Edison State College Faculty Votes No Confidence in President and Senior Vice President

April 6, 2011, 1:05 pm

Faculty members at Edison State College, in southwestern Florida, on Tuesday voted no confidence in President Kenneth P. Walker and in James Browder, a senior vice president, the Naples Daily News reported. Under the threat of a no-confidence vote, Mr. Walker had recently moved Mr. Browder to an “external” position in the hope of improving the senior administration’s relationship with the faculty.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

E-mail

tay192

I hope this leads the Board to seek out new leadership and I admire the bravery of the faculty.
willynilly

Actually, it was Walker’s recent interview with The Chronicle that led directly to the vote of no confidence by the faculty. That was the “last straw”. He was blantently untruthful to your reporter in claiming he was “blindsided” by the faculty and that no one had come to him with grievances. Not true. First of all, there have been informal grumblings of dissatisfaction for years. Readers must be told that Edison does not have tenure for faculty – so all previous attempts to intervene and to be taken seriously had to be “soft” as to avoid reprisals. But more than six months ago that changed. The situation got so bad upon the advent of Mr. Browder, that the faculty threw its caution to the wind. So it was not the truth that Walker was suddenly “blindsided”. Faculty groups had been meeting with him for six months. So, faced with that ultimate insult, and finnally confronting the disturbing fact that the untruthful Chronicle interview was actually a long held pattern of presidential behavior, the faculty took action. Actually, in retrospect, Walker has a history of untruthfulness with the Trustee Board, with the faculty and staff, with the community, with the media, and now with The Chronicle.

Now suddenly, he wants to open a real dialog with faculty, become transparent, make changes, bring in outside consultants, take a huge pay cut, and become collaborative. For my part, I am not certain that these proposals are sincere. I suspect that they are intended solely to save his job. Mr. Walker is 75 years old. Long ago he deserved a noteworthy retirement, sent off with expressions of good will from an appreciative college community. But sadly, I believe he viewed his “deal” at Edison as a cash cow, too appealing to give up. Now he offers to give some of it up – to a degree, not yet known. Unfortunately, his current contract does not expire until 2014 – certainly not a very astute action on the part of the Trustees in ever approving such a contract length. If considered reason prevails in this matter, the Trustees will conclude that this is not the time to apply band-aids to the deep wounds the institution has suffered. It is time to make the change in leadership that the college requires. It would be senseless to postpone the inevitable for three more years.
unseenhand

Unfortunately this Board, none of whom ever has known any other Edison president but Walker, is not responding as they should. Some believe Walker is above reproach–though his faculty in a great majority has just reproached him. Some believe the faculty issues are “petty” though this simply illustrates how disconnected they are from the institution they “govern.” And they are about to set a process by which Walker will frame how they will respond to the complaints AGAINST Walker. It isn’t just that they aren’t lisltening–they don’t want to listen.

The faculty have no confidence in Walker so the Board sends Walker as the solution. What’s wrong with this picture? Looks like the next steps are to go to the legal community, the state, the Feds (EEOC, others?), the accrediting agency, in this case SACS. The Board cannot be allowed to sweep under the rug such issues as a hostile work environment, charges of racial discrimination in hiring, reported granting of degrees to selected students even though core courses have not been completed, etc. All of this Walker says HE will investigate, ignoring that his faculty has no confidence in him. Edison screams out for external, independent audits and investigations. The Board should see to that–or someone else should set the Board aside in the matters.

One other question that has surfaced in all of this: Edison has four campuses and a growing enrollment, so how is it that the full time faculty at a college nearing its 50th anniversay has just over 100 full time faculty——–all the rest of the instructional programs are taught by adjuncts?
This should be a major concern to Edison’s students, but SACS needs to take a look, also. There seems to be plenty of money for executive compensation and perks–why isn’t some of it being used to expand the full time faculty?
22122488

test