On Monday March 25 the Faculty Senate of Wright State University released a vote of no confidence against the WSU Board of Trustees.
A vote began earlier in March after a petition filed on Feb. 21 which called for the vote received 91 signatures.
The ballot stated, “The Board has led the University into a financial crisis that resulted in a complete depletion of University reserves. Consequently, the University has been on the brink of fiscal watch by the State of Ohio and has suffered severe budget cuts that threaten the educational mission of the University.”
The board submitted their rebuttal on March 8, stating: “The Board also became aware of poor or non-transparent practices in areas of governance and oversight that put the university at risk, and subsequently set in place a number of checks and balances to correct such issues going forward.”
The rebuttal listed the background and reasoning for their decisions over the last several years. The full document can be found here >>BoT Rebuttal
Out of the 735 full-time, voting-eligible faculty, 440 participated in the vote.
The results:
13 percent voted confidence in the board
87 percent voted no confidence in the board
What is a vote of no confidence?
According to the university Faculty Senate website, “on rare occasions, in the course of university business, the faculty may wish to express or record its opinion regarding their administration. These votes are generally described as votes of confidence/no confidence.”
A vote of no confidence is a statement; a symbolic way for a group to state that there is a lack of trust.
“The vote is not binding but is reported to the President and/or Provost and to the appropriate vice president; or to the Board of Trustees when the administrator is the President of the university. There are two procedures for calling votes of confidence,” states the protocol for a vote of no confidence by university guidelines.
The second procedure also states that a vote of confidence/no confidence can only be taken once every 13 months per administrator. It also states that regardless of the outcome of the vote, the direct supervisor shall be invited to meet in executive session with the college, or comparable body, executive committee or the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, to discuss the reasons for the vote and results.
“The direct supervisor may request additional information from the appropriate committee. Furthermore, after meeting with the affected administrator, the direct supervisor shall be invited to inform and, if desired, meet again in executive session with the appropriate faculty governance committee to discuss the results of that meeting,”the procedure states.
