Ongoing Concerns Regarding the Response to the Vote of No Confidence Although we appreciate the board’s willingness to engage with us, significant concerns remain regarding the university’s progress in rebuilding trust regarding the vote of no confidence as well as the lack of public Board acknowledgement about leadership issues brought forward by faculty during the 2025-2026 academic year. Although perhaps grounded in caution, the lack of Board recognition of the issues communicates avoidance and dismissal of faculty concerns. While the President’s university-wide email on April 2, 2026 adopted a much-improved tone over his previous communications, it still did not detail any substantive changes or actions going forward. As of July 2026, we have seen no action by the President to make meaningful change or to re-engage with faculty. At this point, we would expect the President to be actively engaging with faculty-at-large and faculty leadership to rebuild trust and suggest specific next steps to resolve issues with the shared governance document and the other concerns highlighted in the petition for the vote of no confidence. We discussed these concerns with the Board AAC and recognize that the Board has asked the President to take re-integration slowly in hopes that the trust consultant and our work with Dr. Bahls will help with this re-integration starting in the Fall. We share that hope and are also concerned that there has been very little administrative or Board acknowledgement of the harm suffered by faculty over the last several years. At this point, we also expected to see a change in the shared governance approach of the upper administration, yet we continue to see initiatives and decisions moving forward without early, genuine consultation with faculty. As one example, the recent decision to forbid international work and travel has had significant adverse impact on faculty, which could have been avoided had the administration communicated and collaborated with faculty leaders early to develop a solution. We are concerned it will be difficult for the university community to move forward without the President’s and other upper administration’s genuine engagement, reflection, and willingness to change along with the Board’s acknowledgement that those efforts and changes are needed. The Work of Faculty Senate In these challenging times, the Faculty Senate has continued engaging in the important work of shared governance. We will continue to provide quarterly written updates to the Board about Faculty Senate initiatives and the myriad ways faculty are engaged in
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