation by keeping him in office. Shame on the administration for keeping Dean MP in his administrative post. The faculty have spoken….Remove Him!!!! The longer the administration keeps him as dean the more liable it makes us all for his complete lack of leadership. It really is a sad situation and we are not sure who to blame and who to help us. Resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, resign, Burdens the Dept. Chairs with too much busy work. Goodbye. Each week, Dean Pendakur reaches new heights of weirdness. He’s a hateful, small person–a bully, an anti-semite, and a misogynist with a smarmy and smerky grin. He loves to talk the talk of academic life, esp. on long breaks at Starbucks. But that’s not the real Dean P. Rather, he attacks and humiliates. He needs to remain longer and study harder at his assigned charm school class.Here’s the second amazing aspect of Pendakur’s tenure. Faculty have made regular visits to the Third Floor. Yet he remains in office. Don’t you wonder why several provosts and presidents have retained this creepy guy? MJ should have had the last provost clear house for her. Now, months later, he remains in office, what lesson is she sending to us? He runs the college like a corrupt political boss, i.e., patronage for his cronies and crums for his detractors. This dean is terminally insecure and incompetent. This would simply be pathetic but that he acts out his shortcomings in a vindictive and unprofessional demeanor. The actions of a bully. He truly does believe that the faculty exists to make him look good, quite openly treating them as his staff. He does not understand the role of a Dean in an academic setting nor can be muster the ability (and I doubt he has any) to act professionally in his position. He has been simply appalling for the College, alienating most of the faculty, talking openly behind their backs (reminiscent of high-school politics) and when actions do not go his way, pouting. His actions are anything but transparent in intent but become transparent in action. That he went to each Department’s meeting and pouted about the last administrative review (it will hurt the faculty to attack him) was pitiful enough, sadly showing that he has no ability to be introspective about his role and behavior in soliciting these evaluations, not to mention his appropriate role in the College as its chief administrator. Too, his behavior towards women and even his treatment of potential hires has proven him to be both misogynistic and biased. It is clear that this Dean cannot understand how to administer in an academic environment, and he must go. His actions around the philosophy department debacle—shopping around his shunned friend (the Chair, who did not have the experience or abilities to run a department and should not have been appointed to that position in the first place) to Communications while promising lines to Communications to take him, all while claiming no role in the proceedings is enough data in itself to shed the College of this destructive element. Beyond the horrendous attempts at skirting faculty input and his pension for lying—he simply is one of the worst academic politicians I have ever encountered. As an aside, I am not a member of the Philosophy department, nor a woman.The College is at an historic low-point of morale, and he has played more of a role in creating that condition than the State. Please, please let us find a competent Dean to represent and lead the College rather than a career administrator who seems incapable of learning from his actions. We should have paid more attention to what happened in his last position. There is, in fact, some good faculty in this College. Whether we manage to keep any of them remains to be seen. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we actually had a Dean who respected faculty, encouraged research and teaching, and focused on the College rather than himself. We still must try. He has to go. He has an authoritarian management style, which has bred a culture of fear in the College. He has lost the respect of many people who had high hopes for his administration when he began. It is impossible to respect an administrator who does not show respect for those whose well being it is his duty to promote. He uses threats and strong arm methods. It will take this college a long time to recover from his so-called leadership. It is sad that so many programs have been weakened by his poor judgements. More disheartening has been the higher administration’s apparent indifference to his destructive and inhumane treatment of individuals and programs. For whatever reason, Dean Pendakur entered the job with a derisive attitude toward the College, and FAU in general, and toward most of its faculty, particularly the senior faculty. This predisposition–that FAU and the A&L College was a “Mickey Mouse place” (his words)–has, unfortunately, impacted the way he carries out most of his duties, from the major decisions (e.g., effectively killing, or trying to kill, existing programs like Women’s Studies, the Ph.D., appointing otherwise unaccomplished yes-men and women to leadership positions) to smaller but still important matters, like unecessarily antagonizing senior faculty and eminent scholars at every opportunity. I can’t imagine that his tenure as Dean will continue much longer. I’m hoping that our next Dean will be an FAU person, or at least someone who truly believes in this place, as many of us in the college do. My guess is that since this Dean tends to make decisions that are off-the-cuff and arbitrary, the result of which is to diminish faculty morale at a time when consultative and transparent leadership is most needed, administration will not only keep him, but probably give him a raise. No wonder this institution continues to embarrass itself. He should retire. Ineffective. Despite some personal charisma, Dean Pendakur has revealed himself to be petty, vindictive, and shallow. His total lack of leadership skills were highlighted by his apparent detachment as the Philosophy Department disintegrated. It is natural and perhaps inevitable that a dean will make some faculty members unhappy when he makes difficult decisions, but I have never seen a dean anger so many people so intensely and so personally in such a short time. It bodes ill for his ability to continue in command for any length of time. Everyone knows the Dean has made a number of very outspoken enemies, and it easy to dismiss them as cranky agitators, but what is less easy to see is that he has alienated a much larger number of faculty who are diplomatically guarding their tongues and biding their time. Dean Pendakur claims to be a Marxist, but acts more like an apparatchik, fawning over his superiors while creating an atmosphere of fear that has led to lawsuits, newspaper articles, demoralization, and dysfunctional departments. His critics hide, taking opportunities provided by the Union to snipe at him. The cowards, including Union leadership, should have the backbone to show their faces when they attack others. Although he still seems after Lester, he has been watching his mouth, but we already know about his attitudes toward women, Blacks and Asians, and Jews. Such a person does not belong in a university. Get him gone. All that people hear about our college is scandals and lawsuits, this is a disgrace. The Upper Administration of FAU should seriously review all matters regarding Dean Pendakur. Dean Pendakur attempted to abolish the department of philosophy without letting the members of the department or the college know by surreptiously decreasing its membership to the point of dissolution. Instead of putting the department into receivership when he first learned of a problem or getting rid of the controversial chair, he went around talking to other departments completely misrepresenting the situation. He fired a faculty member who had successfully negotiated the third-year review, claiming that the faculty member wouldn’t make tenure and promotion. (This was untrue; I have seen the faculty member’s vita, and the faculty member was right on target.) He did this without any consultation with department members or (according to his word)the department chair. In 20 years at FAU, I have never known a dean do this in our college–interfere in the personnel decisions of a department. He also approved the application of the department chair and the associate dean to join the School of Communication (although they have no academic credentials there) by promising the director two additional faculty lines. Such a move would have deprived the department of philosophy of two more people, making department functioning impossible. He did this secretly until it came to public attention. At a faculty assembly meeting, his lies and contradictions all came out. He permitted the chair to maintain his position even as he was applying to move to a different department. This was Pendakur’s attempt to protect the chair and the associate dean as he schemed to dissolve the department. The outrage of the faculty menbers of the college over this plot forced him to put the department into receivership and the chair to resign. These machinations — the secrecy and plotting, the firing of a faculty member without due process or consulting his department, and the mistreatment of those who remained – are unprofessional and unworthy of a dean. This is Pendakur’s normal method of operation. He attends every faculty assembly meeting and sometimes dominates them, never giving the faculty members a chance to be free of his presence.After supporting a bogus review of the Ph.D. in Comparative Studies (two of the members were personal acquaintances of his) and ignoring the review done by the members of the college, he is now entertaining new Ph.D. tracks, reinventing the wheel. He will personally decide which programs are acceptable, once again having destroyed a grassroots faculty program only to replace it with one of his own. Furthermore, he put a person in charge of the Ph.D. program who has never taught a graduate course, has published virtually nothing, and who never particpated in the Ph.D. program. She has overridden the decisions of dissertation committees in a way that is unprofessional; she now has the sole say as to whether or not a doctoral student’s dissertation is acceptable, although she has not done any of the work that the dissertation committees have done.Pendakur foments discontent, such as he has done with the imminent scholars, misrepresenting their positions, preying on the envy of some faculty members over these professors’ special status. He should not be passing along rumors at various department meetings about specific faculty members, but he does so. The imminent professors were hired to be “imminent,” yet he has interfered with the two of them who have the greatest international reputations–his way of bringing them to heel to prove his power over them.Pendakur needs to be removed from the position of dean before he totally destroys the college.Pendakur is simply repeating the destructive pattern that he demonstrated at his last job, where he managed to destroy a successful program. He does not use his power and authority to support the college faculty but instead seeks to denigrate anyone who disagrees with him. manju is bad person. He is highly prejudicial and his actions this past year confirm my previous opinions of him. His anti-Semitism, his favoritism, his rejection of Women’s Studies contribute to my judgment that the college would benefit from a change in administration. In addition, nothing has changed in the college. His announcements focus on his appointments of directors for lapsing programs. Following last year’s faculty comments, manju met with department faculty. Rather than acknowledging his inadequacies, he attributed the comments to a “smear campaign.” The near unanimity of the disgust with which manju is held should have prompted a deeper self-reflection on his part. If the college is to move forward, if morale is to return to the college, manju MUST go. Dean Pendakur is a good dean overall who is trying to raise the college’s profile in the university. This means raising expectations among faculty and integrating the work done so that little fiefdoms or privilege are eliminated. This means stepping on some toes and making us all a little more accountable. I respect his willingness to do this despite the blowback he is getting from certain entrenched, but corrupt, interests. I only wish he would be more careful not to assume all faculty have been equally delinquent in not producing or serving the college as they should. I was at a dinner gathering a few weeks ago and mentioned that I taught at FAU and in the Colleges of Arts and Letters. Almost everyone there asked if that was the college being led by a Dean who is engaged in racketeering and asked why the University would keep someone like that on.Dean Pendakur continues to be an obstacle that we struggle to work around. I appreciate the Dean’s insistence on higher academid standards and protection of teaching loads. Would like to see more support for smaller programs Dean Pendakur should be courteous enough to respond to e-mails. The Dean’s role in the attempted defection and ultimate resignation of Clevis Headley as chair of the Philosophy Department was deplorable, and has left college chairs and faculty with little confidence in him to act transparently, and for the good of all concerned. His style of management is dictatorial and divisive. He does not respect faculty and does not promote their achievements. He has displayed sexism, antisemitism, and other forms of bias and bigotry. He is vindictive and governs by bullying. He has also proven himself dishonest in dealings with the faculty. His actions have ruined the philosophy department and the Ph.D. program. He has been a disaster for the college He seems to have optioned for a building for his own interests. How about the other arts departments that need space and clean air? A horrible , dreadful bully. And a liar This is not an honest person or a committed administrator. His job is all about himself, and he has been caught in so many lies and misinterpretations that the college is in worse trouble that it would be if it had no dean at all. In short, he is corrupt, self-serving, without academic credentials and without faculty trust. ONe cannot say too much about how harmful this individual has been to the college. there seems a loss of trust in the Deans office Jumps to conclusions. Has strong biases. Has dramatic mood swings. Seems opportunistic. Dean Pendakur is often rude to faculty and staff. During a Faculty Assembly, he yelled at a highly respected dept. chair and his body language appeared as though he were about to hit her. He does not trust faculty and operates under the assumption that faculty are lazy and have no standards. He is sometimes prickly, but he does not shrink from making bold decisions with regard to the college. This shakes people up.

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College of Business

The university would be better served if Dean COATES would:

stop hiring people based on sexual orientation and resigns. Speak directly with instructors and professors rather than relying only on input from department chairs.As instructors we are denied access to Dean Coates, and his staff because of the strong domination of our department chair. be allowed to continue doing the outstanding job he always has done Become the Provost. not only be the dean of our College of Bueinss, but also the dean of other colleges on campus. Raise more money Stop expanding programs for which the College is unable to recruit tenure-track faculty, and rely more heavily on tenure-track faculty with publication records for guiding all academic programs. resign to be replaced by someone with actual standards. The so-called “Executive Committee” is dominated by untenured (and untenurable) back-door hires driven by self-interest. Continue to lead the College of Business. MAKE BETTER PERSONNEL DECISIONS. (KEEPING A LAZY, CORRUPT CHAIR IN POWER FOR OVER 15 YEARS IS VERY BAD FOR MORALE. THE CHAIR KNOWS THAT HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH. THE DEAN WILL NOT REMOVE HIM.) get healthy and resign

Additional comments about Dean COATES:

Dean Coates has heard many complaints from now former instructors and professors about the administration of our department, however he ignores them and continues to deal only with the supervisor. Despite being stricken with a severe form of cancer, Dean Coates has not missed a step or beat and continues to lead the college in outstanding and exemplary fashion. The COB continues to be in great shapeunder his leadership Fair, balanced, communicative, honest, trustworthy, and sincere. Dean Coates has exhibited strong leadership during the last several years of budget cuts and fiscal crises. He’s done as well, or better, than anyone else could have done and I applaud him. He can be more of an external dean, and let the associate dean take care of all the internal things. Dean Coates does a responsible job in many respects. He continues to reduce the quality of the College by expanding programs of marginal quality using non-tenure track Directors who have too much influence relative to regular faculty. No consultation with P&T committee on critical positions. Dean Coates is a fair minded, intelligent administrator who is a strong advocate for the College and University. THERE WAS AN IMPORTANT PROMOTION DECISION IN OUR DEPARTMENT THAT HE HANDLED FAIRLY. I WAS IMPRESSED.HE STATED IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE FACULTY THAT HE WOULD WATCH CAREFULLY TO MAINTAIN EQUITY ACROSS DEPARTMENTS IN TEACHING LOADS. HE HAS COMPLETELY FAILED IN THAT PROMISE.ALL IN ALL, CONFRONTED WITH A PRESIDENT HOSTILE TO OUR COLLEGE, HE SEEMS TO BE KEEPING THINGS TOGETHER. the COB is alseep Dean Coates looks out for good of the entire College. He is the most creative administrator I have ever worked for in being able to solve problems.

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College for Design and Social Inquiry

The university would be better served if Dean CARTER would:

Get out into the community more to advocate for resources for the College. I believe we are behind other Colleges in our ability to garner substantial resources from the community to support the College’s initiatives.

Additional comments about Dean CARTER:

Needs to be trained in fairness, impartiality, integrity and ethical conducts, as well as appreciation for high level academic excellence.. Dean Carter tends to talk negatively about others. I think we’d be better served by a more positive attitude towards other units within and outside the College. This does not build a very supportive atmosphere between academic units. That said, I do think Dean Carter’s heart is in the right place, and she means to do well by the COllege. That is not at all in question.

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College of Education

The university would be better served if Dean BRISTOR would:

not focus so much on not riffling feathers but just do what is best for the college. Stop allowing so many appointments without formal searches, stop letting unqualified people lead dept. and areas. being fair If we had someone of quality in this position. She is very mediocre and continues appointing non-tenured people to committees and positions in the COE and FAU.Dr. Watlington and Dr. Kirsch run the show, yet neither have ever been tenured or applied for or gone through a formal interview for the positions of power they are in, they are pushy and arrogant and many are tired of their bullying. Dr. Watlington is an absent administrator, never at any campus much and makes $120K for not being present much at all, administrators should not be allowed to do their work at home everyday like Eliah Watlington is.The COE has very poor and weak chairs, many do not care or deligate authority or involved all COE faculty.There is way too much favoritism going on, some get things others never do. All the ones that kiss up get stuff if they are favorites of Dr. Bristor and her do gooders. Cut her hair and dress appropriately, please. Dean Bristor is a candidate for an ambush makeover.Lead the COE to the next level, especially since the state colleges and community colleges are now offering undergraduate teacher education programs. She should be leading the COE into the future and not allowing funds and faculty lines based on the past.She needs to expand her emphasis on who she listens to as her small group surrounding her tells her what she wants to hear. As such, important issues are not presented or are watered down. secure external funding for the college. She needs a College of Education development person full time. With that help, we could do more to serve our students and community. Appoint associate deans who have strong leadership/ academic credentials. That said, they all work extremely hard and seem genuinely concerned about the college. She is great! Dress more professionally.Support disciplines other than her home field of teacher education. Move back to becoming Associate Dean In addition to serving as Dean of the College of Education, it would be advantageous, to the university, if Dean Bristor serves in an advisory capacity that requires her imput pertaining to overall academic, budget, and personnel matters. Restructure her department to have an undergraduate and a graduate associate dean. We need academic integrity, not watchdogs and pencil pushers. Better understand the need for all admins to utilize mutual respect and participatory governance, like Dr. Bristor does, instead of fear and coercion.

Additional comments about Dean BRISTOR:

Be fairInclude all COE facultyHave high standardsBe present moreprovide $ for prof. devel in all depts.All depts are not fair, CCEI get so much and all faculty teach only two classes and in the DTL all have to teach 3 classes, share the wealth let us do some admin work to have course releases.More travel money/funds, $1000 is the same for the past 10-20 years now, but the prices have increase double, give us more money for travel. Show that you care involve all faculty be fair to all faculty, too many favorites She was a really good associate dean doing the background work for the COE dean. Faculty liked her then and they like her as a person now. But, she is way over her head in this DOE Dean’s job.The COE needs to make huge shifts in focus and emphasis which requires a strong leader. Graduate education is the obvious future of the COE, especially since community colleges now offer teacher education degrees at a cheaper price than FAU.The mind set of the COE is stuck in the past – public school education. This is understandable since most of the COE leadership has been at FAU for a very long time (few have administrative experience elsewhere). To truly compete, the COE needs to shift to graduate education and really focus heavily on developing a reputation for quality graduate level teacher education and administrative leadership programs for colleges, universities, agencies and school districts.Data does not drive decisions in ways that it should. Resources at not allocated to programs that are growing and in high demand. Effective efforts are not made to look at emerging markets and how FAU should address those markets.In short, a transformational change agent is needed as the COE dean, someone who understands how to lead through change. The right people need to be on the bus to make these changes and the wrong people need to be off the bus.And, finally, the on line programs through the COE are in desperate need of help. Some professors put a lot of time and effort into providing true on line learning with much interaction. Others just post notes and require a final assignment or paper, calling that on line learning. It is understandable that on line learning is weak since FAU has provided little assistance in this area. Faculty need on line technical support, not just curriculum designers. Else, the state colleges, for profit universities, and others (such as UF) will eat our lunch! College of Education faculty are among the lowest paid in the university,perhaps because the field is female dominated and we know there is tremendous gender inequity at FAU and elsewhere. Compounding the COE problem, there are two departments that are paid differently (much higher) than others. This is unfair and creates ill will. There needs to be more of an emphasis on scholarship. It almost seems to be a second thought in the COE. Just mediocreToo many appointmentsallows less qualified people to lead and be in admin roleslistens to voice of people that are not tenured or have been “real” professors. too much nepotism, favoritism, and last minute announcing of meetings and deadlines,too much is too average She is an outstanding Dean and a strong supporter of faculty and staff. She is kind, honest and ethical. She is not a visionary leader and is conflict averse. Yet she is an extremely hard worker and strives to maintain a positive and collegial atmosphere in the college. Thank you for not putting up a huge halloween display.Will you please get money to replace the old desks which are not appropriate for adults?The education building rest rooms are not clean and sometimes the building has an offensive odor. Dean Bristor is not supportive of all departments equally. Certain departments have been relegated to status that is not helpful tto the department. The College of Education is fortunate to have Dean Bristor as our leader. Her grasp of the Univeristy as-a-whole, as well as her overall understanding of the operation of a College of Education, along with her intelligent use of the power that accompanies the position of Dean of a College, all work together to provide our College with excellent leadership. She is a caring human being whose many years of service to the COE has translated into her being hired as the Dean. At what point do we do another national search and hire a well-respected scholar? Dean Bristor is one of the few administrators at FAU who does not use fear and coercion as a tactic to manage faculty and staff. Instead, she utilized participatory processes and mutual respect. Too bad she is in a minority here.

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College of Engineering and Computer Science

The university would be better served if Dean STEVENS would:

Retire Resign promote research; engage in planning activities with faculty; attempt to ask for faculty input on decisions; assist in research outreach or fund raising activities to support students and faculty engaged in research; understand how to get consensus from the department’s faculty not just the chairs resign never became the Dean. be just a faculty, engage in business opportunities, rather than internal politics not look down faculty and ask his staff Gill Rowan to behave not as a president of the university. Resign immediately along with all Associate Deans! Retire immediately. resign Finally retire. leave He must take greater responsibility for the behavior of his assistant, Brenda Coto, and insist that she do a better job of responding to input from faculty. Requests sent to her–serious requests regarding serious matters–go unanswered, and his response is typically along the lines, Don’t bother me with problems concerning Brenda.

Additional comments about Dean STEVENS:

A very negative effect on the morale of the faculty Stevens has complete disregard for the CECS ByLaws, faculty governance and the tenure process. He and his cohorts threatens those who may dissent with censure for failure to comply. He makes sweeping decisions that go against CECS ByLaws and later asks faculty to retroactively vote in support of his decisions. His focus is to serve upper administration. The college is falling apart and being ruined by his dishonesty. Rotating-terms for Dean, Associate Dean(s) and chairs Dr. Stevens staff runs the college. Access to higher positions, awards, and associated resources is provided as a privilege to members of the College community. The worst candidate was hired as a chair in OME dept…. Dean Stevens is cannabilizing productive parts of the college to enable him to appear to be effectively building other parts and to help maintain his job. He should be fired immediately. 1) The Summer 2009 college reorganization used as a pre-cursor to an attempted attack on the tenure system has left deep and lasting scars. There can be no closure to this dark period in the history of FAU until all who were involved are out of power positions.2) As a direct result of Dr. Stevens’ crucial role in the events of Summer 2009, he has lost the confidence of most faculty in the college, as shown by survey after survey. The university administration continues to ignore the obvious wish of the faculty.3) In the last few years Dr. Stevens’ was consumed with a) the green building, b) the green building and c) the green building. The new engineering building is indeed beautiful, but now that it became a reality what comes next?4) Research dollars in the college have dwindled in recent years, but there seemed to be no directives by Dean Stevens to address the problem. No attempt to identify priority research areas and areas of potential alliance with other colleges and other universities. These should have influenced contingency plans for future faculty hiring plans.5) The college’s Industry Advisory Board has been meeting four times a year, but no research or engineering curriculum matters are ever discussed in such forums. In fact the meetings have been running by non-academic staff with no encouragement of the department chairs to provide input. What a waste of the industry VPs’ time and good will.6) Dean Stevens is personally responsible whenever his appointed assistants fail to perform. One of the examples that has been infuriating the college faculty is the appointment of an assistant who lacks proper academic experience and basic qualifications to be on charge of no less than the college publicity and communication, distance education, computing systems support and labs and machine shop support. To get a glimpse of the consequences of such an appointment, anyone is invited to visit the college web page and see its condition. This uninformative web page is really damaging to the college in terms of research visibility and students recruitment efforts.7) In some areas Dr. Stevens has shown unwavering commitment to an idea, pursuing it persistently over many years. Unfortunately, such ideas are often negative. Here are examples: a) Summer Semesters: Dr. Stevens declared upon becoming Dean that the “summer semesters are bankrupting the college”. Year after the year the budgets for summer teaching declines. Faculty average summer salary has steadily declined from 0.75 FTE to 0.375 FTE and it now stands close to 0.1 FTE. The irony is that summer students’ FTE productivity has risen from year to year. Faculty work harder for less pay. The mostly-online courses instituted in the last two years that are paid at the rate of 1 credit exploit the faculty. b) Some of the departments and research centers have been steadily and deliberately weakened. Why bother? Most Faculty have been complaining for years and nothing happens.

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Honors College

The university would be better served if Dean BULLER would:

Advocate for the unit aggressively and be more proactive. His leadership style is to keep his head down and follow directions rather than put his neck out and be proactive. move on …lead the college with a strong, passionate vision of what he thinks it can be and achieve in the future. From what I can see (which is admittedly not all that much, and I may well be wrong) he is effective at tasks requiring a “team player,” and does an excellent job of promoting the college to outside audiences. At key moments, however, when the members of our college’s community are looking for a leader, he seems more reactive than proactive, and is not yet as effective as he could be at bringing the college members together in an inspired team effort. resign or move promote a compelling vision of the future of honors education at FAU respond to his email, pay attention to detail, and pay more attention to interpersonal dynamics, particularly when imparting bad news. His jovial manner often seems to imply that he does not notice or does not care when negative events have occurred. focus on both admissions and salary issues instead of writing books. Show more backbone when discussing items concerning the Honors College with the rest of the university.

Additional comments about Dean BULLER:

The Dean has written five books in five years and is developing a career in public speaking outside the university. The college and university communities would be better served if he would lead his unit. the college has atrophied in every way under his leadership. His continuing service as Dean is seen as evidence that the university wants to shut the college down. We need a strong leader that can actually get things done

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College of Medicine

The university would be better served if Dean FRIEDLAND would:

No comments

Additional comments about Dean FRIEDLAND:

He is certainly the worst administrator I’ve ever encountered within or outside FAU.

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College of Nursing

The university would be better served if Dean BOYKIN would:

Continue as dean, but regrettably she is on the DROP program and has to retire Fortunately she is retiring –best thing that can happen for the future of FAU Not have to retire. not retire not retire

Additional comments about Dean BOYKIN:

She condones cheating. She beleives it is better to retain students who cheat than educate nurses who have high moral standards.She over-rules the decisions of the P&T committee. When she doesn’t like the decision made by the committee she call a “special meeting” ask for a re-vote, and if that doesn’t work, she tell the chair to vote differently than the committee decision at the University P&T meeting. (of course she hand picks the chairs – that position is not truely elected by the faculty). Similarly the Dean is the Chair of the faculty assembly.For the 3rd time since 2001 the college’s NCLEX pass rate is below the national average. Very interesting considering that almost everyone graduates with university honors!!! that says something about the quality of the teaching and the leadership of the college.She has “faculty enhancement monies” which are only available to faculty who do her dirty work. They aree not merit or criteria based. A real ideal adminsitrator We love her and are sad to see her leave, yet very excited for a new chapter

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College of Science

The university would be better served if Dean PERRY would:

speak more briefly,say like Frank Brogan. REMAIN Visit with each department for a few minutes every semester to gain insights regarding driving interests, concerns, what they are doing well. “Face time” goes a long way in communication. Take a vigorously active role in forging ahead with initiatives involving multiple departments together with new partner institutes.

Additional comments about Dean PERRY:

truly fine dean! Doing a great job. pleasant enough fellow He is innovative and amazingly well versed in all aspects of his college. Dean Perry is trustworthy a trait that we truly value.

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University Libraries

The university would be better served if Dean MILLER would:

require his assistant/associate deans to take management training. retire stop relying on the same hierarchy that has been here for centuries. This group routinely denies most of us their full potential. Dr. Miller needs to lobby for a science library on the Boca campus. This only has to a functional building with no architectural flair.

Additional comments about Dean MILLER:

The library has made great strides under his leadership. He is a very decent and humane guy. But his laissez-faire policy towards his managers allows petty bureaucrats with zero people skills to ride roughshod with impunity over the librarians and paraprofessionals they supervise. Library faculty and staff do not trust and do not respect William Miller or his management team. He is not concerned about the bad morale in the library and continues to maintain an environment in which everyone feels they are treated in an unfair manner. Stop supporintg an administration whose main skill is to make it difficult to get work done. Dr. Miller needs to get out of his office more often to visit with staff. He is a very nice person but no one hardly knows that. Dr. Miller needs to make it clear to supervisors that he has an open door policy. My immediate supervisor will not permit me talk to with him for any reason. Dr. Miller needs to get a donor relations officer so we can get money into this library. There is a lot of money out there but none is coming to the library.

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Florida Atlantic University Schools

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

The university would be better served by supporting Dr. Hodge and her efforts as her priority is the students. step down or be replaced -consult knowledgable faculty before making important decisions-follow thru when a decision is made-model professionalism-monitor unprofessional behavior of faculty-treat faculty as professionals-discuss important issues at faculty meetings-communicate information to faculty on a daily/weekly basis provide leadershipinclude faculty in important decisionsmodel and enforce established rules for faculty and students Moved / Fired. lead Have the means to hire additional teachers for our support team, so we could effectively meet the needs of all our students. Ensure that leadership is cultivated from all levels of the organization and not just listen to those who are into political manuevering. Excellent teachers are somtimes not recognized for their contributions.

Additional comments about Principal/Director HODGE:

Dr. Hodge has made tremendous improvements in the school climate amongst faculty and the student body. Dr. Hodge’s priority is clear, and that is to provide a safe and exciting school where students want to come and learn. It is unfortunate that we have individuals who have lost sight of this and are only interested in the personal agenda rather than whats best for the students. Those individuals seek to undermine Dr. Hodge when the opportunities arise. This director uses poor decision-making, has a lack of insight and follow-through, exhibits favoritism (to those who don’t question her authority),is retaliatory when feels her power is threatened, and shows a lack of professionalism when she talks to faculty and staff about other teachers and parents. The school is in dire need of a principal who will provide leadership and model professional behavior. Dr. Hodge needs to be an effective leader who follows through on decisions, policy, etc. Dr. Hodge is erratic and unprofessional in her decision making. She plays favorites and ignores most staff. She and most staff often arrive late to the school site and dress unprofessionally. She literally does not speak to more than half of her faculty. Dr. Hodge is very helpful and always has the student’s interests in mind. She is supportive of the teachers. It would of great assistance to the school if we could have two assistant principals. Dr. Hodge has a vision for the school but needs to involve the right people to overcome roadblocks that have become entrenched within the organization.

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

fire Dr. Hodge, spend time with ALL the faculty to gain information not a select few. He should support Dr. Hodge and the decisions she makes. His unwillingness to support all of the Henderson faculty has led to poor morale. Mr. Thomas does not have direct knowledge of what occurs within the school or the organizational politics that are hampering improvement. He consults the same handful of people about decisions and the decision making process is not transparent. There is a great deal of bias apparent within the decisions that he makes and he does seem to be fully aware of it.

Additional comments about Assistant Dean THOMAS:

He is wonderful, very personable and easy to reach. He goes out of his way to make accomodations and help. Offers great advice and opinions

The university would be better served if Dean BRISTOR would:

We do not have much one on one contact with Dean Bristor. She shows up to events, but there is not much that is outwardly seen from her taking part in the school.

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Joyanne Stephens, Regional Campuses

The university would be better served if Vice President STEPHENS would:

…have a presence on campus. She is assigned to be in too many places therefore she is only a name of the door for most of us. Not sure of what she is doing on a local or community level. award a large pay raise! introduce herself to us. She is personable individual. However faculty should be better informed and been included in the decision making process. There is a lot to like about her but consultation with faculty is very important. if she resigned immediately. I’m not certain I know what she does. We need an efective leader of the Broward campuses, especially Davie, and I’m not certain Vice President Stephens is the best person for the job. Serve only one campus, she is never present get some help to allow her to do her job– she is spread too thin if she would just stay in Davie and do well there. super women can’t be super all over the state, spread too thin Keep up the good work. Communicate more with the various regional campuses. Gave her more support staff, took some of her responsiblities away or gave them to people she could oversee and nurture, mentor to be effective admins in the college and U Show up once in a while. Stephens is in an impossible position. The MacArthur campus needs and ACADEMIC leader to promote a COHERENT sent of academic programs. She cannot do that for all campuses at the same time. be around more promote the honors college as part of the mission of the Jupiter regional campus realize that the faculty of the honors college are proud to be part of FAU Spend more time with faculty on all the campuses have her position eliminated and the funds redirected to something useful. Sack Phyllis Bebko

Additional comments about Vice President STEPHENS:

Joyanne is a treat! I love seeing her on campus.–she engages, she brings you up to date. You have the sense that Joyanne cares about developing the campus, about students learning, and about faculty satisfaction. Can she be president of fau, and still be the VP for davie? Stephens is an arrogant, phony, and clueless moron. She is an ass-kisser with no administrative or leadership skills whatsoever, All she is, is a loud-mouthed babbling idiot I never see her around the Davie campus and was beginning to wonder whether she still works at FAU. Not present, let her serve only one campus, but better Not present all over much and it is not helpful. Stretched too thin. keep in davie She must be very busy with so many campuses to see after. She is possibly becoming too thinned out to be as effective as she historically has been in Davie and other campuses when she had either less territory to cover OR more support staff to help her.Generally, she is highly visible. This has been less true once she was spread so thinly across all campuses. This is a bit disconcerting. When admin takes otherwise effective admins, promotes or increases their job responsibilities to a degree where they can no longer be as effective, it is not the fault of the administrator (Stephens) but instead, poor strategic planning from higher levels. This can be avoided and remedied. It should be. we see her very rarely. campus is dying. I have never met her and never seen her on our campus Never here, never talks to faculty, never sends any emails. The ghost-administrator.Have seen her twice this year.Completely useless.

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Barry Rosson, Graduate College

The university would be better served if Dean ROSSON would:

stop adding layer upon layer of pointless Kafkaesque bureaucracy to graduate operations.
consult more with the faculty.
Seek faculty imput and stop listening only to his staff and other administrators. He also needs to understand that his office serves graduate students and graduate faculty in the administration of graduate programs offered by the departments.
be replaced.
Do something. His role seems to be maintaining a roadblock to movement and checking the spelling on forms.
be a bit more reluctant to add yet another layer of forms and procedures that students and administrators must navigate. Students should be challenged primarily by the academic programs, not by the byzantine and unforgiving paperwork protocols of the graduate college
I teach graduate students regularly–I have no idea what Dean Rosson does, or even who Rosson is… I am not sure if I am supposed to
Dean Rosson is engaged in building a bureaucratic empire through forms and procedures. He forced an ill-conceived and poorly designed graduate governance document through the flabby graduate council. Now it is extremely difficult and excessively burdensome to have outside faculty members on graduate committees, which is the opposite of what we and our students need. Real scholars and scientists understand the benefits of drawing on the expertise of others, and we are not afraid or embarrassed to build such relationships. Rosson has actively worked to block such collaborations, whether out of foolishness or fear, we do not know. He has also consistently rejected the most obvious and commonsensical advice. For example, his minions reject every single Plan of Study form they receive. They developed a form that is essentially incomprehensible. The instructions are more complicated than the instructions for filing your taxes and are of little help. I don’t know anyone who really knows the purpose of these forms (which include separate forms for amending the original), but whatever their intent they are clearly not accomplishing it. They certainly have not helped faculty to monitor student progress, which would be helpful. Dean Rosson can only be characterized as stubborn, unwilling to listen to advice, unable to own up to mistakes, and poor at foreseeing the consequences of his choices. Trying to work with him is deeply demoralizing. I truly believe that his administration of the Graduate College is actually making things worse than they were before. Graduate study at FAU used to be disorganized but largely benign. Now the outrageous and unnecessary bureaucracy is actively deleterious to student progress. I really don’t know what he’s thinking, and what worries me is that’s he may not be thinking at all.
Find another position or, at the very least, stop hiring his friends, stop firing people (or letting leave) who do a good job, and stop allowing his staff to blame chairs and other faculty members for not filling out his endless forms correctly.
Respect faculty and department decision making in a number of issues that don’t need to be micromanaged by the Graduate College.
Introduce himself to the faculty
we don’t get enough information about or from this Dean to know
This administrator parrots administrative decisions, and is more worried about keeping his job that putting forth a vision, which I doubt he has. There has been no real involvement with the faculty and no attempt beyond more and more paperwork to actually take a graduate college seriously. It may not be his fault, but he does not have the credentials or the vision to be in the position he is in.
be more informed about graduate programs outside of engineering/science
Step down.
Understand that graduate education is about faculty participation in helping students with developing their skills, ideas, research abilities, etc.The dean’s focus on paperwork processes is a waste of time for his office, the faculty and the students.
keep doing the outstanding job he is doing.
require less paperwork.
The Graduate College as unit is extremely inefficient. We were better without its creation.
Replace him with someone flexible and open-minded
Step aside and join the engineering faculty.Realize that FAU does not need a Graduate College, only a Graduate Studies Program or School.Advocate for graduate education more with the president. The emphasis on undergraduate education is her agenda and is probably a good one, if targeted. But, FAU will never be a great university without strong graduate programs. Barry Rosson has not done a good job of advocating for the value of graduate education at FAU in the eyes of the president.
leave
adopt more of Dean Pratt’s practices.
step down and let a problem solver who is flexible and consistent run the show.
Take a few lessons from Ed Pratt!! Barry works well with faculty in one-on-one situations as we deal with GPC issues. He needs to exert leadership with strident personalities on the GPC and not allow them to run amok.
Decrease administrative overhead.
participate in some leadership training. Consistently breaks the “golden rules” every effective admin knows. Clearly he is unaware of these principles and theory that guide effective leadership and management. He needs training to become more effective.
participate more in the department in which he is tenured; get to know faculty in the major research colleges to see how he can better support research activities
Maintain better academic standards and helps to promote the recruitment of Ph.D. students to the graduate program.
start working for fau
return to civil engg department…
Allowed to implement his ideas and systems.
communicate and involve faculty from other disciplines – or visit with faculty and make himself know
resign as quickly as possible.
Address the primary issues that limit our programs’ abilities to recruit the best and brightest graduate students – we are not providing health care and our current system requires students to pay 20% of academic year costs in fees. Both of these costs should be absorbed by the Graduate College.
Too many forms to fill out at the beginning of a graduate program. Students complain the process.

Additional comments about Dean ROSSON:

What a lover of irrelevant bureacracy! Rosson has made the lives of graduate students,faculty and the staff who support them unnecessarily difficult with his love of paperwork and so-called organization.
His general attitude of one “size fits all” concerning policy is counter productive to the vast multiplicity of graduate programs in the university.
He is nor a presence. has not vision and has not been a leader. He does not seem to have the experience or the abilities to run a graduate college. Whether this is his lack of ability or the position he has been placed in is unclear. He seems nice enough, but completely ineffective and without a plan. He behavior around the evaluation of the Arts and Letters PHD Program were incompetent and undoubtedly planned by others–the Dean of Arts and Letter and the Provost– but would it have been any more real or competent if he had more control over it? Who knows. He certainly hasn’t shown any independent leadership.
Dean Rosson is a congenial and professional administrator, who I do believe means well. However, in an attempt to rein in the few bad apple programs in the university (this is my best interpretation, anyway), his office has instituted any number of new and cumbersome procedures (e.g., the plan of study) and have enforced these procedures and policies too strictly, in my view. It’s almost as if we’ve lost sight that the ACADEMIC work of students is what should truly matter, NOT how diligently they can fill out forms.
We don’t know what he does other than to make arbitrary rules that seem calculated to justify his position.
I can’t believe that Dean Rosson has been recently been given MORE responsibility. Is anyone paying attention in the Administration Building.
He should have consulted the faculty before instituting his Plan of Study, which has caused endless confusion among students and faculty members, and for which the graduate college has chastised departments. When instituting a new program, it is wise to get input from the people who would be affected or, at the very least, let them know its purpose.He has too often taken the side of Dean Pendakur when it comes to doctoral student complaints, and like Pendakur has refused to meet with them, forcing them to go over his head. This hostility to the very students he is supposed to be supporting amazes me.
At first, Dean Rosson held great promise but over time he has become more autocratic and an obsessive procedure wonk. The precisionist emphasis of much of his degree completion staff has led to an unprecedented obsession with legalistic formalities. And yet, while they haughtily point out the splinter in a faculty member’s eye they don’t see the plank in their own. A little humility would go a long way in this case.
This was not a good hire and one wonders how it happened. IF we are serious about graduate education, then we need an administrator who can communicate with the faculty and students, put forward a shared vision that comes form his office and the faculty, and resist attempts to simply act as a source for more make-work in the way of making forms and regulations. Regulations mean nothing without vision.
Seems scared of upper administration. Tries to fit all colleges and departments to a single mold. Is averse to academic diversity. Administers from a position of personal convenience rather than understanding the issue or problem.
Great learder/visionary. Extremely competent.Outstanding.
He needs to go, we need someone who is a problem solver and who is open and flexible, adaptable and willing to listen to other ideas, too much of a drill saergent from years past.
He is much less offensive now that the Provost is gone. Nice guy, in many ways, but over his head.Why do we need a Graduate College? The only reason I can think of is if we had schools within that college. The Education College and Public Administration College, for instance, may shift from undergraduate emphasis to graduate only and become a school within a graduate college. But, are we really that big to organize in that fashion?FAU is very top heavy with vice presidents, deans and many colleges. A college without faculty to be evaluated by the dean is perhaps a college we can do without. Change the title to Dean of Graduate Studies (like the undergraduate dean) and begin the process of shifting the massive paperwork requirements back to the Colleges for degree plans. Downsize the administration in this unit; something that will be difficult to do in light of the systems created by Barry Rosson for top down oversight.Dissertations should continue to be the important matters of graduate level oversight. But, isn’t that not what Graduate Studies programs do at other universities without a Graduate College?
not flexiblenot a problem solvernot adjustabletoo inconsistent
unkind
dictatornot bendable
Barry seems to have learned from some of his mistakes of the past. However, we still seem to be reaping what he sowed. The Graduate Council is – to me – an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that is crippling the governance system right now.
Why does everyone have to sign in and wait for a receptionist to see any staff member in the graduate college office? It is easier to see a member of Congress than office assistants in that office. Too much elitism and control!
Becoming an effective leader does not happen in a vacume or without some level of training. It seems at FAU their is a mistaken belief that anyone can be promoted to an administrative level without any background or training in effective leadership and management. Several departments and colleges cover this material effectively yet it seems there is no expectation or requirement for FAU admins, who, like Dr. Rosson could and would be much more effective if given the opportunity to learn the strategies, theories, and principles of leadership/management, but rarely do we do this or require this for new or promoted from within administrators (of which hold particular obstacles toward effectiveness). Too bad really. Could be accomplished in house with faculty involvement where potentially new networks and alliances could be developed and fostered.
completely invisible
He work is not good. His resume is weak. I am suprised how the president appointed him a interim vice president.
looked good on paper; started a little badly; his performance has declined and his arrogance has grown steadily with it. took an office that ran extremely badly, and remarkably, made it worse. is now screwing up the Division of Research as well.

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Edward Pratt, Undergraduate Studies

The university would be better served if Dean PRATT would:

Replace him for someone more in touch with students and classes
Stay at FAU in his current role. Keep asking faculty for input; the Feb. 2011 snap survey of faculty was wonderful- asking for input!Focus on undergraduate programs not being offered by the local state colleges as a priority. Transition programs that are being offered over to state colleges and use additional resources to strengthen partnerships.
clone himself.
get back into the real classroom and teach a class
Clone himself!!!Provide workshops on leadership.
Stay at fau!
Abolish SPOTS. They do not represent the work that faculty do and instill fear of retribution by students for failing grades.
be more informed about what faculty actually do.
remain in this office and continue his high level of performance. He has done an outstanding job.
He seems to be doing a competent job.
Continue to encourage undergraduate research; provide incentives to faculty for promoting undergraduate research or for involving undergraduates in research projects; work to promote classes with strong undergraduate research components
resigned soon
I know the name…..shouldn’t I be aware of something that he has done, some position that he has taken, some activities he sponsors? The report he sent out was empty of content.
Keep listening and collaborating effectively with department leaders.
…this is another Dean that I don’t know, have never met, and I honestly have no idea what his function is supposed to be–hard to say if the Dean is doing a good job or not.
give additional attention to some of the offices that report to him. For example, the testing center has employees who do not behave in a professional manner. Frankly, I hate to go over there and interact with the nasty and morose employees, and if they’re rude me, I can’t imagine how they treat students and the public.The whole core curriculum program is a mess. This is another area in which stronger leadership is needed. Currently the Undergraduate Programs Committee largely approves the addition of courses to the core curriculum based on territorial concerns–in other words the effect that changes will have on their student enrollment and therefore the consequences any changes will have on the number of faculty members they can justify. It’s unfortunate that this calculus ultimately ignores the educational needs of students.
Never met the man. The report that came out was curiously devoid of any real content, but then there is no way to know how or why it was written. Why the faculty does not know this man is more curious still.
be more visible to faculty
Visit some of the large undergraduate courses and instructors of courses with very large enrollment to discuss their needs, especially in light of initiatives to grow enrollment
Uphold higher education standards, primarily to ensure that students have a good understanding of, and ability to apply, basic science, math and physics. Too many poorly prepared students have been making their way into higher level undergraduate courses and the MS program. Faculty in these courses are forced to spend significant amounts of time reviewing basic material or water down the course so that students can follow – as a result the cycle continues and their short changed education goes on…
get faculty engaged more.
make herself/himself visible [I believe this is a good thing?]
REMAIN

Additional comments about Dean PRATT:

He is way out of touch with students, being in a classroom and today’s ways in a collegehe is all show, but really out of touch.
Attends all Faculty Senate meetings – excellent sign of faculty support.Surveys faculty for input. Simple surveys, but good to ask.Does not micro-manage faculty and knows that he provides a service to faculty and students.Is very skillful working with faculty through governance issues.
he is too out of touchdoes he teach our students here at FAUseems way out in left field.
out of touchtoo pie in the sky
I have been very impressed with how Ed approaches decision making. He is a ‘natural’ when it comes to democratic decision making and faculty input. Understand s and respects faculty governance.
Dean Pratt has been an exemplary undergraduate dean. He acts in ways that encourage faculty to do a better job, and he seems to genuinely like the faculty rather than seeing them as adversaries. He takes the trouble to actually attend events to see what is going on and to introduce himself to faculty. His institution of Faculty Learning Communities both allow faculty to meet with other faculty over common interests and grant stipends for the work that comes out of these committees. More than any other administrator, he seems to be in the trenches himself. He seems to know what is going on and to take a genuine interest in these things. Having worked with him on several committees, I can say that I am impressed with his contributions, his humility, and his knowledge of undergraduate problems and solutions. Bravo to Dean Pratt!
Basically, Dean Pratt is full of crap! He distributes pointless surveys about student learning–when the place is understaffed, students work 40 hours/week. I wonder where he things he’s an administrator–or, maybe, the survey tells us where he’d LIKE to be an administrator.Likewise, ask Dean Pratt a substantive question–see if you secure a useful, practical, within the budget and politics reply?Otherwise, what does he do all day?
Is he supposed to be playing a role?
A fine administrator.
I don’t know much about what he does. I have heard him talk at a few meetings. He seems to be a competent bureaucrat but does not seem to have any vision about what could be done at FAU.
I find Dean Pratt to be personally engaging, accessible, and responsive. While I feel that there is room for improvement in his performance, some of the problems he faces are structural, institutional, and cultural, and therefore relatively intractable.
Who is he?
Dean Pratt is the most consultative of deans. He manages to still believe in the ideal of shared governance.
stealth person – until now undetected
Doing a great job.
Dean Pratt seems to be doing an excellent job to improve undergraduate education at FAU, and he seems to be making a concerted effort to improve honors education at FAU.

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Diane Alperin, Interim Provost

The university would be better served if Interim Provost ALPERIN would:

Nice down to earth lady
Stay in an administrative role to help the new Provost. She has a lot of history and has worked with many presidents and provosts. She is loyal to whoever is in the office at that time and that is good.She is a good listener and empathizes well.
teach a full load of classes and see what it is like in the trenches
Share her respect for faculty governance with the incoming (to be hired) provost. Remain in the provost’s office.
Stay on to support the new provost.
Serve in the position of Provost.
Meet directly with the teaching staff,
Stay in her post instead of hiring a new Provost.
resign.
Exercised more restraint over the College of Business’s practices of relying for program leadership on instructors and faculty without substantial publications.
have the courage to make good decisions and also step down.
Do what a real provost is supposed to do.
Review the portfolios that are up for permanent status. There are numerous teachers awaiting confirmation of permanent status.
Retire
Resign
resign
leave soon.
spend more time away from fau
respect the opinion of the faculty
Resigns as soon as a new Provost is selected.
ask Dr Stevens to step down as Dean of engineering, as she should have done from day one.
become the Provost. She knows the university and has been a faculty member. I believe she can still feel what it is like to be one and use this to the best of her ability in administering the academe.
be made permanent Provost.
Retired
step down. She is ineffective. She has been informed of the problems with Dean Pendakur for two years yet has not informed the President nor taken the right action to remove him.
rein in and speak some common sense into irresponsible and undiplomatic deans
She has been an enabler to the dean in the college of A and L, and has allowed him to continue his reckless behavior and should be held accountable for allowing this dean to continue by being fired. She knew all along the problems in the college and allowed them to continue.
promote mentoring of junior faculty; encourage senior faculty to take more of the service responsibilities
resign immediately
Resign, preferably on the same day as Dean P. Save us all.
be terminated.
She is a temporary appointment. I am unable to judge her performance.
return to the classroom or retire.
Go back to her former job? She is not a Provost, not an academic, and does not respect the faculty–which would be crucial in this job.
leave. She does not understand the needs and interests of academic faculty members.
finally put out the fire in A&L and have the Dean step down
…stop ignoring the problems in Arts and Letters …
be fired. She appears to lie frequently in public and without apparent embarrassment. Provost Alperin takes every possible opportunity to work against faculty interests. This appears to be mere sport for her, as the benefits of her choices to either students or the institution are rarely clear. She is a disgrace to the university.
return to being a vice provost
be unbiased
This is an administrator who solely works for the Board. SHe is not a provost, has no academic credentials that would allow an academic vision for the university, and is primarily anti-faculty– a disaster for a provost.
be more visible, dynamic and open – step outside of her office
Be elected to sainthood.
Live up to promises she has made and act like a leader rather than a careerist.
quit
go back to teaching in her department. I respect the service that she has given to FAU, but in her current position, she has not effectively solved the problems that have come before her.
respect faculty concerns and respond to their problems.
Be more decisive in reigning in renegade eminent scholars and self-absorbed Philosophy professors who think they are somehow superior and more entitled. She should expeditiously get these frivolous lawsuits and complaints thrown out and get on to promoting academics.
aim higher for the university; she functions like a social worker with an FIU degree, rather than reaching for greater things during her service as provost.
appreciate the contributions that honors programs can make to FAU
consider retirement.

Additional comments about Interim Provost ALPERIN:

MJ Saunders would do well to keep Provost Alperin in an Associate Provost role or some advisory capacity during a transition period.
This provost is far superior to previous.
go back to the classroom
go back into the classroom and work with students again
She is a strong, dedicated adminstrator who cares about the faculty and about the institution. Dr. Alperin is well respected.
I am disappointed that John Pritchett was forced out, and that she also appears unwelcome in the Provost’s office as far as MJS is concerned.
Thanks for all you do. Level headed leader.
Interim Provost Alperin has a long and successful history with FAU. Her excellence has been well established.
Interim Provost Alperin is in over her head. She pushes FTE generation, not the retention of only quality students at the university. The university wold be best served if she were to resign.
A.D. Henderson has not been formally introduced to the provost. It would be great for her to come make an introduction to our school.
Diane Alperin fully supports Dean Stevens on decisions of his that violate the CECS ByLaws. Multiple and concerted attempts by faculty to make her aware of the violations, faculty concerns and opinions are futile. She threatens faculty who oppose Dean Stevens and attempt to follow the ByLaws with censure.
she is a nice person
she is a very nice person
Ineffective
Doesn’t have a clue what is happening in the colleges.
Although generally a strong administrator, Alperin has ignored the concerns of a large number of faculty in the College of Arts and Letters who have spoken to her about their Dean.
Provost Alperin is an invisible bureaucrat with no vision or interest in improving the institution.
Why is she in this job?
Good job Diane!
Unfortunately, the provost does not solve problems.
Be dismissed.
the longer she allows the dean to be dean the more to blame she is for the problems.
Provost Alperin comes across on the outside as bored. She’s just an administrator of rules. But she isn’t. Instead, she’s busy throwing faculty under the bus.As well, here we are more than two years into the Pendakur regime and Provost Alperin hasn’t made a move to oust him, or, was Provost Alperin the one who sent him to charm school?
Alperin’s years of experience, whether as Associate Prov. or as Interim Prov, rather than helpful, would be detrimental to our next Provost.
Alperin has been a spokesperson for the Board and for various destructive forces in the University. This might be expected from a career administrator who carries on for those she reports to, but it does not work as a Provost. We need a real Provost who understands academia and the role of faculty. She is not that.
I’ve always respected Provost Alperin, but her inability or unwillingness to address in any substantial way the insuperable problems with Dean Pendakur has damaged her credibility.
A generally fair and competent administrator, but someone who should be in a staff rather than a line position.
Its like Obama keeping Rumsfeld. Get her behind us.
While Interim Provost Alperin is a decent person, she has not been responsive to the many problems in the College of Arts and Letters, mainly those arising from Dean Pendakur’s authoritarian and unjust behavior. She allowed him to fire a member of the department of philosophy without any consultation with department members and the department chair. Instead of realizing that there was a very bad problem of morale within the College of Arts & Letters due to Pendakur’s behavior (which she should have realized from the number of complaints she has been receiving), she has allowed him to go on unchecked until things reached a crisis situation. I am especially disturbed that she has not responded to the way he has treated female faculty members or anyone who disagrees with him, such as the imminent professors. Pendakur has repeatedly ignored doctoral students until he was forced to meet with them when they went over his head. Provost Alperin seems to view the faculty in an adversarial position, but when so many different faculty members for so many different reasons are complaining, then action needs to be taken. Even if she couldn’t get rid of Pendakur, she should have reined him in and read him the riot act. She should have at least told him to stop gossiping about faculty members within the college and to restore the position of the assistant professor who was fired without any cause, except Pendakur’s desire to get rid of Philosophy (which the entire faculty of the college seems to disagree with, by the way).While I appreciate the fact that a Provost might not be able to make certain moves publicly, there is nothing to indicate that she has taken any actions whatsoever to remedy the problems in Arts & Letters. Faculty members who have come to her repeatedly hit a brick wall. The lawsuits pending are a direct result of failure to address serious problems in the college. No solutions to problems have come from that quarter, so it is time for her to leave that office.
diane has been told by numerous faculty that manju is a racist, anti-Semitic, mysogynist, vindictive dean. Yet, she has done nothing to respond to our concerns. The absence of transparency in her administration is appalling. Clearly, there is a serious problem in our college. A better provost would have taken the time heed our concerns. Diane read the comments about manju posted on the UFF site from last year. Yet, nothing has changed and equally significant, no one from the administration has publicly addressed the problems. This lack of response is a blemish on the administration. The DFS College of A&L produces the bulk of the FTE money for the university. Nevertheless, it appears that no one is listening to our pleas for manju’s departure. Too many faculty have found his management untenable. The provost needs to address this matter immediately.
Her instincts are good and she is a smart person, but her fear of litigation has tied her hands when it comes to improving the academic caliber of the university.
I did not expect her to be a great interim academic leader, but she could have done better than whe has.
Apparently knows very little about some colleges. Was amazed that the Honors College had such a strong science program – thought we were all “granola-eating tree-huggers.”

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Mary Jane Saunders, President

The university would be better served if President SAUNDERS would:

Look before she leaps. The president says FAU will be a Midwestern University — we’ll be nice. But this attitude was not reflected in her visit to the Honors College faculty. She insulted the Dean in front of his faculty — he may have had it coming, but this hurt her more than it did him; it showed a lack of professionalism and a tendency to bully at a moment in which everyone in the university is terrified about the future — and she snapped at two loyal and hard-working faculty members who have served this institution faithfully for more than ten years.
Open more lines of communication with her faculty/deans/chairs.Learn more about the various units she administers.Clearly commit to programs so that they can operate effectively without fear of being dissolved/moved.
hire an excellent provost who shares her appreciation for the contribution that honors programs can make to FAU
Go away and not come back.
Actively listen to faculty and their concerns – so far all of her interest has been superficial clap trap. Her misguided attempts to boost enrolment are going to turn FAU into a glorified community college. Any possibility that we grow the university into something more, perhaps with a real research program seems to be diminishing as each day passes. As several of my collegues have been saying FAU = Find Another University
talk to ordinary faculty more, find out more about the state of the university and reduce size of self-serving administrations. She need to restore confidence of faculty.
return to ohio
replace teh dean and associate deans in engineering
focus on quality of programs and integrity instead of growth and the bottom line.
be present all all more
teach a class
Friendly
Keep up the highly visible leadership. Visiting classes, events, and sending announcements are all appreciated.Rethink the timing and emphasis of her undergraduate priority in light of the community colleges/state colleges offering certain bachelor’s degrees. FAU needs to not compete with them, but partner and provide academic programs they do not offer. A key role for FAU’s future, given these shifts, is an emphasis on graduate education. If FAU does not address the graduate education market needs, in light of these shifts, others will in our service area, e.g. University of Florida, Florida State and the for profits. Traditional residential undergraduate education has a place at FAU, truly, and it is good to see her emphasize strengthening the residential experience; but, this should not be done at the expense of graduate programs.Assess her academic deans and their leadership carefully. Some are operating in old school frames that will not help her new agenda. Transformational leaders are needed that support her agenda and are willing to work toward implementation. Some are on board with her, but others voted to promote Pritchett to president…. she needs to be careful of those who truly do not support her, but act like they do to her face.Address gender inequities among faculty salaries and other compensation. Adjustments are long overdue.Implement a system whereby stakeholders give her feedback about her office staff in a confidential manner. One person, in particular, is known in some circles as a micro-manager and not as professional as I am sure President Sauders would like. MJ Saunders needs a trusted system for feedback that she can use to make decisions about who is around her and in what role.Look very carefully at the tools available to faculty to address her challenges of on line learning. Yes, instructional designers have been hired but they tell faculty that they do not provide technical support, only design support. While design support is useful, without the technical support for faculty the on line goals will not be met because most faculty find the technical aspects of teaching on line way too time consuming and way too clerical. She needs a system in place for faculty (users) to provide confidential input regarding on line support systems to achieve her goals.Protect the library and research resources. Rumor has it that more journals will be cut and access to non FAU dissertations will be eliminated. The library serves the entire university and MUST be protected. To cut access to library resources will surely be a key factor in some faculty leaving this university because they cannot do their research without access to research tools.
be a champion of full-time, tenured faculty and not promote the hiring of part-time contract employees to teach. She is contributing to the demise of higher education.
Open the Baldwin Hiouse frequently to FAU community events. The FAU community and the external community see Baldwin House as the place for the FAU “family” to gather and be together. At this point, due to the President’s wishes, Baldwin House has been recognized as unavailable. It would be better if this would change. People need a sense of belonging and Baldwin House has been that place for many of us.
Address emerging concerns about her centralized “control” and the fact that some colleges (e.g. Medical) will end up being the “fair haired child” as the expense of other colleges. Her position on faculty lines is deeply demoralizing.
Be cautious about who advises her in the office.A bossy staff member may reflect negatively on her, even when she does not know the person is speaking on her behalf in some circles.She is off to a great start with faculty.
Envision a comprehensive university beyond the fields of technology, science, biomedical, etc. A liberal arts/humanities coupled with excellent social service colleges (social work, nursing, and education) are vital for the future of our society and south Florida.
BOT not allowed the firing of Sharron Ronco. Ludicrous…after 14 years of dedicated service, helping numerous students and faculty, doing taxes for low SES Broward/Davie residents, organizing and leading the Breast Cancer Walk….why why why?
No answers here, what a loss to the U! How can a new president come in and just dimissed an effective, cherished, and highly ethical and giving freely of her own time admin? How?
keep up her commitment to professionalizing FAU’s administration and bringing the university into the 21st century.
Take Arts and Letters more seriously as an important part of the university.
My biggest worry: I am not sure she is aware of the amount of resources we need (faculty and advisor) to serve well the large number of new students we are going to accept.If student retention is a problem now, it will become worse later, if no new resources are being offered.
be fair with all colleges
Not place excessive focus on enrollment due to the current budget crisis.
Remove Dean P. and Provost A. Please, the lawsuits facing the FAUBOT need to be addressed positively. There is manure in the stables and it needs a Herculean effort to wash the stink off. Do something.
start over!
encourage next Provost to clean house by appointing new associate provost for faculty affairs, as well as by seeking more competent legal counsel than Mr. Glick.
Clean up the third floor and the Deans. She needs to take control and get rid of the forces that have been so destructive to the University–first priority– Dean of Arts and Letters.
be more accessible to faculty. She has some superb ideas, however. How or whether she will implement them is another matter. She also needs to show more appreciation to the academic programs that give a university intellectual integrity–not every discipline can generate the grants money that administrators understandably appreciate.
…continue to be cautious about relying on the advice of those who currently hold administrative positions. …continue to move FAU into the 21st century ….continue to work on figuring out what can be supported within existing resources ….continue to have the same level of zest and enthusiasm that she has displayed during her first year. …continue to rebuild the university’s administrative ranks …
substantially enhance support, staffing and new facilities to those departments with community outreach missions (i.e. public performances) as a strategy to increase the university’s visibility and to create connections with the greater south Florida community
President Saunders has adopted inherently contradictory policies. She wants to increase enrollments and class sizes while improving standards and engagement and not spending more money. That’s like to trying to go faster in a car without pressing on the accelerator or using more gas. If she has an plan for how to engage more with students when your class size increases, she should really share it with us.
Talk less about football and more about academics. A football stadium is NOT central to creating an academic community. Talk in more balanced ways about science AND the humanities. A medical school is not the center of a university universe. She needs to figure out how to juggle multiple priorities rather than quite openly develop skewed priorities that serve the interests of a business-centric board of trustees.
Communicate with faculty directly rather than relying on press releases sent out by subordinates via e-mail. With her academic background, the time has come for her to behave the way she would have expected a president to behave when she was a faculty member.
Clean house on the third floor.
Focus on tenure-track lines instead of increasing instructors.
continue as she has been doing. It is too soon to tell what kind of a legacy she will have, but so far she has done a good job, if only because she is professional and understands the problems that FAU faces.
spend less time touting the virtues of an unaccredited medical school and distance learning and more time focusing on educational quality.
Keep doing what she is doing, but perhaps be a little more flexible when it comes to pushing internet courses and more adjunct/instructor faculty over tenure-track lines.
I am highly impressed with her abilities to promote the interest of the university and to reach out to the partner campuses. bravo!
Live up to her obligation as president to provide leadership regarding student standards instead of growing the university at all costs!
don’t know yet
find a better provost and a new Dean for Arts and Letters
recognize that faculty are the most important entity on campus and administrators are only there to support the needs of the faculty. At this time, being the lowest of the lowly in terms of salary does not help the esteem of faculty. Administrators are like parasites who live off the remains of faculty…having exorbitant salaries when faculty need second jobs to exists! Shame on all of them!!!
No way to tell. SHe need to be more visible and to visit departments. She has done some of this, but her vision and ideas beyond football and “making the students happy” are unclear.
seek more input from faculty across disciplines
Keep on truckin’.
demote Dean Pendakur to faculty position.
Review the portfolios that are up for permanent status. There are numerous teachers awaiting confirmation of permanent status.
if she came here 6 years ago
Promote academic standards by not allowing the expansion of programs that are led by instructors and faculty who have no substantial publication record and that have courses that are largely taught by non-tenure track faculty.
not push for so much growth and recognize the value of our part time students
continue to emphasize and fund science. Be tough on the COB-many faculty are grossly overpaid (relative to other colleges (e.g., Nursing) for what they do (and/or have done). Back-door hires with ridiculous salaries because they’re designated as “Directors.”
Surround herself with new administrators who hold academic delivery in high regard instead of continuing the Brogan legacy of mediocrity. The distance learning push is not conducive to a high degree of academic quality. We will never leave the fourth tier reputation behind.
STOP TRYING TO CONTROL FACULTY SEARCHES.
lose Barry Rosson and Tom Donaudy.
Leave the football stadium and its dubious funding to the fundraisers. It would be a true shame if its tenuous funding distracted her from the many very important academic and financial challenges she is skilled in solving.
Put concerted effort to collect the allied interests of Deans and truly take a lead role in developing cross-disciplinary programs with our new partner institutes. This “happy accident” of having Scripps and the Max Planck Florida Institute landing in Jupiter should be taken full advantage of by FAU. While one might argue that in these economic times, we cannot afford to spend money on such enterprises. The fact is that there will likely never be a more appropriate or important time than now to act to truly put resources and effort into developing fully fledged programs to interact with our partners in Jupiter. When I hear that “…UF research is everywhere”, I worry that if FAU does not seize this opportunity and provide spend its capital on this effort, then UF research will be even closer to FAU than we all would prefer.
Be more visible to students and faculty. I am not sure how she should do this, but it is essential.

Additional comments about President SAUNDERS:

President Saunders seems to be an excellent president, and we are lucky to have her.
Seems very out of touch
How could we possibly have found someone who was worse than Brogan? Less than a year into her reign and she seems to be a disaster. 19,000 applicants are going to change FAU overnight, she says, completely ignoring the fact that many are of poor quality. Numbers-guided, only cares about backsides-in-seats, and doesn’t care about quality of education. Doesn’t listen when she graces faculty meetings with her presence, only decides to hear what she wants to hear. Doesn’t want to hear contrary viewpoints, doesn’t want any ideas suggested that aren’t her own. Seems to think the football stadium will make FAU a top tier university.She will get worse. And so will FAU because of her.
She seems to have good insights and I wish her well.
makes brogan look decent
it is too early for comments
does not liten to faculty….takes pictures with dolphins…
Poor memoryyou can meet her 100 times and she never remembers.She is nice, but out of touch with students and being a teacherneeds to visit all campuses more and be more on the news promoting FAU.Stop emphasizing sports so muchGet better deans, most had bad evals last year and need to be replaced.
Truly, too early to tell about her leadership long term. But, she has started on many positive notes and I applaud her contributions during her first year. Long overdue faculty raises helped morale as did her visits to classes and speaking engagements. To keep faculty here at FAU, she needs to ensure raises are appropriately annually and to address inequities such as compression and gender inequities.
take action to correct the tremendous gender inequity in salaries at FAU and address the significant compression problem.
forgetfulkindnice smilemeans wellpracticalhard working
much better atmosphere now at FAU
she is positive
She is a good administrator but it would be better if she expressed her passion for education more enthusiastically. She is developing good relationships with the donor community.
I supported the hiring of MJS. However, I am undecided how I feel about her after a year. She said that she was a good listener. I hope that she is able to follow through on that. Thrilled to have her over Brogan! Sad to lose Pritchett (and Roncoe).
Thanks for finally allocating funds for faculty raises. We are still grossly underpaid in light of the cost of living. Equity is still a big problem still.Undergraduate education is valuable, but please do not overlook Ph.D faculty and programs.
President Saunders has made a fine beginning as President. It is nice to have an academic as head of the university.
Way too early to judge her effectiveness. Her enthusiasm, however, is remarkable.
Above situation has caused fear greater than ever felt at this U before. Given the results of the climate survey that preceded MJ, this statement should not be considered lightly.fear, fear, fear….felt even by those who are highly productive and very valuable additions to the university. Clearly, this no longer matters and for sure does not guarantee one’s position. How will that message play out in the long run? Something to consider.
President Saunders should be careful not to be misled by those individuals who are more interested in promoting peripheral matters than in the central academic and educational mission of the University.
Has not been on the job long enough to evaluate.
Too early to tell about the new president.
We are hopeful, for the first time in a long time….
Very early in the game, especially with no Provost in place. One hopes that Dr. Saunders’ experience as an academic and apparent concern for academic freedom will rub off on FAU’s Trustees.
Too soon to have a real assessment.
There are tough decisions ahead, but she is someone we can trust to approach them rationally and thoughtfully. She loves the job as much as Frank Brogan ever said he did, but she can actually DO the job — which is, of course, a tremendous advantage. Finally, a real leader.
I had high hopes for MJ’s tenure. And hey, she’s great at reminding us about fau’s history. After all, history (in small drops) is useful for establishing links to the past–we see ourselves as part of a long line.Then, too, mj is great about praising the med school to the heavens. Gosh, it’s so innovative and fantastic, and the med shcool dean, hasn’t he done a fantastic job?–and, wait, it has provisional accreditation and no students! Don’t worry, we’ll get to that part next week. Meanwhile, faculty in other colleges work hard at their lectures, entertain student queries until late in the day (or eve_), and publish books and articles. When does MJ dispatch Provost Alperin to tell us how great we are? When does MJ write web piece extolling our many accomplishments?As well, MJ’s “history” serves to remind us of the gap between fau’s apparent promise and the reality of our circumstances–low salaries,limited resources, and the hateful dean pendakur.
Dr. Saunders’ tenure as president is too fresh; the verdict on her leadership needs to wait at least a year to be reliable.
I worry about the talk of retention– it seems to center around making the students happy rather than enforcing standards and helping them with real remedial work. It sounds like a call for more grade inflation. We have many students who do not belong in college, but who might be able to make it if real remedial programs were in place. We do not have any. The spending of 22 million from “reserve funds” on the football stadium while the University is still claiming dire poverty and an inability to pay faculty also worries me. We have real problem with faculty compensation, and it needs to be addressed. THe 2 percent offered as an olive branch when she came in did point to what has been going on– but the money exists to do better and we would be much better off concentrating on academics than football. The faculty problem is the problem this President has to face, along with creating a decent administration, which the last administration turned into a horror show. THose people are still around, and should not be. Faculty need to be integrated as primary actors in the University, and they haven’t been. That “reserve fund” should be used where it can do the most for the academic status of the University– and that is not building football stadiums. It is supporting and building the faculty.
She is affable, smart, and innovative. promising.
Too soon to tell. Early indications are promising, I think.
Everyone in my circles is very enthusiastic about the new president. She has a lot of supporters.
President Saunders currently has a large reservoir of good will–including mine. I am particularly grateful for her forthrightness and honesty, which have been sorely lacking in the FAU administration for a long time. I wish her well and would like to help her execute her plans if she can enunciate a set of logical and achievable goals and a strategy for accomplishing them.
In the 8 months since her arrival, President Saunders has shown no signs of leadership skills. Despite having been personally informed of charges of abuse and racist language by subordinates, she has taken no visible action. How hard is it to issue a statement saying that bullying and bigotry will not be tolerated?
No doubt she found a worse off institution than she expected and her analyses are impressive. But she is like Obama in expressing herself well but not taking impressive actions. She should have identified and solved the Pendakur problem within her first month and had a wounded Arts college that was starting to heal.
I support the goal of raising standards at FAU, but I think the key is to push us to increase scholarly productivity, not by asking us to increase our administrative responsibilities.
So far, President Saunders has shown herself to be a competent president, and she possesses a much needed professionalism and knowledge of academia lacking in our previous president. While I wish she had continued the tradition of all previus presidents in attending the graduation program for Women’s Studies students and I do not expect to necessarily agree with every decision she will make in the future, she has so far shown great insight into the Florida academic environment, the problems and challenges that FAU faces, and seems to handling them well. I hope that she will understand the important contribution that the arts, humnanities, and social sciences make to FAU (in spite of the current emphasis on the sciences) and that she will help to enhance the research and scholarship in these areas.Mostly, I hope she will be an effective fundraiser and return FAU to its status within the state as a research institution. If she can make progress toward solving the problems of low graduation rates, then she will have helped FAU recover from its recent downhill slides within the state university system.
Like many faculty, I had great hopes for our new president. Alas, I, like many in our college, have dealt with disappointment. Many faculty have told MJ about the tyrannical manju, about his prejudices, and his discriminatory practices. Nevertheless, she, like other administrators, has done nothing to assure faculty. MJ read the comments from last year’s survey. She cannot plead ignorance. manju is a blemish on the university and will color MJ’s administration at FAU. In addition, the concern with increasing enrollment has superceded the concern with quality programs.
Hiring Dr. Saunders as our president was the best decision FAU has made since I came here 20 years ago. She has an academic vision for the university and takes the time to get to know the various parts of the university population. Her populism is refreshing as she doesn’t cut herself off from anyone. I look forward to a new day when FAU becomes known for all the right things under her leadership. (But why is she being called Interim President?? I attended her inauguration!)
There is a sharp contradiction between the President’s growth agenda and her retention and student success agenda. My class sizes are growing, leaving less opportunity for genuine student contact or engagement, which is a necessary component of student success.
it is a nice change to see her on campus.
If she wants to increase retention, as we all do, then remedial programs have to be taken seriously and initiated. FAU has never had remedial programs, and there are plenty of successful examples out there. “Being friendly” and nice to students will only result in more grade inflation, of which there is much already. INcreasing the size of the university at the rate she has indicated will result in simply more underprepared students and students who do not belong in a college environment. Numbers are not everything.
Go M.J.!
She is a strong leader, and faculty are hopeful that Arts and Letters will have a chance to begin the healing process.
I do not know very much about what the President is doing, what she plans to do, and how she plans to do it.
Class act. Sincere. Caring. Outstanding leader and administrator. A 180 from the phony, arrogant, in-sincere Brogan
President Sauders seems to be encouraging the movement of the College of Business toward increasing the size of weak programs akin to community college programs. She has aligned herself with those administrators and faculty in the College of Business who are interested in increasing size at the expense of quality.
Hospitality Mgmt program is redundant with a plethora of public and private programs in state; faculty in this program are very weak. Students are ill-advised to major in this area.
DO NOT INTERFERE WITH FACULTY SEARCHES. ONCE SHE APPROVES A POSITION, LET THE FACULTY DO THE RECRUITING. SHE DOES NOT KNOW OUR FIELD. WE LOST SEVERAL GOOD PEOPLE DUE TO HER INTERFERENCE: “YES YOU CAN RECRUIT, NO YOU CAN’T, YES YOU CAN” ETC.
She has raised the academic tone, but the decision to fire Sharron Ronco before SACS rivals Frank Brogan’s Davenport debacles.
It’s a bit early to evaluate Dr. Saunders
I appreciate the interest shown in raising faculty salaries in order to stem the attrition amongst faculty. More effort placed in this arena will help improve our university and our ability to recruit and retain the best faculty available.
I’m holding ‘strongly agree’ for the future–Pres. Saunders has only recently “hit the ground”.
What a breath of fresh air President Saunders is for this University!

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Results of 2010-11 Faculty Assessment of Administrators – Individual Comments

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