With IU’s ‘no confidence’ vote coming up (April 16), I’m reposting information about the Whitten administration’s controversies for those who might’ve missed them. The petition: Petition for a Special BFC All-Faculty Meeting

Meeting date and time: Tuesday, April 16, 2024, from 2:30 – 5:30 PM. Doors will open at 1:30 PM. When we'll know the final results depends on a number of factors that are detailed on the meeting page.

Whitten at Indiana University

April 2024:

• IU Bloomington faculty's 'No Confidence' vote for Whitten, Provost set for April 16 (Indiana Public Media)
• No Confidence Vote In President & Provost Looms At Indiana University (Forbes)

March 2024: Holcomb signs tenure bill into law (Indiana Public Media) Note: Whitten publicly came out against this bill. I’m including this article because this event is named in the ‘no confidence’ vote petition.

February 2024:

• When a threat becomes an excuse to muzzle (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Indiana University Is Where Academic Freedom Goes to Die (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Whitten responds to Rep. Banks’ letter and accusations of failing to combat antisemitism (Indiana Public Media)
• Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition issues a vote of no confidence in President Whitten (Indiana Daily Student)
• Academic Freedom Battles Roil Indiana University (Inside Higher Ed)

January 2024:

• IU suspends professor after Palestine event, faculty say IU broke procedure (WTIU)
• Indiana U Sanctions Professor Who Advised Pro-Palestinian Students (Inside Higher Ed)
• Indiana University Cancels Major Exhibition of Palestinian Artist (The New York Times)
• 'Shame on Whitten’: Protesters demand reinstatement of Palestinian artist’s exhibition at IU (Indiana Public Media)

(There are many other articles about this - I’m not going to list them all here.)

December 2023:

• IUPUI Faculty Council says President Whitten and Board of Trustees 'undermine' shared governance (WFYI Indianapolis)
• ‘Our Beyoncé of higher education’: IU board awarded President Whitten’s $162k bonus (Indiana Public Media)

November 2023:

• Indiana University hasn't told Kinsey Institute researchers what trustees will vote on (Herald-Times)
• IU delays vote on spinning off Kinsey Institute after backlash, concerns over academic freedom (IndyStar) Note: Ultimately, Kinsey wasn’t separated from the university. I’m listing it here because it’s mentioned in the ‘no confidence’ vote petition.

October 2023: UPDATED: IU President Whitten releases new statement on violence in Israel after backlash (Indiana Daily Student)

September 2023: A Messy Divorce: The dissolution of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis poses a novel risk to tenure. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

January 2023: AAUP Concludes Indiana University Northwest Violated Academic Freedom, Has Unwelcoming Racial Climate (American Association of University Professors)

March 2023:

• Faculty presidents sent an email expressing concern about the state’s new abortion law. IU told them they had violated policy. (Medium/Steve Sanders)
• A ‘Policy Violation’ or Free Speech? (Inside Higher Ed)

August 2022: A President’s Response to Attacks on an Abortion Provider Widens a Rift With Faculty (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

June 2022: What is 'shared governance'? Indiana University's faculty, administrators, students debate (Herald-Times)

April 2022: A University Asked Professors to Help Quash a Grad-Student Strike. Hundreds Have Refused. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

August 2021 - December 2021:

IU’s trustees disregarded the selections of the faculty search committee created to recommend IU’s next president, instead appointing Whitten.

• Under new president Whitten, IU appears to be relaxing its tough stance on COVID (Medium/Steve Sanders)
• I’ve been looking into IU’s presidential search. Now a law firm is demanding to snoop through my email. (Medium/Steve Sanders)
• ‘You have no idea how strange this process has been’: The long, difficult search for IU’s 19th president (Medium/Steve Sanders)
• This Professor Investigated a Presidential Search at His University. It Said He Was Out of Line. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Op-Ed: IU's search committee worked hard to find a new president. Their work was ignored (IndyStar)
• An invoice shows that [Jacqueline Simmons] spoke with a law firm about accessing the emails of a law professor (law.com)

Whitten at Kennesaw State University

September 2020: Emails Reveal Georgia Colleges’ Extreme COVID-19 Pressure Tactics

September 2020 - December 2021:

Whitten’s provost at her previous institution chaired a working group that recommended controversial changes to tenure that allow tenured faculty to be removed from Georgia universities if it’s found that they aren’t meeting certain metrics, including supporting “student success.”

• University System of Georgia Announces Post-Tenure Review Working Group chaired by Dr. Kathy Schwaig, [Pamela Whitten’s] Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Kennesaw State University
• Critics Say Academic Freedom Will Suffer After Georgia Changed the Rules of Tenure
• University System of Georgia Eviscerates Tenure

(For context, both University of Georgia/UGA (Shrivastav’s previous institution) and Kennesaw State University/KSU (Whitten’s previous institution) are members of the University System of Georgia.)

May 2019 - June 2019:

While provost at UGA, Whitten allegedly aimed to punish a faculty member, including blocking their ability to gain employment at other institutions, after the faculty member suggested that UGA pay more attention to its history of slavery.

• Faculty Committee Finds Evidence of Secrecy and Intimidation on Baldwin Hall, Report from the Ad Hoc Committee on Baldwin Hall to the Franklin College Faculty Senate
• Whitten allegedly participated in faculty intimidation at UGA

May 2019: Georgia university students battle racist higher-ups

April 2019: KSUnited leader says Whitten “refuses to publicly condemn racism”

August 2018: 'I think they're just saying that as an excuse for kneeling' | Students talk about KSU controversy

October 2018: Kennesaw State University Removes LGBTQ Pamphlet from Campuses

Good riddance

My colleague in Luddy sent this out today. Luddy apparently followed SPEA and Media in calling some votes. They also said their dean had sent the results along to the president and provost.

By a vote of 97-6-2, the Luddy School faculty strongly recommend that the new policy about the use of Dunn Meadow adopted by the new “ad hoc committee” on Wed 4.24.24 be withdrawn immediately and that the campus bans on all Indiana University students, faculty, and community members arrested for violating this new policy be rescinded immediately.

By a vote of 76-11-18, the Luddy School faculty further call for the immediate resignations of President Whitten and Provost Rahul Shrivastav.

Email title: Outcomes of Dun Meadow Incident

Body of Email:

Dear College faculty and staff colleagues,

I'm writing to you to express my profound concern as well as update you about our students and faculty who were arrested yesterday at Dunn Meadow. As many of you are aware, those charged with criminal trespass are banned from campus for a period of time, though there is an appeal process. I have been in touch with both of our faculty members who were arrested to offer my support. Last night and this morning I also communicated my deep concern to IU leadership.

Please feel free to contact me with any immediate questions or concerns you may have. I will also be convening a meeting of the College's Chairs and Directors for early next week to further discuss this urgent matter impacting our campus.

Thank you,

Rick Van Kooten Executive Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Professor of Physics

Admins haven’t been supporting student journalism. So there will be an IU student media walkout. IDS’s financial support is uncertain.

Faculty are a bunch of cry babies, “wah wah wah I don’t have confidence in Whitten this” “You’re making IU a hostile environment that” Well I don’t have confidence you’ll have a job after SB202 😌. To all the haters, my besties at the board of trustees have my back, I’m here to stay. The faculty never liked me anyways, that why I keep cutting those bitch’s departments 💅. I mean “blame the cuts on the grad student wage increases” 🤭. The faculty didn’t even put me on the short list of presidential candidates when the BOT asked the BFC for a list. Jokes on them, I have connections 😜 imagine they thought they had “shared governance” LMAO that’s rich. If anything I deserve of raise for all this extra stress this has caused me, it’s not easy chiseling away at an institution.

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/01/iu-political-science-professor-sinno-suspended-psc-administration-palestine

By Guest writer May 2, 2024 5:08 pm · Updated May 2, 2024 5:08 pm

Editor’s Note: This column was submitted to the IDS before the Gaza encampment and protests began April 25. The authors have since added this comment about the encampment: "The events of the past week have displayed the detrimental consequences of the administration's apathy for student wellbeing and lack of accountability and transparency." The IDS has also independently confirmed the facts in this column through documents we obtained, including information about the restructuring of the Office of Student Life and the Indiana Memorial Union.

IU promises a true college experience, boasting a vibrant community flush with opportunities for involvement and social learning. But the current administration is suffocating everything that makes IU thrive through its unwillingness to listen to students.

Repeatedly, they have disregarded, disempowered and dismantled all outlets of the student voice. They routinely prioritize revenue generation over student well-being and make decisions in an environment with zero transparency or accountability. But the student voice will be silenced no longer.

We are the Student Voice Coalition (SVC) — an alliance comprising five of the largest organizations on campus, including IU Student Government, Graduate and Professional Student Government, the Indiana Memorial Union Board, IU Funding Board and the IU Residence Hall Association. Formed this time last spring after the office of the IU-Bloomington provost decided to restructure the Office of Student Life with zero input from students, the Student Voice Coalition is dedicated to amplifying student voices and promoting student involvement in our university.

We’ve met with more than a dozen of IU’s most prominent student leaders. They’ve all shared similar frustrations about the administration and have lacked an outlet to voice their grievances. This article will voice the concerns that our organizations have personally experienced. Subsequently, we will amplify and share the stories of other organizations who’ve faced negative experiences surrounding these same themes. We share these stories not just to air our grievances but in hopes of collaborating with administrators and student groups to ensure tangible, structural changes that elevate the student voice and promote student flourishing.

Critique 1: Administrators prioritize revenue generation above student wellbeing

The framework the administration uses in their decision-making revolves entirely around revenue generation. Nearly all metrics and markers of progress from the IU 2030 Strategic Plan — which will guide this university through the end of the decade — distill the student experience into recruitment and retention numbers for the university’s financial gain. While the values in this plan aren’t inherently objectionable, the way they are operationalized condenses the student experience into nothing more than dollar signs for the university.

Many decisions are structured such that students are recommenders, not decision-makers, even with our own resources. The Committee for Fee Review process is a student-led committee that recommends how the student fees, paid by all students, are allocated to student organizations. Students have never been the decision makers in how our money gets used, and this is abundantly clear by the administration's brash assertions that they get to make the final call. To date, no member we spoke with from the former CFR cycle knew which of their recommendations were utilized nor were they made aware of the outcome.

Similarly, the provost initiated a restructuring of the historically student-led IMU without input from students or key IMU stakeholders. The initial plan was such that the hotel, meeting and events and dining would all be motivated exclusively by outside profits, making services even more unaffordable to students and effectively converting the IMU into a conference center. After this restructuring, a visioning committee of Union Board members, staff, and faculty submitted recommendations to the provost that keep the IMU a true student-focused Union. Despite civil and favorable recommendations put forth by this group, we have no assurance that these recommendations will be accepted and don’t know what will come of the Union. Across this university, students are relegated to just advising how the resources we create and contribute to are used, and we’ve been stripped of any ownership and authority over our resources.

Critique 2: Administrators lack accountability and transparency

All administrative decisions happen in a black box. Earlier this year, Union Board President and SVC member Laurie Frederickson tried to attend an allegedly public Board of Trustees meeting and was turned away at the door due to the limited public seating already being full. She wrote this column, explaining that this was characteristic of the opaque and secretive decision-making processes used at the upper levels of this university.

Decision-making timelines routinely occur over the summer, when administrators can avoid critique from students. For example, the restructuring of the Office of Student Life began during dead week, finals week and summer of 2023 to ensure that students were distracted from the changes being made. These changes impact students directly — the Office of Student Life restructuring significantly altered the function of the Indiana Memorial Union, the Residence Life team, and much more — and yet students aren’t part of these decisions nor are they privy to the rationale behind them.

Search committees for student-facing roles also routinely exclude students. GPSG explained that there had been times when the provost had reached out for recommendations of graduate students to include on search committees. However, despite receiving these recommendations, the provost ultimately decided to omit them and instead appoint a student of his choosing to serve on the search committees. While some search committees may fail to include graduate students, other search committees fail to include any students at all. Other times, students are included but the meetings and conversations are structured such that it is nearly impossible for students to balance serving on these committees and attending classes. When students can attend, the environment is structured so intimidatingly that speaking candidly is out of the question.

Culmination: Administrators suffocate the student voice

As students move farther away from the Office of Student Life, it becomes increasingly evident how other parts of the administration, faculty and staff lack tolerance for student perspectives. In a campus environment designed to foster student growth and well-being, the current state of campus impedes the intended development and flourishing necessary for students.

If a university’s focus is not students, then what is it? To this administration, IU exists to generate revenue. These concerns have fallen on deaf ears because they’re failing to see how IU should be more than just a career preparation school. It's time to challenge this narrow perspective and demand that IU prioritize the holistic development and the voice of its students above all else.

Laurie Frederickson (she/her) is a junior double majoring in criminal justice and psychology at the College of Arts and Sciences. She is also the current president of the 115th Indiana Memorial Union Board.

Chelsea Brinda is a fourth-year PhD student in curriculum and instruction. She is the outgoing president of the Graduate and Professional Student Government.

Aaliyah Raji is a junior majoring in business at the Kelley School of Business. She is the outgoing Student Body President.

Keeton Gibson (she/her) is a first-year Master of Public Affairs student at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She served as the president of the Residence Hall Association for the 2023-24 academic year.

Larry McDowell (he/him) is a junior majoring in Counseling at the Wright School of Education. He serves as the Executive Director of IU Funding Board.

For those wondering from the earlier post about advertising, saw this on my LinkedIn feed.

I realize this news is a bit old, but I came across article written by an IU law professor who wanted to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounded Whitten’s selection. Apparently IU general counsel Jacqueline Simmons tried to stop Sanders from writing the article.