Faculty Dissatisfaction Started Long Before Price Lab Decision, Report Says

Amidst outcry over the planned closing of and a teacher education faculty senate vote of no confidence, a recent survey shows that dissatisfaction with leadership at the University of Northern Iowa has been brewing for some time.

Cathy DeSoto, a UNI psychology professor and president of UNI's United Faculty union, provided Cedar Falls Patch with some results of a survey of 201 faculty members completed in the fall of 2011.

Among other things, the survey found 79 percent of faculty were unhappy with how UNI is being run by upper administration and 83 percent of faculty said their morale had declined since arriving at UNI.

This comes a day after the combined teacher education faculty senates in UNI President Ben Allen, Provost Gloria Gibson and the Iowa Board of Regents.

A meeting of the full UNI faculty to discuss the budget cuts has been called for 3:15 p.m. Friday at the after a petition for such a meeting circulated amongst tenured faculty.

DeSoto said a letter concerning the survey was sent to Allen and Gibson on Jan. 24. She said United Faculty has received no response to the letter.

"Obviously with the budget cuts we’ve been under for a couple of years, that hurts morale," UNI spokesman James O'Connor said in response. He said he had not seen the letter. "Change is difficult. It's only human nature to want to preserve the status quo. But we’ve got a responsibility to do the best thing for our students and future of the university."

The full letter, with some of the survey results, that was sent from United Faculty to Allen and Gibson is attached to this article as a PDF.

United Faculty represents approximately 550 faculty members and is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors.