Samantha Villanueva
Staff writer
Murray State held voting for the presidential assessment, on Nov.8 through Nov. 18, in order to gain community feedback on University president Randy Dunn’s actions.
Posted on myGate, the ballot was open to only faculty who had a rank of instructor or lecturer or above. The ballot was organized, as it is every year, by the Faculty Senate, who also plan the up and coming annual assessment of the provost, deans and chairs of all departments, which is scheduled to take place in February.
The results of the 2011 presidential assessment are as follows: 27.45 percent (28 votes) of the faculty strongly agreed Dunn did well with supporting the needs of the University while 20.59 percent (21 votes) agreed the president made sure the funds Murray State was receiving was being put to good use. As for the positive spirit Dunn encourages within the faculty, 20.59 percent (21 votes) strongly agreed about his performance.
Bonnie Higginson, the University’s provost, said the importance of the ballot is to rate the president’s performance.
“Simply put, it is a four-year performance review,” Higginson said. “The board uses it to determine how the people who work under the president feel about his actions and how they feel about his leadership.”
She also said the review not only evaluates the job of the president, but of other faculty members as well.
“We greatly value higher education, of course,” Higginson said. “With that, comes the reassurance of what our faculty and teachers are. Aside from the president’s assessment, the various department chairs and deans are assessed, as well.”
The goal of the assessment was to grasp in what areas the university needed to improve on.
“Another reason why we value the assessment is it tells us what we are doing well and what areas of the school we have to focus more on,” she said.
Johan Koren, an associate professor of education and vice-president of Faculty Senate, led a meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss the effects of the ballot, in which a statement was released about their final decision.
In his final decision, Koren said the assessment has not been put to take place over the previous few times due to some minor missteps.
“The Faculty Senate of Murray State University has normally arranged an annual assessment by the faculty of the president, provost, deans and department chairs,” Koren said. “However, because of problems with the administration of paper questionnaires and transition to an electronic solution, this has not taken place for several years.”
Koren said although this will be the first time a while the assessment has been made, the committee is fully aware of what they want the results to reflect and why the assessment was made during the fall semester
“The presidential evaluation was done at this time rather than in the spring semester with the other evaluations for two reasons,” he said. “(They are) to test the software for any remaining issues, and to provide the faculty regent with input from the faculty as a whole to help with the presidential evaluation planned by the Board of Regents for their February 2012 meeting.”
During this semester’s assessment, only the Murray State’s president was being reviewed. The other members of the administration are to be evaluated in the upcoming spring semester.
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