Cal Poly president endangers shared governance with provost appointment | Opinion

With Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong’s unexpected, two-sentence and explanation-free announcement of the unilateral appointment of Al Liddicoat as permanent Cal Poly provost, Cal Poly faculty have lost the opportunity to weigh in on Cal Poly’s future, and, as a result, are witnessing the undermining of institutional shared governance.

Not a consultation

President Armstrong asserts that he consulted with various entities at Cal Poly regarding the effective cancellation of a search process for the next provost. Any consultation regarding the appointment of someone who will have the most day-to-day influence and authority over the lives of the entire faculty at Cal Poly should probably include the entire Cal Poly faculty. It is disturbing that faculty leadership did not feel that the issue should have been brought to the attention of the wider faculty before endorsing the idea. The objective of faculty consultation is to systematically collect feedback from all faculty and generate a meaningful sense among the faculty that they are not only valued but are also heard.

A unilateral appointment sets a dangerous precedent. The idea that it is OK to dispense with a time-honored and inclusive process of candidate selection in order to quickly seat a permanent, top-level administrator is a dangerous one and mirrors some of the norm-destroying actions of President Trump. There are no guarantees that unilateral, permanent and consultation-free appointments of key administrators won’t happen in the future. If faculty stand by and allow the administration to dispense with key shared governance norms, they risk becoming as a whole what lecturers have long been — not partners in education but an academic working class with little influence over their workplace. Cal Poly faculty need to be careful not to give up their truth-telling role in the university.

Not a ‘Liddicoat problem’

No one has identified any serious problems with Liddicoat’s being a provost candidate. Still, the faculty haven’t had a chance to find out who else is out there. A full and robust selection process allows faculty to get a sense of what the different approaches to managing the academic side of the university are and how other institutions might be doing it better. Without a normal selection process, Liddicoat has lost the opportunity to show the entire campus that he is, in fact, the best person for the job and that he can get Cal Poly back on track for future success in these difficult times.

This is an Armstrong problem

A robust provost selection process also allows faculty to address the policies and performance of President Armstrong himself. Typically, provost candidates come in and interact with the various Cal Poly stakeholders to determine the concerns that exist and to start formulating ways to address those concerns. President Armstrong has successfully avoided the uncomfortable situation in which he may be critiqued and criticized by the faculty, but he has also denied Liddicoat the opportunity to systematically hear from everyone on how to make things better.

Faculty need to know why Armstrong made such an unprecedented and autocratic decision and why faculty leadership so quickly acquiesced. Is there a good reason or is it just so much easier to avoid all that messy and uncomfortable consultation? It is important for President Armstrong to reverse his decision and reinstate the normal selection process. This does not preclude Al Liddicoat from being chosen, but at least faculty will have a chance to responsibly and meaningfully weigh in on their own future.

Neal MacDougall is an emeritus professor in the Agribusiness Department and Solina Lindahl is a lecturer in the Economics Department.