Ombudsman Report made to Academic Senate

July 15, 2005

I want to thank the Senate for the opportunity to serve as faculty ombudsman. I was honored to have been selected by you my peers to serve in this capacity……that you trusted me to represent you.

I am going to give you a brief summary of my experiences. I will not discuss names or specifics of individual cases but rather observations and reflections of the central issues that arose.

I begin my tenure as ombudsman in February of 2004, so my observations are limited to one year on the job. I enjoyed working very much with President Ethel Cantu and had the opportunity to share with her some of these observations during the year to which she followed up in her own discussions with Provost Martin and the Vice President Ragland. I also found both the Provost and the VPAA very helpful and accommodating in responding to me when I needed information.

The faculty that came to see me were very professional, they were simply seeking better communication and understanding of university policy and procedure and for the most part wanted someone to listen to their issues, issues that to them were very important. Often times, we would read HOOP policy together, I would make a few phone calls, acquire more information and answers would be found thus not requiring mediation.

My first few cases dealt with personnel action decisions. I quickly learned that such actions do not have an appeal procedure, so to mediate an issue in such circumstances is impossible. But what I observed and what I believe is important to bring to the senate, was the lack of understanding on the part of faculty and lack of communication on the part of the university on how personnel committees reach decisions with respect to issues such as faculty development leave, merit, promotion and tenure. Upon further investigation, I learned that there are inconsistencies and lack of clarity in terms of orientation or guidelines given to department and school/college personnel committee members. This was confirmed to me while conducting focus groups with personnel committee members as part of another senate ad hoc committee in which I was involved. In the absence of such sparse direction, there exists then this of lack of trust on the part of the individual faculty member in the decisions made by the committees & Deans thus triggering situations where that faculty member seeks mediation and or contemplates a grievance. I was pleased to see that the senate established the ad hoc committee to research the issues of personnel committees and recommend that the senate continue their study of the issue.

Another observation:

The grievance committee has not been used in quite sometime and there are situations in which it might be appropriate to allow the grievance process to play itself out.. I had one case where it appeared that the faculty member received disciplinary action possibly disguised under faculty assignments and expectations. To do this denies the faculty member due process, an essential element of dispensing discipline. Naturally mediation failed under these circumstances. Activating the grievance committee would give credibility and confidence to the role we all play in the university and protects all from potential abuse.

My last observation has to do with the role of the ombudsman. My role is one of being a mediator, bringing 2 or more parties together to find common ground and through the process of give and take come to a resolution. In order to do this, the ombudsman must remain neutral and not be an advocate for either party. Therein is the dilemma that I faced. In most cases, the faculty member was looking for an advocate, someone to speak for them, someone to help them determine if a grievance should be filed, someone to help them prepare the grievance, someone to provide legal advice. The university in-house legal advisor is not an option for them as he provides help to the administration on how to respond to a grievance. This potentially creates the appearance of an “un-even playing field” for the faculty member during the grievance process.

I am not recommending that the role of the ombudsman be changed but I am pointing out that faculty advocacy is an issue that is out there.

In this brief report I have imbedded some recommendations but I have one other one and that is that the senate consider appointing more than one ombudsman so as to assure neutrality at all times. Given how the senate policy that describes the qualifications for ombudsman was written, I suggest that senate become more proactive in insuring that more faculty and administrators complete the required hours for receiving certification to do mediation in the state of Texas. I was fortunate, along with Ethel Cantu, to have been sponsored by Texas Southmost College for the Harvard Mediation Program a few years ago. I recently renewed my certification from Texas A&M University General Counsel’s Office. I believe that if the senate contacts the UT System General Counsel’s Office, we might be able to receive some assistance.

I would like to end by saying thank you in the confidence that you have placed in me. I found the cooperation of everyone, from faculty to Deans to VPAA to Provost to have been extremely helpful during this past year.

Olivia Rivas