WILLMAR - Minnesota’s state college system has said it supports Ridgewater College President Douglas Allen.
Allen came under fire at the end of the week when the community college’s faculty passed a vote of no confidence in his leadership Thursday evening.
According to Sam Nelson, president of Minnesota State College Faculty-Ridgewater, the decision to take the vote followed eight years of efforts to improve communication with Allen. Union members feel Allen has been unresponsive to their
concerns
.
The vote passed overwhelmingly. About 140 faculty members were eligible to vote, 75 percent cast ballots, and 90 percent voted in favor, Nelson said.
Allen said Friday that he has been and continues to be ready to listen to the concerns of any staff members at the college. He has been president of the college for 12 years. Ridgewater has campuses in Willmar and Hutchinson.
While the vote reflects the feelings of a strong majority of the faculty, it appears that it will not lead to immediate changes at the school.
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, the state agency that oversees Ridgewater, issued a statement Friday praising Allen’s leadership.
“As is true of higher education across the country, Ridgewater faces a number of significant challenges,” the MnSCU statement said, “and under Dr. Allen’s leadership, the college has developed strategies that are delivering results for our students in many areas.”
Nelson called the vote an expression of frustration “with respect to all the previous good faith attempts and initiatives to establish a working relation with President Allen. … It’s sort of the last stand of the faculty in terms of expressing where we’re at.” He made it clear that the vote was about Allen only and did not include other administrators.
Allen pointed to the open forums he held on each campus a week ago as an indication that he is trying to address concerns.
“I believe we all have to work together in order to deliver a quality education,” Allen said. “I can tick off a number of things that we do that are a result of leadership being exerted at all levels of the organization.”
Allen said he had not received detailed information from the union about the faculty’s complaints. He had received a list of seven issues of concern a week ago, he said, but no supporting documentation.
Nelson and Allen each said that any disagreements between them would not affect the quality of education delivered at Ridgewater.
“This action on the part of the faculty does not have any impact on the quality of the educational experience students have now or in the future,” Nelson said. “These are complete separate issues. … In terms of student experience, nothing changes.”
Allen said, “My job is to remain focused on how best to deliver a high-quality education to the students that come to us.”
Nelson said faculty members told him that two recent incidents were “tipping points” for them.
One was what the union said was Allen’s dismissal of an outside consultant hired to help the college identify and resolve communication issues. “A year was spent on (the first phase of) that process,” Nelson said. “The second phase would be the solution phase, and Dr. Allen unilaterally ended that second phase of the process.”
Allen said the process did not have phases as such, and he was not sure that using a consultant was the best way forward, as he felt the staff and administration needed to address problems themselves.
“The question was, did we need to continue to employ that consultant to work on the issues,” he said. “A consultant can point us in the right direction, but I think the work needs to be done by us.”
A second issue was the layoff of six faculty members, announced in November. The layoffs will not go into effect until the current school year ends in May.
Nelson said the employees had no warning that the layoff notices were coming, and the union did not receive supporting documentation about enrollment or budget constraints until January. Union members believed the information should have been available immediately.
Allen said the college has followed the notification process required under the union’s collective bargaining agreement.
“Obviously it’s not something that any of us like to do,” he said. However, the college has seen an 18 percent decline in enrollment since 2011, and that has resulted in a reduced workload and affected the ability to maintain full-time faculty positions.
Allen said he felt he had provided the documentation required and has also met twice with Nelson to answer questions from the union. Another meeting is to be held in March to address more questions from the union, he said.
“I don’t mean to downplay my concern about anyone, any employee who has questions or concerns they want to surface,” Allen said.
'A Chronology and Data Summary: Ridgewater College President Doug Allen’s Leadership'
