We, the Faculty Senate of Loyola University, call on President Wildes and Provost Harris to enter into a productive discussion with

elected faculty leaders to address critical issues of shared governance created by the Pathways Plan.  We hope to work TOGETHER

more productively for the good of the institution by defining in this document some of the problems created by Pathways. We believe

that an agreement between faculty and Administration about principles and practices of shared governance is still possible and will

help restore a culture of trust that is critical to building a stronger Loyola for the future.  Conversely, we believe that failure to reach

this agreement will imperil the health and perhaps the survival of the University. 

We applaud the President’s statement, in his April 21 Chronicle of Higher Education article, that “university decisions involve students,

faculty members, administrators” and others. We also applaud his acknowledgement, in his letter to the Loyola community of May 22, that

the “university is a constellation of communities:  faculty, staff, students, alumni and administration,” and that “no one element comprises the

whole of the university.” We are concerned, however, that decision-making processes at Loyola contradict this stated point of view.

We believe, however, that the following pattern of objectionable behaviors undermines our identity as a “constellation of communities”

and threatens our institutional mission:

• Lack of Leadership in Articulating a Clear Vision for the Future;
• Lack of Collegiality and the Absence of Meaningful Community Input;
• Lack of Ongoing and Effective Communication; and
• Lack of Competence in the Discharge of Duties.

Lack of Leadership in Articulating and Building Support for a Vision Connected to the Mission of Loyola.

At this time, planning for Loyola’s future does not appear to be driven by a disclosed “mission”. Many features of Pathways seem

characterized by ad hoc decisions having a structural-political dimension rather than a serious fiscal justification.  No vision has been

publicly articulated to support the Pathways Plan and no explanation has been offered to illustrate how cutting programs, closing City

College, dividing the College of Arts and Sciences, and establishing new Schools and Colleges will better position us for a stronger

future. Apparently, at least one Board of Trustee member has publicly stated that the reason for splitting Arts and & Sciences is that

“it is ungovernable.” If a Board member said this, Not only does this reason lack any relationship to mission, it violates the most basic

premise of faculty shared governance upon which strong universities are built and maintained.  We take note that a special committee

of the American Association of University Professors is set to enquire into the management decisions at Loyola in August. 

Correspondence from the AAUP shows they are seriously troubled by Administration behavior.

Lack of Collegiality and Absence of Meaningful Community Input into Planning. 

A particularly disturbing behavior pattern of the President and Provost and members of their administrative staffs is exclusion of

faculty members, deans, and often vice-presidents from the planning process. Many faculty members as well as chairs and deans

have decades of leadership experience at Loyola as well specialized knowledge to contribute to planning.  Given the relative lack

of experience of the administrative leadership team operating the university, it is hard to understand why valuable knowledge and

experience would be ignored at this time of crisis.  Standard practice in crisis management situation is more rather than less

transparency, more rather than less inclusiveness.  The current administration has not disclosed any theory or facts to justify

its self-imposed isolation. 

The President’s Planning Task Force, convened in spring 2006, is a case in point.  Charged with making recommendations to the 
Board Planning Committee, the Planning Task Force was composed of elected senate faculty representatives, deans, vice presidents, 
a representative from the staff senate, and SGA representatives; however, the Planning Task Force only met three times and did
 not share any substantive data or ideas for restructuring. The Planning Task Force merely responded to drafts of  broad goal 
statements (e.g., “Excel in educating students as whole persons,”  “Support high quality faculty, staff, and administrators”). 
For this reason, the Planning Task Force appears to have been little more than a ruse for the leadership team to claim involvement 
and input from faculty and lower- and mid-level administrators in formulating the plan.  This is hardly a pattern that a University 
that calls itself “Critical Thinking University” can tolerate unless it wants to admit that “Critical Thinking University” is simply a 
hollow slogan waved in the air for marketing purposes.

SCAP’s work on program review criteria for discontinuance of programs is another example of faculty effort and recommendations

dismissed.   Charged by the Provost with developing such criteria, SCAP worked from January to late March and sent their criteria to

the Senate for approval and/or modification.  The Senate refused to approve them. Instead of consulting with the Senate about

modifications to the criteria, the Provost simply threw out SCAP’s recommendations and applied other criteria.  Despite the

administration’s failure to work with the faculty on program review, the President has cited the work of SCAP and the Senate on the

criteria as proof of faculty participation in the program review process. 

In short, planning is being conducted by a small isolated group of senior administrators who only talk with and listen to each other.

The scant regard that this administration shows toward anyone outside Marquette Hall constitutes a profound lack of respect for

the faculty and has led to low faculty morale and several “no confidence” votes.  It is not surprising that this lack of respect has led

to calls for passive resistance to key administrative initiatives.

Lack of Ongoing and Effective Communication.

Post-Katrina planning has been put in place without a mechanism to facilitate clear and consistent communication between

administrators and faculty members students and alumni. This lack of communication has left the Loyola community in the dark

about where the administration plans to take the university in the future.   Again, there is no articulated “mission” for a

post-Katrina Loyola.  Such a re-articulated  mission statement cannot be the closely held secret of a small group.

Lack of Competence in the Discharge of Duties Associated with the Office of the Provost.

The Provost’s Office has been marked by ineffectiveness and inefficiency.  Here are some examples:

• The equivocation and lack of clear communication about plans to honor or not to honor the contracts of
• extraordinary faculty members in the spring 2006 semester.

• The Spring II survey debacle that did not offer useful data to chairs and/or deans for planning purposes. Because the survey was poorly planned and executed by the Provost’s office, chairs had no support in coordinating offerings over the two five-week and the ten-week sessions. To get the courses they need, many students have had to take as many as three courses in a single five-week session and an additional one in one of the other sessions. In addition, many believe that they must take 12 hours to keep their financial aid.  For many students this has been an impossible course load.  Their academic work is suffering, they are experiencing major stress, and many are speaking of leaving Loyola because of this disastrous Spring II semester. 

• The absence of a reasonable implementation strategy for changes outlined in the Pathways Plan. Many of the changes are scheduled to go into effect August 1, which at this writing is but six weeks away, yet the staff in the Provost’s Office is still grappling with most basic implementation issues.  When tough questions or unintended consequences emerge, the Provost’s Office arrogantly bounces responsibility for answers back to the faculty and deans. In short, the administration has centralized decision making and pushed away from responsibility and accountability for its decisions.   For example, widespread confusion exists about which students will be able to finish degrees in terminated programs.  The Pathways web page states that juniors and seniors will be able complete their majors.  Recently, the message has changed:   only juniors and seniors who can complete their degrees by May 2007 will be able to finish. The definition of “junior” has become slippery, and this slipperiness characterizes much of the information coming out of Marquette. 

• The bypassing of deans, area coordinators, and chairs on major implementation issues of the plan. Members of the Provost’s Office have violated proper channels by going around deans and chairs and meeting with individual faculty to discuss and negotiate parts of the plan that have a direct impact on those faculty. These discussions have included hints of possible resources to follow if cooperation is secured. Faculty members across colleges must reject these attempts to co-opt faculty members by bypassing elected faculty leaders and deans.

Concern about the President’s Inattention to Differential Cuts and the Negative Effects that the Performance of the Provost and His Staff is Having on His Presidency.

Although the Pathways plan has resulted in layoffs of numerous part-time, extraordinary, tenure-track, and tenured faculty members, the President’s Office and the Provost’s Office have set no visible example of fiscal restraint.  Instead, senior administration has created new senior administrative positions, created a new College and appointed an interim Dean, who will be supported by additional clerical staff.  Even international travel has not been curtailed.

Other Problems Associated with Pathways: Process Issues, Invalid Data, and Weak Rationale.

The Loyola University New Orleans Faculty Handbook states that proposals for program or department discontinuances are to be evaluated by the Standing Committee for Academic Planning (SCAP) applying criteria approved by the Senate. While the Board of Trustees makes final decisions on program discontinuances, SCAP is charged with advising the Board, the President, and the University Senate on these matters. (P 9.8)

Process Issues/Violations with Regards to the SCAP:

1. SCAP was not given the opportunity to evaluate and did not evaluate the Pathways proposal using criteria approved by the Senate.

2. SCAP was allowed one week to provide feedback on Pathways, and this short time period occurred during Holy Week, when many members had religious and familial obligations on top of the intensive committee work.

3. The data provided to SCAP was not nearly sufficient to evaluate the proposed program cuts. Only partial financial and statistical data were provided to support the decisions in Pathways. SCAP was told that any recommended changes to the plan had to be offset dollar for dollar by other cuts. As no estimates of savings expected from the cuts were provided to SCAP, this was an impossible charge.  See below for a detailed analysis of flawed data in Pathways (“A Critique Of The Pathways Plan”)

4. In the spirit of understanding the University’s difficult situation, SCAP took this work seriously and made some important recommendations to improve Pathways.  These recommendations were largely ignored!

5. SCAP was neither informed of nor shown the revision of the Pathways Plan until the revised plan was approved by the Board on May 19, 2006.

Invalid Data Related to the Pathways Plan

The data posted on the Provost’s website was described by President Wildes in his letter of March 17, 2006 as “all the data that will be used to guide decision-making.”  In fact, the Faculty Senate found this data to be grossly incomplete. (See http://loyno.edu/facultyandstaff/universitysenate/.  Click on Review Criteria and the Program Criteria Data Matrix Links)

Additionally, SCAP members found many errors in the data while they were reviewing the Pathways proposal during Easter Break. They discovered many others after SCAP had approved its original recommendation to the Board, the President, and the Senate. This was part of the motivation for SCAP to meet again on May 9 and 10 and to write a strong statement outlining the errors and warning against the misuse of the data to justify decisions related to the Pathways Plan. See http://loyno.edu/facultyandstaff/universitysenate/ click on the Summary of UPT link). 

6. Here are a few of the inaccuracies.  These are set forth in greater detail in “A Critique Of The Pathways Plan.”

• In many cases, the number of majors and minors were miscounted, for example, in Computer Science, Education, Physics and Communications.

2. All indications were that the programs proposed for elimination in Communications were in fact viable programs that made substantial net dollars. Later, additional data was provided by the Provost’s Officeto counter this, but this data was also found to be either incorrect or misleading.

3. Education, Computer Science and Physics were presented as losing substantial dollars when in fact they operate in the black.

4. Errors in coding in the Delaware Study were found in at least one subject (Communications). The coding was based on Communications programs that are   different from ours.  These faulty comparisons made our program look extremely expensive.

If the process had been better applied and more open, and if the Deans had been consulted, we could have discovered and corrected many of these errors. Instead we have a very frustrated and mistrustful faculty that is wondering if the errors were actually intentional.

Weak Rationale Offered to Justify Pathways Plan

Initially we were told that the main purpose of Pathways was to avoid a major financial crisis by anticipating a smaller Loyola in the near future. In practice, we encounter a different plan that includes other aspects that in fact do not save money but cost substantial dollars. The President has failed to present a clear vision for the plan. The Provost has failed to engage and empower deans and faculty members who are essential to the future success of the institution. It will remain   difficult to achieve any of our institutional aspirations under the current conditions given the growing sense of despair over the pattern of behavior associated with key administrative leaders.

Faculty members from across colleges remain committed to shared governance and reject the pattern of  Administrative behavior delineated above.  While we have diverse opinions about the Pathways Plan, the points made in this document represent much larger issues, grounded in our basic academic values and our ideals as a community of scholars. These values and ideals have shaped the shared history and culture that we cherish at Loyola.  We take seriously our collective faculty responsibility to strenuously resist when evidence suggests that thoughtful consideration (“critical thinking”) should lead to other decisions.  No community of adults can be forced to comply out of fear, nor can a shared vision and sense of participation be created by slogans.