The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Association of American University Professors chapter announced Tuesday the Faculty Senate will consider a no confidence resolution against three top university leaders. The resolution will ask Faculty Senate members whether or not they approve of leadership decisions made during UNL’s contentious budget reduction process.
The no confidence resolution targets Executive Vice Chancellor Mark Button, Harlan Vice Chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Tiffany Heng-Moss and Interim Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation Jennifer Nelson.
According to the UNL AAUP, which helped develop the resolution, the three leaders have “failed to represent and advance UNL’s interests as required by their offices,” and “played key roles in the unjustified elimination of departments based on faulty data and flawed processes.”
It is the second no confidence resolution brought by the Faculty Senate within the last year. The first was brought against former UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett and approved with a 60-14 vote in November.
Bennett resigned in January, and no public action was taken related to the approved no confidence resolution.
Associate Professor of Statistics, Faculty Senate member and UNL AAUP member Susan VanderPlas said Bennett’s resignation was not enough for faculty, who felt shut out of budget discussions.
“The executive leadership team that supported Chancellor Bennett was made up of four people, at least with regard to the budget cuts,” VanderPlas said. “These were the four people who were actively discussing, promoting and it seems creating the budget reduction plan that included culling my department and three other departments on campus.”
VanderPlas said the leadership team included Button, Heng-Moss, Nelson and Josh Davis – the former vice chancellor and chancellor’s chief of staff who recently took a leadership position at Penn State.
The first no confidence resolution against Bennett alleged the former chancellor missed meetings and mishandled relationships with university faculty.
“Because he wasn’t engaged with the campus, we know that he was not the primary architect of the budget reduction plan,” VanderPlas said. “I think it’s important to hold the architects of that plan accountable as well -- because the data that was used was incomplete, and then it was misused.”
VanderPlas and other UNL faculty members have expressed many grievances about the budget-reduction process that ultimately cut $27.5 million from the university budget – including four departments. She also said faculty members were not consulted on decisions to make Button or Heng-Moss' interim positions permanent.
“There's a lot of faculty anger on campus, and I think it's important to air those grievances and get things out in the open so that the campus can heal,” VanderPlas said.
Interim Chancellor Katherine Ankerson responded to the no confidence resolution by stating Button, Heng-Moss and Nelson have her “total confidence and respect.”
“Since I have assumed my role as interim chancellor, I have spoken with many university supporters and stakeholders, including faculty and staff,” Ankerson shared in a statement. “They recognize the difficult choices our university faced, and they share my view that our institution’s best days are in front of us. We will not fulfill that potential, however, until all of our faculty partners collaborate on solutions-based, forward-looking actions. I invite you to join me in working toward that future together.”
The Faculty Senate will vote on the no confidence resolution at its next meeting on April 7. If approved, the resolution requests an investigation into the leadership and actions of the three individuals mentioned in the resolution by University of Nebraska President Jeffery Gold and the Board of Regents.
The Faculty Senate does not have the power to fire or conduct investigations into university leaders, so a vote of approval would be largely symbolic.
Regardless, VanderPlas said the vote is an important part of “shared governance” at UNL.
“We do not have the power to fire these individuals, but we do have, generally speaking, the responsibility to participate in the governance of the campus,” VanderPlas said. “We talk about shared governance of campuses as a conversation between administration and faculty and sometimes staff. There's been a remarkable failure of shared governance processes on UNL's campus over the last at least three to four years.”