TRU faculty taking non-confidence vote

The senior administration at Thompson Rivers University is being called in to question as faculty gets the chance to have their say over the next week.

The Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association announced Tuesday morning that TRU faculty will be participating in an online vote, answering the question of whether or not they have confidence in the University’s senior administrators.

A motion at their February general faculty meeting spurred the vote, with about 95 per cent of the over 200 faculty members in attendance calling for it.

“Our members clearly felt that TRU senior administrators had demonstrated a lack of leadership, a lack of respect for faculty opinions, a failure to address key issues at bargaining, and a ‘management by crisis’ attitude toward academic decisions and planning,” said Tom Friedman, TRUFA President, in a statement.

The vote will ask faculty at the Kamloops and Williams Lake campuses whether they have confidence in five named senior administrators: the President, the three TRU Vice-Presidents (the Provost and Vice-President Academic), the Vice-President, Finance and Administration, the Vice-President, Advancement, and the Associate Vice-President, Academic (Faculty Relations).

Friedman said after the Febrauary motion he met with the President and the Provost and other senior administrators to find out if what they were saying about making changes was being followed up by concrete actions and resolutions to ongoing problems.

“In the more than 8 weeks since that motion, according to what I’ve learned from our members, TRU senior administrators have continued to engage in a lack of consultation, failure to follow Collective Agreement or TRU governance policies, less than transparent decision-making, and budget decisions not in the best interest of programs or students,” continued Friedman. “The clear message that I’ve received from TRU faculty is that they would have liked to engage in a respectful, collegial relationship with their administrators.

“However, TRU faculty have told me repeatedly that TRU administrators must be prepared to accompany their public and private statements with substantive actions that would allow them to earn back the trust of faculty.”

The TRU Faculty Association is made up of over 800 instructors, librarians, counselors, and instructional support faculty in Kamloops and Williams Lake.