Mountaineers United:

The Harwood Institute was an inspiring topic shared by 70sGrad in a recent post. It speaks to the unique nexus in which WVU finds itself: “a place where groups focus on a key public issue while simultaneously building community.” Here and now - this is WVU.

To update the search for the search process:

HEPC unanimously selected its new rules this past weekend. The plan to enact the emergency rule has been delayed by LOCEA. Legislators want a change in search panel leadership - to be open to whomever the search panel wishes, and not be limited to the BOG chair or vice-chair. You can review the proposed rules from links in the previous post, “Search for Rules Part 2.”

Once LOCEA is satisfied, the proposed rules will be posted on the Secretary of State website. It is possible that they can be contacted with comments now, even though there is no required comment period for emergency rules. LOCEA members are listed here.

WVU Faculty Senate Executive Committee has also been busy. They will solicit e-mails from Senators to obtain faculty nominees for the search panel. Their deadline for nominees is NOON September 4, as Chairwoman Kleist reported in Dominion Post.

Faculty Senate meets September 8 to vote on this process and these nominees.

Legislative Interims are held next on September 7-9. I assume they will revisit the HEPC proposed rules as modified. At this point, both emergency and proposed rules will be posted. Your written comments pro, con, or suggestions may also be posted.

WVU Board of Governors meets on September 12. A search committee and their procedures may be named on that day. The BOG will decide how many faculty representatives will serve on the committee.

According to Senate Chair Virginia Kleist, there are plans for a search web site and blog to be up and running soon. They have also explored six major areas of best practices, exemplary schools, and higher ed surveys for guidance. This will go a long way towards transparency.

Mountaineers United will do their best to assist you with information and links. Your ideas are also most welcome, and we are working together to build up the WVU community - we are in “the sweet spot.” Tell us what you think of LOCEA modifications. Do you think it’s a good idea to change the salary guidelines? How many faculty representatives would you like to see on a search committee? Are other constituencies missing? M-U wants to know!

We know that the HEPC unanimously approved an emergency and proposed legislative rule governing presidential searches and evaluation. As this is posted, we don’t know how the rules approved may differ from the draft in the HEPC agenda book, which can be found at:

http://wvhepcdoc.wvnet.edu/commission/Web%20Ready%20Agenda%20(8-23-08).pdf

1. Look for the posting of the emergency and proposed legislative rules on the Secretary of State’s web site at the below address. Look in the left-hand column for the link to the proposed rule.  http://www.wvsos.com/adlaw/emergency/emergencyrules.htm

2.  According to Chancellor Noland in Sunday’s Charleston Gazette-Mail, the emergency rule is expected to be approved at Monday’s LOCEA meeting, which is on August 25 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm.  You can find the names of LOCEA members at: http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Committees/Interims/committee.cfm?abb=ED_LOCEA

By clicking on the legislator’s name, you may find their email addresses. If you see something in the emergency rules that concerns you, you may want to email LOCEA members before noon today.

3. There will be 30 days from Monday to comment on the proposed legislative rule. While the time to comment on the emergency rule is very limited, especially since we don’t know how it differs from the version in the HEPC agenda, there will be more time to comment on the proposed rule. The address to which comments should be sent will be posted on Mountaineers United when it becomes available.

4. As you review the rules, consider the following issues. These comments on based on the draft in the HEPC agenda, which, as is indicated above, may or may not be what HEPC acted upon.

a. If the search has to wait for approval of the BOG adopted procedures by HEPC (2.2), does that mean the search will be delayed until the next regularly scheduled HEPC meeting, which appears to be November 21?  The BOG meets on September 12 and President Magrath has indicated that he expects our procedures to be approved then. 

b. Note that in 2.2.1, either the chair or vice-chair of the search will be a BOG member appointed by the Governor. Is this good or bad?

c. As is reported in the Gazette-Mail article, the chancellor is an ex-officio member of the search committee and HEPC may conduct independent interviews with finalists (2.6). Is this good or bad?

d. Does the reduction of the initial contract offer from three to two years pose any problems (3.2.1)?

e. There is to be an annual evaluation of the president (5.6) that will impact compensation (5.7) in addition to a more structured evaluation every three years (5.1). What kind of faculty, staff and student feedback will be incorporated in the annual evaluation? Think of what the annual evaluation of Mike Garrison would have been, were it left solely to the BOG.

We’ve said we want a more collaborative, transparent search process. With the search committee about to be named, let’s give them some help in writing design principles for the search. If you were a member, what would you suggest be the principles that guide your work in order that the process be transparent and collaborative? Let’s offer some specific ideas. It is one thing to tell them we want transparency and collaboration, It is another to tell them what that would look like

A simple example, “Agenda for all meetings will be provided at least 7 days in advance with sufficient detail to enable the public to understand the work to be undertaken. Minutes will be provided in a timely manner and made available to the public.”

Please share your ideas for design principles that will signal transparency and collaboration. Be as concrete as possible. 

Last Wednesday, August 13, I looked at the latest press releases regarding the WVU presidential search. Several articles seemed to say that things would snap into place at the September 12 Board of Governors meeting. Some expressed a current legislative slow down towards that goal. All are anxious that this process get off to a great start.

But due to new legislation, this may not be the case. Today I hope to assist those who tread the difficult path known as “transparency” and who may also be new to this. Feel free to dig deeper and clarify anything I failed to uncover.

The Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) seems to have rules, rules about rules, and rulemaking continuously on their agendas. What applies to WVU right now is House Bill 3215. It was introduced in January, passed in March, and went into effect July. New rules must be in the hands of the Legislature by September 1.

HB3215 states that HEPC is “to provide guidance for the institutional governing boards in filling vacancies in the office of president in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. The rule shall include, but is not limited to, clarifying the powers, duties and roles of the governing boards, the Commission, the Council, and the chancellors in the presidential appointment process.” [18B-1B-6 (d)]. After being proposed on September 1, rules undergo a 30 day comment period which would seem to slow the search.

On 8/3, Chancellor Noland told the Dominion Post that the proposed rules will be presented at a 2-day summit with state BOG’s at Stonewall Jackson Resort this weekend, August 23-24, before going to the Legislative Interims next weekend. The proposed rules were posted Tuesday, August 19, on the HEPC Agenda site. Actually, 2 sets of rules. Emergency Rules can go into effect now for the WVU search process. I cannot confirm at this time that these rules are identical, but they seem to be. Are all constituencies properly represented in both sets of rules? You decide.

Let’s hope all stakeholders have been involved in this rulemaking process. If not, they have a 30 day comment period once permanent rules are posted on the Secretary of State web site. After this weekend’s summit, it appears that the Emergency Rules go immediately into effect, with no comment required.

What do Mountaineers United think? Are the rules the same? Do any differences affect WVU in a positive way for the current post-debacle situation? Is this what 70sGrad says can work for WVU - “slowing down to speed up?” Let’s hope so, but let’s also watch closely.

It’s the start of a new academic year in Morgantown with all the promise that a new year represents. This is a mixed bag of tributes to the day.

We start the day at Panera’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Ovw6N7gNM

If, as you drive to class or work, you wonder why traffic is so bad, this will explain all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suugn-p5C1M

We hope that you get a warm welcome back —

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PeU_l7EM0w

and that this isn’t the attitude you get from your students.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyow4mPqdCs

Finally, so you don’t have to attend Fall Fest, watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5j0zduug4

Before you call it quits, what are your expectations for the year?

(Richard Harwood, Devotion: Declaring Our Intentions in Public Life.      download at: http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/ht/d/sp/i/195/pid/195)

Following comments on keeping blogs by interim WVU President Magrath in the past week, discussion ensued about the value of blogs, and the extent to which they are better than/worse than the traditional media.

Some commented negatively on Magrath’s lack of support for blogs, as if supporting blogs were a litmus test of some sort. Garrison blogged; Magrath does not. Clearly, blogging does not make the president. Engaging in authentic dialogue with constituencies served does, however, and Magrath seems off to a great start in that respect.

A blog, such as this one, is a means to an end, and it is the end served by the blog that has value or not. If a blog is only about blowing one’s horn or just blowing off steam, it has little value. If it is one tool used to engage in authentic dialog with others, then it can play a role in helping a leader remain true to the needs of his or her community, and it can be a tool used by people to build their communities.

Is WVU in a “Sweet Spot?”

Richard Harwood, founder of the Harwood Institution for Public Innovation, asks us as citizens to consider whether our communities are in a “sweet spot,” a “place where groups focus on a key public issue while simultaneously building community.” The WVU community, and the larger community of West Virginians, appears to be in such a sweet spot. And blogs have been one means of building community at this point in time. The relative value of the blogs is the value added by the community that the blogs help to form and support.

To the extent that blogs help to create and sustain three key conditions that support improved civic life, as articulated by Harwood, they have great value.

• ·      The first condition is to encourage us all to stop using an “exit strategy” in public life. When we are unhappy, Harwood points out, we tend to disengage, much as we stop buying a product we don’t like.
• ·      The second is to “release ourselves from our resignation that public life and politics has to be the way that it is today, and declare that it can be better, that we can be better. There is unfinished work to do.”
• ·      The third is to: “end our low expectations of ourselves in the public square. . . A devotion to public life and politics calls upon us to hold higher expectations for ourselves. It tells us to exercise those expectations and to hold ourselves accountable to them. True, we must expect these things from our public officials and news media; but we must also expect them from ourselves. We must expect more, if we seek more.” (Emphasis added.)

So, do we seek and expect more?

While it is important to me that WVU find an outstanding leader as its next president, I have an even greater interest in whether WVU will, as a result of this crisis, help the state to confront the bad politics of all brands that time and time again sell out the state and its citizens.

If this battle over the presidency at WVU is seen as one step in solving a pervasive problem in public life in West Virginia, then the conditions are there for the citizens of the state and the university to join together over something much bigger than sports.

I hope that those who care about the presidency at WVU will not use an exit strategy when a new president is hired, but will instead bring to bear the strengths and resources of the university to help the entire state resolve larger problems, of which the Garrison debacle is representative. WVU is not the only victim here. I also hope that blogs, such as this one, can help to support those who commit to improving the entire state.

How can we, as a community brought together on this blog, work toward that end, seeking more, and expecting more, not only of our leaders and the media, but of ourselves?

Like many of you, my source for information about my community and WVU is local media. The burden is on each of us to assess the world around us effectively, whether by traditional mainstream media, by typical WV media, by informational web sites and web blogs which dictate their own terms of use or purpose. 

Here at “M-U,” our mutual clearinghouse, it’s time to look at the WVU presidential search. Interim President Magrath has given us hope for a well-represented search committee in an August 12 interview with Charleston Gazette. An August 3 article about the search appeared in the Morgantown Dominion Post quoting BOG Chairwoman Long and HEPC Chancellor Noland. Steps in the search can now be sequenced in ways that can be corroborated by public records and minutes of open meetings, as well as state code. Future posts will attempt to confirm this process as it goes, for the committed and the curious.

Unfortunately for any regular citizen who desires to follow this sequence closely, the transparency is still a bit foggy. Today I will attempt to follow the information released to the press. Readers are encouraged to clarify, correct, or add whatever I may have missed. We are all reading the same press releases - It will be interesting to hear what others think, and to learn more from them.

The 8/3 DP article is here, and the 8/12 Gazette article is here.

8/3 - Long and Magrath have held discussions about a search committee. They will make proposal to the BOG at the Sept. 12 meeting as to what constituencies will be on the committee, and how many from each. But 8/12 Magrath says the committee could actually be named at the Sept. 12 BOG meeting. He also states that each constituency will likely select their own representative for that committee. Apparently this is all transpiring since he began on 8/1.

Take a step back – 8/3 Long refers to a “slowdown” which is due to HEPC formulating the actual rules and procedures for search and selection of a president. Constituencies will then be given time to select their representatives, which will be named prior to the November BOG meeting. The article cites a “change in state code, approved earlier this year” which requires new rules of HEPC. (More on this in my next post.)

Noland says work has been “ongoing” to outline minimum expectations and an operating framework, to meet a Sept. 1 statutory deadline with the Legislature. He even specifies that new rules must address actual search committee membership. This conflicts with Long and Magrath’s statements. What rules are they following? Hopefully there is a simple answer, but the public has not been given clear information. Is it progressing, or in limbo until HEPC acts?

On 8/23-24 HEPC and all the state Boards of Governors will meet at Stonewall Jackson Resort. Discussion and action on the rules and procedures from HEPC will take place which then . . .

will be presented during Legislative Interims on 8/24-26. The statutory deadline for acceptance of HEPC rules and procedures is Sept. 1.

If all is in order after that, Long plans to present legislatively approved rules and procedures to the WVU BOG at their regular meeting on Sept. 12. What happened to the names being discussed now? Names that may be approved on Sept. 12? Can LOCEA call the HEPC rules in question or reject them, or is HEPC simply rubber stamped?

The 8/3 article also mentions work of the WVU Faculty Senate Executive Committee as they gather information and best practices for presidential searches to present recommendations to the BOG. Is Faculty Senate wasting their efforts, or will they be permitted to present their recommendations to the HEPC which is really the body required by law to create the rules and procedures? How independent can or will the BOG be permitted to be under yet unseen rules? Will faculty reccomendations be compatible with HEPC rules enacted for the state Boards of Governors?

Transparency? Hardly, if the process has to wait but is made to appear in progress. Even if unintentional, it is convoluted, confusing, and conflicting to assess, which is not even in the confidential stages yet. We have high hopes in our new interim president and new BOG members. But we also need factual information that makes sense. We can be patient, but we don’t need multiple dates tossed around, or an appearance of faculty input that may not be there.

And the other question we may already know the answer to is: What rules did they all follow the last 2 times there was a presidential search? Let’s hope new rules will be the big improvement WVU needs. (More in a future post.)

Many of us believe that the debacle of the last academic year happened because of inappropriate political involvement in the administration of WVU. The absence of a meaningful two-party system in West Virginia likely encouraged the political cronyism we observed. How can we help strengthen competition among political parties as a means of reducing cronyism?

1. Check out the web sites of the two gubernatorial candidates running against Joe Manchin.

            http://www.russweeks2008.com/

http://www.mtparty.org/nominations/2004/jesse/jesse_johnson.html

2. Consider the differences in funding for the candidates. In the latest reports, available at http://www.wvsos.com/elections/cfreports/. Manchin raised $2.5M, spent $687K and ended the reporting period with $1.8M. What do you suppose he’s going to do with $1.8M?

Weeks raised $10,870, spent $2,114 and ended with $5,280.

Johnson raised $10,161, spent $9,705 and ended with $456.

3. In 2004, Monty Warner, the Republican candidate, got 53% of the vote that Joe Manchin did. Jesse Johnson got 3.8%. Manchin is less popular now than he was then. Think about how many votes Weeks might get, were he better funded.

4. Now that you’re registered as an Independent, what else are you going to do to strengthen party competition in West Virginia? (If you’ve not yet changed your voter registration, see the to do list for July 26 & 27 for information on how to accomplish this.) What actions will you take to assure that cronyism cannot creep back into the administration of WVU?

5. If your spirits needed to be lifted as you contemplate the challenges ahead, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlsitMRQAdA

The domain and blog, Garrison Must Go, first appeared in May 2008 when Mike Garrison was the President of West Virginia University and there was a scandal over the awarding of an apparently unearned EMBA degree to Heather Manchin Bresch, former employer and childhood friend of Mike Garrison’s and daughter of West Virginia Governor, Joe Manchin. There was the widespread sense with Garrison’s appointment and the ensuing scandal that partisan politics was doing significant damage to a fine institution of higher education.

While Mike Garrison’s decision to “step aside” on June 6, 2008 and the appointment of Dr. C. Peter Magrath as interim President of WVU effective August 1 might seem to end the need for this blog, the postings, comments and visits of others suggest it continues to serve a need for those concerned about the future of WVU and, in particular, the impact that partisan politics may continue to have on WVU. Thus, the blog was reincarnated in August 2008 as Mountaineers United: or Much To-Do About WVU.

The focus of the blog will be on matters like the presidential search, November elections, BOG appointments in 2009 and future years, etc.  There will continue to be some silliness, teasing and practicing of smiley faces. Our overarching goal is to assure that history does not repeat itself and that what happened to WVU in 2007-08 does not happen again.

There will be four primary posters on WVU although others are welcome to join them. One poster is the original Garrison Must Go (GMG) whose contact information is available on the blog. Another is 70’s Grad, who, as the name suggests, is a WVU graduate currently working in higher education in another state and who is well versed in the literature of higher education. The third is Steph, the early riser who tries to keep up with local media by researching issues relevant to the focus of the blog. Finally, there is the sometimes demure Lou, who likes to develop lists of things to do. Steph and Lou live in the area and their posts will often reflect what is happening locally. While none of us interacted prior to the creation of this blog and our interactions are still through our pseudonyms, we are bound together by our love for WVU and determination that its future will be more illustrious than its immediate past.

The changes that have taken place at WVU in the past few months may not have happened had those who cared about the institution not found a way to communicate, share information in a timely manner, and think collectively about the events of the day and how to influence them for the better.

Blogs, including this one, have provided one such means of communication, and it is our intent that this blog continue to play such a role. Please join us, use this site as a clearinghouse for information, share your thoughts, and never hesitate to propose actions we can all take to build a better future for WVU. We need your help!

1. The WV Ethics Commission meets today at 10:00 am in Charleston. See below for their agenda.

           http://www.wvethicscommission.org/Agendapdf/AgendaEC.pdf

The agenda doesn’t appear to have a report of the investigation of Manchin Breschgate but aren’t you curious as to how that is proceeding? Have they interviewed all those involved? When will a report be issued?

Some interviews occurred in early July. See http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08190/895507-85.stm

It seems like a report could be ready by now. Watch for news of their meeting.