through which this policy change arrived at the Board. Finally, we ask that you consider the shared governance implications of this change. Since you decided in July not to make changes to the Faculty Code that were possibly related to shared governance, it seems appropriate to also avoid changes to other policies that impact shared governance at this time.
NWCCU Evaluation Site Visit
The FSEC submitted a public comment to NWCCU in advance of the evaluation site visit. In this comment, we registered our concerns about CWU’s adherence to standards related to governance of the institution. Specifically, we expressed concerns about the following: • Lack of inclusive planning processes (Standard 1.B.3) • Patterns of direct appointment of administrators without faculty involvement (Standard 2.A.2) • Lack of adherence to established processes for faculty involvement in institution decision-making (Standard 2.A.4) • Inadequate response to the vote of no confidence complaint (Standard 2.D.2) • Insufficient opportunities for faculty participation in financial planning (Standard 2.E.2) • Lack of transparent management of financial resources (Standard 2.E.3) • Inadequate faculty participation in the evaluation of administrators, and inequitable faculty evaluations (Standard 2.F.4) Our goal in submitting this comment was not to harm CWU’s accreditation but to share faculty perspective with the NWCCU site evaluation team so they can ask informed questions during their visit and provide recommendations to support CWU’s continuous improvement as an institution. Unfortunately, we felt faculty perspective was lacking from both the self-study document and a supplementary statement on the vote of no confidence. Both were created without meaningful involvement of the Faculty Senate, and as such, do not fully represent the faculty perspective. We ask that the Board consider the accreditation standards listed above as you engage in upcoming discussions of shared governance so the direction of institutional change meets accreditation expectations.
Communication related to Consultants
We acknowledge that the Board has hired two consultants in an effort to address faculty concerns related to shared governance and to begin the process of rebuilding trust.
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