New Administrators - USM Forum -- Message Board

Cat In the Hat · Status: Offline

New Administrators

LVN · Status: Offline

Is it an interim position?

Incredulous · Status: Offline

Cat In the Hat wrote:

I heard William Powell was appointed Associate Provost. Was this position posted? Was there a search committee? I thought the secrets were supposed to be over!

As a general rule, deans, provosts, vice presidents, and presidents select their own assistants and associates. In this case the provost is an interim whose assistant will be an interim. Bill Powel was once elected to be Faculty Senate president, and he enjoys wide support among the faculty. Don't look for trouble. Dr. Saunders is doing a great job.

Cat In the Hat · Status: Offline

I'm not looking for trouble. I seek a place to work where there is participation and transparency in governance. I'm tired of secrets. Don't be hood-winked.

Cat In the Hat · Status: Offline

By the way, my comment about the associate provost is not about Dr. Powell. It is about process. If he has the qualifications and support of faculty, I'm sure he would do well in a legitimate search process. We can't complain about process with Shelbo and then look the other way just because we like having a new president.

LeftASAP · Status: Offline

Who was the old Associate Provost and what became of them?

Reporter · Status: Offline

LeftASAP wrote:

Who was the old Associate Provost and what became of them?

Dr. Cynthia Easterling Moore currently serves as the Associate Provost. I still haven't verified the news about Dr. Powell.

stephen judd · Status: Offline

Cat In the Hat wrote:

By the way, my comment about the associate provost is not about Dr. Powell. It is about process. If he has the qualifications and support of faculty, I'm sure he would do well in a legitimate search process. We can't complain about process with Shelbo and then look the other way just because we like having a new president.

Incredulous is right -- this is standard OP just about anywhere. And the position is interim. So the process is legitimate. Relax -- there may be a need for alarm in the future but this is not it.

The great sound of silence you hear out there is because a) faculty know this is a legitimate appointment and do not disagree with the process, b) faculty know that Interim Provost Middlebrooks is a strong supporter of shared governance and c) both Dr. Middlebrooks and Dr. Powell are highly respected by the faculty and have excellent credentials that are not secret to those who have worked with them in many capacities over the years.

Dr. Middlebrooks served as an Associate Provost under Myron Henry and was actively engaged in the 1998-99 Strategic Plan. Both Dr. Middlebrooks and Dr. Powell have served as senators and as officers on important faculty committees (Bobby as Chair of Graduate Council and Bill as Faculty Senate President) during the recent period in which both organizations were actively trying to conduct their normal business while also trying to offer reasoned and effective responses to many of the most problematic actions of the Thames administration.

If you look at the emerging leadership in many areas of the university (and remember we are still in transition) it is notable how many folks in administrative positions and chair positions have been actively engaged in the governance and politics of the university in behalf of shared governance during this difficult five year period. Not everyone is recognizable to the public, but for those who were actively involved in these difficult processes, there are many silent heroes and heroines who quietly took risks.

Shared goverance, I might add, is a process, not an end. It is also a relationship, rather than a kind of political mantra. The President has been public about her envolving sense of the university, its mission, and the role of the president and provost in achieving those things. I expect that in her state of the university speech next month we will hear her begin to outline some broad objectives and methodologies. But I have also heard her say repeatedly that Strategic Planning for a univerisity cannot be imposed from the top but must come through the university from the bottom up.

By the way, for those of you who are still worried about the fact that we do not have an email privacy policy, I invite you to go to the Whitewater website and look at the policy there at

http://www.uww.edu:80/icit/policies/network_use/email.html

This is similar to, though better than, one that was proposed during the Thames era and never adopted. I don't know what role our new President may have had in constructing it, but she sure had to implement it while she was chancellor.

-- Edited by stephen judd at 19:47, 2007-08-15

stephen judd · Status: Offline

Reporter wrote:

LeftASAP wrote:

Who was the old Associate Provost and what became of them?

Dr. Cynthia Easterling Moore currently serves as the Associate Provost. I still haven't verified the news about Dr. Powell.

Dr. Moore continues to serve.

Cat In the Hat · Status: Offline

I remain skeptical. Once Dr. Middlebrooks is no longer in office, we will have set a precedent. Searches should be required for ALL administrative positions, in my humble opinion. Better to address issues regardless of personalities.

BAD · Status: Offline

You want a search for an interim position?

Cat In the Hat · Status: Offline

Yes, I do think you should have search committees even when it is an INTERNAL search. Everyone should have an opportunity to apply and be considered whereas this position has not been posted.

I'm clearly in the minority here so I will end my posts. I hope someone has taken my concerns seriously.

Incredulous · Status: Offline

Cat In the Hat wrote:

I remain skeptical. Once Dr. Middlebrooks is no longer in office, we will have set a precedent. Searches should be required for ALL administrative positions, in my humble opinion. Better to address issues regardless of personalities.

None are so blind as those who do not wish to see. I'll try one more time. It is SOP for university administrators to personally select their assistants because they must work closely together. The president of the Faculty Senate, a strong advocate of shared governance who has taught at Duke as well as other universities has assured you that I am correct. I have taught at many universities. Why won't you let it go?

LVN · Status: Offline

Considering that interims serve a year or so, and that it takes months to do a search -- in fact, it can take a couple of months to hire a secretary -- having searches for temporary positions is highly wasteful of people's time and energy.

-- Edited by LVN at 21:49, 2007-08-15

stephen judd · Status: Offline

Cat In the Hat wrote:

I remain skeptical. Once Dr. Middlebrooks is no longer in office, we will have set a precedent. Searches should be required for ALL administrative positions, in my humble opinion. Better to address issues regardless of personalities.

I agree with you on principle ( I'm also big on precedent) but would probably not go so far as to apply this to associate positions but I could probably be persuaded -- I'm just not that committed to formal searches for those positions although I think there should be consultation.

In any event, I think the case of this Associate Provost case is very different -- Bobby needs help right now. I know because I've been working closely with him on various projects that have to get moving. I am sure that Bobby spoke to folks he trusts -- including those on various faculty committees -- to get a reading on how this appointment would be viewed. But I also know that Bobby just came from the faculty and already had access to the same emotional context that the all of us have been operating in for the last five years.

Given the need for speed, I think this is about the best he could do and I'd say that picking Bill is a very clear sign of how he intends to relate to the faculty. There have been few stronger, more articulate, and balanced advocates for the faculty than Bill Powell.

One goal faculty senate had this spring (and proposed to President Saunders) was to put formal search processes in place that were adopted formally and placed in a standardized hiring manual. We seem to be heading in that direction but obviously the need for administrative change is outrunning our ability to construct formal procedures (the cupboard is bare of such procedures, apparently -- we keep reinventing the wheel).

The search process for the deans was put together (somewhat informally again because of the time frame and the fact that it was summer) but with huge input from the faculty senate executive committee (it is still in the process of being adopted). The interim provost is conciously trying to put together processes that can then be proposed for adoption as precedent in the future -- bearing in mind that that will mean clearing a number of agreements, including elected faculty representatives. But I have to say that in a remarkably short time (and over the summer) a number of agencies have come together to try to construct a blueprint for cooperative processes that reflect "the best we can get (due to time)" efforts toward shared governance on these processes.

I do understand your concerns -- it is good to stay watchful. But many wanted the President to act quickly and she has -- we are now suffering the aftereffects of neccessary actions having to be taken before formal precedents can be constructed.

My very brief experience this summer leads me to feel that the new administrators and faculty are working toward the same end here -- to make good decisions in selecting interims; for the interims to begin to lay the groundwork, working with faculty and staff, for establishing formal precedents and procedures that will be visible, repeatable, and collaborative.

I hope this helps -- although it is not intended to blunt your main point which is signicant.

Reporter · Status: Offline

USM NEWS-- Powell named Southern Miss Interim Associate Provost

Hattiesburg Dr. William Powell, chair of The University of Southern Mississippi Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, has been named interim associate provost at the university.

Powell, who is also an associate professor of French and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at Southern Miss, will be responsible for issues involving accreditation and distance education, and will serve as the universitys Southern Association of Colleges and Schools liaison, among other duties.

I look forward to working together with our faculty and staff to help provide quality educational opportunities for our students, Powell said.

Powell is a former president of the Southern Miss Faculty Senate and has worked extensively with the universitys academic and graduate councils. He also served as a faculty representative for the universitys Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund committee, and worked alongside other faculty and staff members to assist colleagues at Southern Miss Gulf Coast recover from the storm.

I am pleased to have Dr. Powell join the provosts office, said Southern Miss interim provost Dr. Bobby Middlebrooks. He has broad experience working with a variety of academic organizations on campus, and I know hell be an asset to our administrative team.

-- Edited by Reporter at 15:54, 2007-08-17

Curmudgeon · Status: Offline

Is there a shortage of apostrophes and quotation marks at the university, or is it an electronic issue?

stinky cheese man · Status: Offline

it's an electronic issue. i've cross-checked what gets posted here with the original release several times, and the original press release has the appropriate punctuation.