Audience of faculty, staff and students listen as faculty member voices his concerns.

By Molly Ashline, Staff Writer

Published in print Nov 19. 2014

A forum entitled “Let’s Talk About It: Campus Culture, Climate and Values” was held last Tuesday in the Elliot University Center to bring about a discussion amongst faculty and staff that centered around university values pertinent to employees.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Dana Dunn and Vice Chancellor of Business Affairs Charles Maimone hosted the forum.

Upon beginning the forum, Dunn thanked forum facilitators and stated, “We’ll begin today with a discussion of some initiatives that are currently underway to assess our campus culture and campus climate.”

“They are either currently underway or forthcoming, I should say, and these initiatives are an important first step toward better understanding where we need to do work to improve our campus climate and culture,” Dunn said.

The university values held from 2009-2014 are: inclusiveness, collaboration, sustainability, responsibility and transparency. Dunn led the discussion for members to respond to all of these values.

Susan Dennison, a faculty senator, noted a disparity in the definition of inclusiveness, syaing, “I want to point out to you a very important missing piece…being an inclusive community also means representation at all system levels.”

“So, if we look too white on the top,” Dennison continued, “We’re not inclusive in terms of our administration…inclusivity…means that we have people hired at each system level that represent the student body ethnicity, gender, whole nine yards.”

Jim Carmichael, faculty senate secretary, voiced a concern about the use of corporate language in the values’ definitions that was echoed by other faculty members.

“The word customer to me is very alienating…when we let corporate language creep into our work, we become more like Proctor and Gamble and less like UNCG,” Carmichael said.

The forum moved on to the next value up for discussion: collaboration.

One audience member was met with applause when he pointed out, “I’m thinking about this collaboration question, and there’s one thing that really seems missing here and that’s collaboration between faculty, staff and administration.”

“Because my sense is,” he continued, “That most people are here today, because over the past many years there has been a feeling that management makes decisions, and faculty and staff are ordered to implement them…”

There was little debate over the sustainability value, but a number of comments were made on the topic.

Aaron Allen, a professor from the School of Music and the Academic Sustainability Coordinator, said of sustainability, “It is the greatest challenge of the 21st century and whether or not it needs to be a value is, I don’t think, the important point.”

“The important point is that given the unsustainable path that this civilization that we are all apart of is on right now, and the role that institutions of higher education have played in getting us to this unsustainable path, institutions of higher education have a moral obligation to correct this path,” Allen said.

The responsibility value received a slightly different reaction.

Many attendees thought that accountability was a better word than responsibility, with one audience member saying, “I’m all for responsibility, but it sounds a little top-down given our recent history…I would like us to think about what it means to be responsible, without thinking that we’re in charge.”

Transparency, an anticipated talking point given the recent scandals on UNCG’s campus, was the last value discussed.

“I hope today is the beginning of some change, and I really hope that in the near future, transparency will actually mark what we do rather than simply what we say…reading this in light of the events of the last few months, it’s astounding to me, the disconnect here,” said one audience member.

Dennison agreed, saying, “What I hear from folks across all groups—staff, students, faculty—is people are tired of being involved in focus groups, panels, whatever, when they don’t feel like it’s really being taken into account when decisions are being made.”

After the discussion portion of the panel concluded, attendees took an electronic survey to rate values that were held in previous years and values that came up during the discussion.

The results of the survey, which had over 90 participants, demonstrated that new values needed to be established. People rated integrity, accountability, transparency, community engagement and shared-governance as the most important values.

The information gathered at the forum will be considered by a strategic planning committee, which will be formed soon. The committee will meet this semester and several times next semester.

The committee, which Dunn hopes will include a variety of people who are interested and passionate about university values, will work towards redefining and reestablishing university values.