UT system President John Petersen, at a special Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday, faced a barrage of heated questions and comments from faculty unhappy with his leadership and the recent resignation of Loren Crabtree as UTK chancellor.
Some senators questioned whether Crabtree had resigned on his own will or if he had been fired.
“I don’t think he was given much of a choice, frankly,” Mick Nordquist, department head of child and family studies said.
Petersen, however, denied the allegation that Crabtree was forced out of his position.
“He was given a choice, in terms of what he needed to do … but I’m not going to comment on it, it’s not fair to him. The issue is he resigned. He decided to resign and he decided at the end of the day, not the end of the semester,” Petersen said.
Petersen admitted there had been a disagreement between himself and Crabtree.
“The disagreement was the fact that we weren’t going to change the organizational structure,” he said.
During the meeting, the results of a week-long survey conducted by the Faculty Senate, surveying faculty opinion about Crabtree’s resignation and Peterson’s policies, was handed out. The online survey included 1,021 respondents from the Knoxville campus, 91 percent of whom were not senate members. Faculty from the Institute of Agriculture, ORNL and the Space Institute also took part in the survey.
When asked how they would rate their level of satisfaction with Petersen’s performance, 69 percent of respondents gave an unfavorable opinion, 13 percent remained neutral and 18 percent had a favorable opinion.
A demographic breakdown showed many faculty members at the Knoxville campus gave Petersen very low marks on his performance, while more than 50 percent of surveyed faculty from the Institute of Agriculture gave him a favorable rating.
Petersen said the survey had an agenda and only those who supported that agenda took part. “I don’t know how many people are out there that didn’t bother to go and fill out a survey form. I don’t know how many people voted multiple times,” he said.
Faculty Senate President David Patterson pointed out that the survey used software security to prevent multiple votes by one person.
“What annoyed me a little bit about this, is the fact that some of the statements in there I wish I would have had a chance to see before because I don’t think they were true,” Petersen said.
Petersen took issue with the methodology of the survey, asking audience members if they would structure a survey in the way the faculty senate did. Few raised their hands.
“I would sort of classify this (as an) ‘are you still kicking your dog’ survey. Those weren’t really contextual questions that were asked. I am concerned and I agree with you and the way that you solve that is to have more of a dialogue,” Petersen said.
Petersen said he allowed Crabtree to run the campus with very little interference from the president’s office and his lack of engagement with faculty has led to some discontent.
“I’ve been here 39 years,” Nordquist said. “I have never, ever seen the faculty here express their views as strongly as this faculty has. It is highly irregular for faculty to come together and express their views.”
The Faculty Senate has suggested the possibility of a vote of no confidence, which, if proposed and passed, could tarnish Petersen’s leadership. The vote would have no direct power to remove him from the presidency, but it would express to the Board of Trustees the senate’s feelings of discontent about Petersen’s leadership.
Petersen denied he felt his job was on the line.
“No, I don’t think so. The Board (of Trustees) has given me a charge all along, and my sense is that I’ve been doing what the board wants. I think this (faculty discontent) really is pretty much a single issue, and that is the chancellor leaving,” he said in a brief interview.
Patterson disputed Petersen’s self-assessment.
“That’s not the core issue. It is where the president is leading this institution,” Patterson said.
On Tuesday Petersen announced the 20-member chancellor search committee chaired by Harry McSween, professor of planetary sciences. At the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday, the list did generate some outcry.
History department interim head Thomas Burman pointed out the absence of a full-time representative from the humanities on the committee, but an assistant athletic director is present even though the athletic department does not report to the chancellor.
“There’s no engineering faculty member on that task force either,” Petersen replied. “We tried to keep it to 20, and we did, and so we had a couple people do a little bit of joint duty.”
The Faculty Senate submitted three names to the search committee: David Reidy, associate professor of philosophy; Ward Plummer, professor of physics; and Joan Heminway, professor of law. Only Heminway made it to the final 20.
