Perfect Example Of What You Can Do

The BoT really needs to hear from you. We need to try to save Gallaudet from being more damaged. We need to put more pressure on BoT to do something instead of ignoring everybody. Please do your share and contact the BoT. Encourage your friends, family, and colleagues to do the same thing. elizabeth 

 Monday, October 16, 2006

An Open Letter to the Board of Trustees, Gallaudet
University

A crisis does not force the truth—it reveals the truth.The Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University collectively has the vested power to oversee the institution.  (See Bylaws, Article I Section 1.4, Article II Section 2.1, and most importantly, Article IV Section 6.2.).  According to the bylaws, the President shall be elected by the Board and shall continue in office without reappointment until resignation or removal by the Board.

The
lesson learned by past University Boards and Presidents throughout the
United States is that crisis management is not about seeking ways to ensure that your institution is not defined by the crisis itself, but it is defined by your response to the crisis.  If you are not able to find a way to respond to the crisis, you are ultimately placing the institution in great jeopardy, making the board members liable for the university’s downfall, and impending further damages to all parties involved. The magnitude of the responsibility on your shoulders requires you to make major decisions regarding the complaints against the selected incoming President Dr. Jane Fernandes. Failure to act on these complaints makes the full board, collectively and individually, liable for further harm to the university, the complainants and the stakeholders.

The Board has received many complaints about University Administration – complaints alleging racism and other forms of discrimination, the use of management by intimidation, disregard of due process for addressing complaints by staff and faculty, and leadership incompetence.  By continuing to seek advice and counsel from the current administration in lieu of outside professional consultation or mediation, the Board blatantly disregards its conflict of interest policy.  (See Article VII. Section 7.2).  The current President of Gallaudet University, I. King Jordan, provided a recommendation letter for Dr. Fernandes during the search process and therefore has a vested interest in the outcome of the selection.  Any advice then and now from the current President has impaired the Board’s overall judgment.

The Board neglected to fulfill its fiduciary responsibility when responding to concerns by the stakeholders that the selection process was flawed.  The Board defended its decision but did not use this opportunity to request professional consultation outside of the university to investigate the matter.  Again, asking the current Administration to look into these complains is tantamount to neglecting your responsibility as a Board with Oversight Powers, and directly compromises the University’s integrity and overall image.

The Board has not made any efforts to utilize Collective Leadership in resolving the current crisis.  Stakeholders have specifically and repeatedly asked the Board to include representatives from the student body, the alumni association, the faculty senate and community at large for responding to the crisis.  The board’s failure to take actions that would allow stakeholders to become part of the solution is a neglect of its responsibility to provide proper oversight during times of crisis.

Last, the board has not called upon outside deaf expertise and leadership to serve as a crisis management team made up of outside Deaf expertise and leadership that would investigate all aforementioned charges and report its findings to the board.  Failure to institute and provide a healthy knowledge-processing environment has destroyed the credibility of the current administration and confidence in the current Board.  

As Board of Trustees, you need to clean up the mess you have created.  The protest with over 1,000+ stakeholders at your front gate will not cease until you respond to this crisis!

The most effective communications will not make your institution appear caring and competent if not matched by your actions.  Addressing the dynamics of the power struggle between the Board and the Stakeholders has no doubt been challenging. 

“We used to target ‘the enemy’ – whether government or business or ‘the system’. But over the last generation, the ‘enemy’ has become ourselves.  We are now the professional infrastructure of the service economy: government workers, teachers, social workers, lobbyists, advocates. The challenge of change in our time is changing ourselves, and our institutions.” (Tony Massengale, National Citizenship School, Southern Conference 1998). 

Gallaudet
University, as an institution of higher education should not be looked at as an island unto itself. External stakeholders, especially the deaf community, have a place in defining the purpose of higher education, and the meaning of

Gallaudet
University as an institution.  The availability of leadership from such stakeholders should be viewed as a good thing.  This collective leadership entails not only the person at the top or the Board, but the institutions stakeholders, community, students, staff, faculty and alumni.  The Board has erred all along, by not listening to the sea of pleas for dialogue, for representation, for ownership. 

I urge the Board of Trustees to restore order and demonstrate good faith effort by exercising its oversight authority to investigate the complaints within the next 48 hours. Such lapse of an immediate response by the Board has exacerbated the crisis at hand – to the point that it now behooves you, the Board of Trustees, to remove, whether temporarily or permanently, the subjects of these complaints, the current and incoming Presidents: Dr Jordan and Dr. Fernandes.

With sincere concern,

Community-Stakeholder

Employer of Gallaudet Graduates

Sheri Farinha Mutti, CEO

NorCal
Center on Deafness

4708 Roseville Road, Suite 111

North Highlands, CA

95670

Email:

SFarinha@Norcalcenter.org

CC:      U.S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spelling

            U.S. Senator John McCain

            U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey

            U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein

            U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer

            Ollie Cantos, Director, Domestic Policy, The White House

            Jeff Rosen,
U.S. National Council on Disability

            NAD President, Bobbie Beth Scoggins

            Hearing loss Association of America, Brenda Battat

            CAD President, Richard Ray

California Coalition of Agencies Serving the Deaf & Hard of Hearing, Ed Kelly, Chair

           NorCal
Center on Deafness, Board of Directors, Angela Lee Foreman, President           NorCal
Center on Deafness, staff

            DHH-CommUNITY.com, Team

            FSSA

            Steven A. Mutti, Alumni

            Ken Kresse, Director,California
Center for the Law & the Deaf

California
State
University, Northridge,

National
Center on Deafness, Director, Roz Rosen

            NTID, Vice President, Alan Hurwitz

All other Stakeholders of the Gallaudet – Community, Students, Faculty, and Alumni

           
Washington Post

           
Washington Times

with permission to reprint from dhh-community.com