St. Cloud profs support no-confidence vote

Some St. Cloud State University faculty members are supporting last week's Winona State faculty vote of "no confidence" in Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Chancellor Steven Rosenstone, Faculty Association President Roland Specht-Jarvis says.

On Tuesday, the St. Cloud State faculty senate passed a vote of 29 in support, with one abstention and one against, Specht-Jarvis said.

The vote comes just over a week after the Winona State faculty vote  -- and just days after two faculty unions voted to withdraw from participation in Rosenstone's plan to overhaul system operations.

In a written announcement, Specht-Jarvis cites a "list of particulars" against Rosenstone, and says the list "details actions that show a lack of respect for faculty participation, shared governance and common cause."

The announcement goes on:

Included in the list are the failure of Chancellor Rosenstone to represent our system effectively at the Minnesota Legislature, to comply with legislative mandates, and to bring our faculty contract to a timely completion. Many particulars cite his failure to include faculty input into budget processes and planning initiatives; others outline instances of Rosenstone's secretive, non-inclusionary, and damaging management decisions, such the hiring of expensive outside contractors (McKinsey) to support and guide MnSCU's internally developed vision quest, "Charting the Future", while the State campuses are suffering crippling budget shortfalls.

Faculty at the State's universities are up in arms about a charted future that attempts to streamline universities into corporate entities and destroys creativity, scholarship and public education for our students and faculty.

I've asked MnSCU to comment.

Update: I received the following emailed response from MnSCU spokesman Doug Anderson:

We received notice from the media today that the faculty senate at St. Cloud State University has issued a vote of “no confidence” in Chancellor Steven Rosenstone.  We are disappointed that the faculty union leaders are employing this tactic to further their goal of stopping the critical conversations that make up Charting the Future, and we encourage everyone to attend one of the Gallery Walks taking place throughout the state that showcase the outstanding work of our campus-based implementation teams. We will continue to seek broad input on the ideas produced over the last two years and welcome the faculty back to the table any time they chose to return.

Anderson also forwarded this statement from Board of Trustees Chairman Tom Renier:

The MnSCU Board of Trustees’ vision was to find a Chancellor that would address the multiple factors that are threatening the very existence of affordable, accessible higher education in Minnesota.  Steven Rosenstone is that Chancellor. The Board has repeatedly reviewed and endorsed Charting the Future as a collaborative way forward, as recently as September.  We hope the faculty will return to participation in the process.

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