STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — Current and former University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point faculty, staff, and students released a three-page letter sent to the Board of Regents on Thursday calling for a change in leadership at the second-largest school in the UW system.
During a 30-minute media session led by current Professor Mick Veum, two major issues were raised; including a lack of clear communication with current leaders including Chancellor Bernie Patterson and Provost Greg Summers and the hiring of too many tenure-tracked faculty positions at a time when school leaders knew enrollment was declining.
“I think we got here through bad management,” said Veum. “It is a painful thing for me to have to acknowledge because Universities are like big families. Having to acknowledge that we got into a very bad financial situation through poor management means that I am criticizing people I have worked very closely with through many years.”
Veum spent the better part of the summer and fall serving on committees brought together to examine the original plan to eliminate more than a dozen majors. He said during that time those groups were told that no alternative plan existed, however, in early November a new plant to restructure by eliminating just six majors was released. Veum said his group never got the chance to examine that document before it was made public.
READ: Open letter to the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
“We spent a lot of time spinning our wheels, going around and around and having the same conversations over and over, not really knowing what is the plan.” Veum said they were told on November 9th that there was no plan “in a desk drawer, we don’t have one,” only to see the latest Point Forward proposal released to the campus on Monday morning. “We were never allowed to see it or vet it,” he adds.
“Why were we meeting two days a week during the fall if it was a decision that was already going to be made, I don’t feel like I had a lot of say,” Veum says the only way forward is for the campus to be more collaborative and to share information, even if it’s painful information.
Veum says he wants the Board of Regents to take the letter seriously and consider the information presented. He says there’s no question that he’s calling out Patterson and Summers for their handling of the situation. “I’d be a total liar if I sat there and said ‘oh no I don’t know who this is.’ I know that puts me at risk, but it is what it is.”
PATTERSON RESPONDS
Following the release of the letter in the Dreyfus University Center, Chancellor Patterson hosted a media roundtable in Old Main to give his side of the story. He opened the session by saying those who are calling for him to either step down or be replaced are free to do so.
“Faculty, staff, and students are free to express their opinions. They are free to present different perspectives. That’s the great thing about the University,” said Patterson. He also pointed out that the group releasing the letter, UW-SPARC, is part of a local and national union that doesn’t officially represent the faculty and staff of the University.
He went on to add that none of the current faculty members have anything to be worried about as far as retribution goes if they signed the letter publicly. Some current faculty signed anonymously out of fear for their jobs. A number of students and community members also signed the letter.
He says talks about the current Point Forward plan will continue, as they have since the initial plan to eliminate over a dozen majors was released last March. According to Patterson the Point Forward plan (which proposes the elimination of six major offerings) is currently in the hands of the Shared Governance Group “They’re going to report back to me in the next three months, and that’s going to be helpful. We’ve been doing that all along.”
When asked about Veum’s concerns about open and honest communication through the process, Patterson said he wasn’t sure what the basis was for those statements. “The communications I’ve had with faculty and staff have been very positive. We don’t always agree on everything, nor should we. In fact, I was meeting with people just this week and we had cordial conversations and I got good ideas from them that I plan on following up on. That’s going to continue.”
Patterson was not in attendance for the release of the letter but says he has read it and says it’s open to interpretation. He said the letter expresses a lot of concern about what wasn’t done and doesn’t feel that it provides any solutions.
As it stands Patterson has no plans to step down as leader of UWSP. “I never quit, and there’s no reason to. This is a great place [and] I love this University, I love the faculty and staff that are here, and I love our students.”
“I could not be more proud of the people that work at this University. So I have no intention of leaving.”
