Presidential assessment addressed

University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs "has been dictating from day one" with a "hostile and aggressive style" since he "came through presidency through the back door" in 2006, according to faculty members who participated in the Faculty Senate Performance Review of Jacobs near the end of last semester.

The performance review's results were released in June and incorporated anonymous commentary on various aspects of Jacobs' presidency, including his communication and interpersonal skills, knowledge and expertise, problem solving and decision making, strategic planning, leadership, and diversity among others.

The faculty commentary in the assessment range from positive to negative.

One faculty member compliments Jacobs' "great" communication and interpersonal skills.

"I have been GREATLY IMPRESSED by Dr. Jacobs' use of the MyUT Web site, and the videos… as well as the media. He is a real presence who can always be seen communicating with the faculty, staff, and students. Great stuff. I have also been impressed with his personal friendliness at various events — very open and warm towards me as a faculty member," the faculty member said.

Other faculty members offer constructive criticism and place the blame on issues concerning the university, such as student centerdness, on other administrators.

"This was probably a steep learning curve for Dr. Jacobs; he seems to be getting the hang of academia," a faculty member wrote. "My only concern is that decisions are sometimes made that seem to be moving against student centerdness and student learning but these decisions may be made by administrators below the president's level."

But the review contains an overwhelming majority of negative comments describing Jacobs as "authoritarian and undemocratic."

Faculty even compared Jacobs to former UT President Vik Kapoor who was forced to resign from his presidency in 2000. Kapoor still works at the university as professor emeritus in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

"[Jacobs] has built an atmosphere of paranoia among employees (Vik Kapoor pales in comparison to the Jacobs' autocratic environment,)" one of the comments read. "Although the president has created a Captain Integrity ‘Big Brother is watching you' atmosphere, it is clear those guidelines do not hold for the upper administration."

Despite repeated attempts to contact Jacobs, he was unavailable from early June until the date of this publication for an interview, due to being on vacation.

Jacobs communicated his thoughts on the assessment through an email sent to the Independent Collegian by his administrative assistant.

"Everybody needs feedback," Jacobs said in the email. "I am appreciative. The problem however with these assessments is that they tend to focus on people: me, the provost, or the board; when what we really need is conversation about our pursuit of excellence. It seems imperative to me that we engage in a discussion of how we make the university and the world a better place, and focus less on individuals."

Out of nearly 1,600 faculty members at UT, around 130 participated in the assessment.

The overall response average in the assessment rate Jacobs as "needs improvement" in all of the 10 areas.

Chair of the Board of Trustees Bill Fall said the Board may or may not consider the faculty's assessment of Jacobs in future decisions concerning the university as appropriate.

"We, by no means, would cast aside the Faculty Senate's assessment as a whole," he said.

Despite the negative commentary in the faculty assessment of Jacobs, Fall said he believes Jacobs is achieving great progress at UT and the best way to improve the relationship between Jacobs and faculty is to stay the course.

"We are basically three years out of a merger of two very different campuses and the president's contained a very good change of that," he said. "It's always discouraging to see people unhappy, but in the context of understanding how difficult the economy, how difficult the state's capacity for funding higher education is, it did not surprise us to see some of the responses because we probably believed them to be authored with any of those prospective in mind, as much as they might have been authored with [Jacobs] personally in mind."

David Davis, professor of political science, said when he communicated his concerns to former BOT Chair Olivia Summons, concerning the assessment, he got an "evasive" response.

"They immediately rejected it," he said. "They didn't like the results and they rejected it. But I think they should look at the whole thing. It was an overwhelmingly negative vote."

Davis said he thinks the negative result of the assessment is a bad sign for the future relations between faculty and the administration.

"There's hundreds of things that could be done to fix this, but he wants to run this like a military organization and I think the provost is the number one yes man. A university should not be run like General Motors or Kroger."

Chair of the Faculty Senate Mary Powers said Jacobs should try to consider the context of the comments and welcome the constructive criticism.

"There are probably some beneficial comments in there, so he should really look for the things that were intended in a helpful way as far as how we moved forward," she said. "Maybe not everything was helpful, but I would like him to really look at those ones that were helpful and see how it can help all of us."

Fall said the BOT has urged Jacobs to continue to be assertive on expanding communication methods with staff, faculty and students.

"That clearly is a sign of our discipline to continue improvement," he said. "That would be our core improvement we took away from this evaluation."

Though Fall said it is discouraging to see faculty members unhappy, he said the Board is pleased with the high ratings Jacobs received in leadership skills and direction from the faculty members who participated in the BOT's assessment of Jacobs last spring.