The Editorial Board of this paper has made a statement about the administration’s handling of the faculty governance issue on two separate occasions. The staff editorial of August 29 criticized Provost Robert E. Palazzo, President Shirley Ann Jackson, and the Board of Trustees for their abrasiveness but urged all sides to work together to resolve the issue. The staff editorial of September 12 condemned the provost, president, and Board of Trustees for being disrespectful and careless in their attempts to bring the question of governance to a close. Sadly, it seems that these calls have fallen on deaf ears; the situation has not gotten any better in the past two weeks.
Clearly, things have happened in the past fortnight; unfortunately, despite the frenzied activity, we are no closer to a resolution. Not only have the calls for respect gone unheeded—they seem to have been utterly ignored. Palazzo seems content to repeat the same thing over and over again; I have now heard his version of the history behind this crisis on at least four separate occasions. In both his rambling monologue at the Student Senate meeting and his 1,000-word behemoth of a column last week, he dwelled on the fact that RPI’s faculty governance structure is in need of review—the one thing about the whole ordeal that nobody seems to disagree about. He did not once address the widespread concerns regarding the administration’s aggressive conduct, however, nor did he account for—or even correct—certain inaccuracies and omissions in the testimony he has offered in defense of his actions.
In particular, Palazzo has villainized the Faculty Senate for going over his head by submitting something directly to Chairman of the Board Samuel Heffner Jr. ’56, rather than letting it propagate up through the provost and president before reaching the trustees. He has consistently failed to mention that the faculty’s initial resolution to give clinical faculty a vote was made in conjunction with then-Provost G. P. “Bud” Peterson before he left for a position at the University of Colorado, and that the resolution then persisted to sit untouched on Palazzo’s desk while he was acting provost. On multiple occasions, he has decried the Senate for violating its own constitution, even after we pointed out that no violation had occurred.
I hesitate to say that Rensselaer’s provost—or any member of the administration—is lying, but I’m starting to think that the shoe might fit. His credibility is slipping with every passing day, and if he continues to follow his current path, I’m afraid that his time as the chief academic officer of the Institute may be very limited. He either needs to justify his actions and his statements, or he needs to get busy retracting them.
Speaking of retractions, I have an apology to make myself. Last week, I wrote an editorial criticizing the “Top Hat” columns of September 5 and 12, in which Grand Marshal Julia Leusner ’08 discussed issues about teaching assistants. Her articles made sweeping implications about graduate students and certain departments which I found to be offensive and poorly-justified. As I wrote it, however, I made several improper assumptions without doing further research on the topic myself; I also neglected to approach Leusner to clarify things before publishing my opinion. As a journalist, I admit that I should have done both of these before calling her out, and I apologize to both her and the readers. Even so, I remain unconvinced that her plans in this matter are well-founded, and I look forward to reading a more complete follow-up that does not insult a broad category of her constituents.
