ISU, UNI faculty groups back UI 'no confidence' votes

Members of faculty groups at the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University have issued statements of support for the "no confidence" votes taken last week against the Iowa Board of Regents by the University of Iowa Faculty Senate and the student governments.

The statements — which were issued by the chapters of the American Association of University Professors at both universities — criticized the process by which the regents came unanimously to approve the hire of former IBM executive Bruce Harreld as UI's 21st president. The groups found problems with the speed of the process, the lack of diversity among the finalists and the minimal voice given to UI faculty during the final phases of the search.

"The issues described above leads the United Faculty-AAUP Chapter of the University of Northern Iowa to give our full support to the statement made by the University of Iowa-AAUP Chapter deploring the actions of the Iowa Board of Regents in conducting their presidential search for the University of Iowa," wrote Joe Gorton, president of United Faculty-AAUP, the union representing the roughly 550 faculty at UNI.

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In response to the regents hiring Harreld despite the UI community's expressed concerns over his qualifications, the statement from the ISU chapter found the regents' decision to be "a clear violation of both the spirit and the letter" of principles of the regents' own policies and the national AAUP's statements on the government of colleges and universities.

The UI AAUP chapter has scheduled a forum this week to provide an opportunity for the broader UI community to gather and reflect on questions of how universities should operate in the 21st century. The discussion will also focus on the negative collective response among UI faculty, staff and student governments to the process by which a new UI president was chosen by the regents.

Discussion will begin at 7 p.m. Thursday in Room 1505 of the Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences on the UI campus. Information is available at http://aaup.org.uiowa.edu.