One message to the central administration stood out at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting: more transparency.

‘A recurring theme has been transparency in almost all of the comments,’ said Samuel Gorovitz, a philosophy professor and often outspoken university senator.

In nearly every topic of discussion at Wednesday’s USen meeting, faculty and staff called for more transparency from the Syracuse University administration. Some professors called for more data and documents when it comes to university finances, others wanted more inclusion in top-down decision-making. The climax of the evening’s push for transparency came from the Committee on Women’s Concerns. The committee gave a report on the recent reorganization of university child care services, which led to mass frustration and anger from parents around campus.

In summer 2010, the university reorganized its day care programs provided for the young children of SU’s employees. The preschool and day care programs moved from the Division of Student Affairs into the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, then named the College of Human Ecology.

Talks had been going on for years about capitalizing on the expertise of SU’s faculty in Falk for running its day care programs, said Eric Spina, vice chancellor and provost, at Wednesday’s meeting.

But after central administrators gave the go-ahead, the following year of reorganization proved to alienate and infuriate many parents and staff members at the day care center, according to the committee’s report. Parents sent letters, emails and met in person with the Committee on Women’s Concerns explaining how they were left in the dark about changes to their children’s education and care.

‘They felt that at every turn in this process, there was at best little transparency and at worst disrespect by Falk College administrators and faculty,’ the report read.

Responding to the report, Spina acknowledged the merger of the day care into Falk wasn’t perfect.

‘Things could have been done differently,’ he said. ‘They would have been done differently.’

Parents and their sympathizers present at Wednesday’s meeting used a number of disheartening words to describe the top-down merger: botched, toxic, disrespectful, condescending and clouded.

Thomas Keck, a political science professor and parent of children at the day care center for six and a half years, said the parents’ anger highlighted in the report reflects his own experiences.

‘The report very accurately captures the spirit of frustration that was felt by a good number of parents at the center regarding that transition process that was truly botched in a number of ways,’ Keck said.

Keck also offered that the report was a bit dated because it did not include some of the very recent and very important improvements to the day care, such as hiring the new director.

The parents’ emails expressed anger at central administrators and Falk administrators and faculty. But Marty Hanson, who delivered the report Wednesday, cautioned against pointing fingers at any one group involved.

‘It’s about a very broken process and the need for more transparency,’ Hanson said.

The chancellor could not make it to Wednesday’s meeting because she was giving a talk in North Carolina on building trust among members of a community or organization.

In addition to the calls for future transparency from the parents and staff at the day care center via the Committee on Women’s Concerns, several professors asked the administration for more transparency regarding financial data and the reorganization of human resources.

Robert Van Gulick, a philosophy professor and member of the USen Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, said the committee and university community should have access to more detailed budget information.

Just several years ago, he said, the university used to post breakdowns of how money was spent on and within each of the schools and colleges. That data is no longer posted for the campus community to review, a change administrators told him was meant to prevent those outside the SU community from seeing the data.

‘Why outsiders would want to see our financial data isn’t quite clear,’ Van Gulick said. ‘So I want to make a public statement here that we hope that it will go back up.’

Craig Dudczak, associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies, raised a concern about the recent reorganization of SU’s Human Resources, which included appointing Kal Alston to the newly created position of senior vice president for human capital development.

He said if USen is to have any meaningful advisory role in university affairs, it seems reasonable that the senate hear about major reorganizational projects before they get released in SU News.

In his own call for more transparency, Samuel Gorovitz applauded the Committee on Women’s Concerns for providing an open and honest report.

‘It is a courageous, forthright and lucid report,’ he said, ‘which recounts the carnage that results from a process that is not collaborative and not transparent.’

rastrum@syr.edu

Published on February 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm