A staff position responsible for hearing and addressing the concerns of faculty and postdoctoral students will remain vacant this year after a failed search to fill the spot coincided with a hiring freeze instituted last year.
For the past three academic years, the University employed a part-time ombudsperson in a pilot program, who worked with faculty members to "mediate and try to resolve issues," said Professor of Physics Chung-I Tan, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee.
Typical duties of the position included moderating disputes and acting as a confidential and neutral sounding-board for personal and professional concerns, according to an annual report from the ombudsperson's office.
That experiment "worked out well," Tan said. The ombudsperson was contacted by 28 to 59 faculty members and postdocs each year, according to the office's annual reports.
After surveying the faculty, the FEC decided that the position — which reported directly to the president — should be made permanent. The University made an offer last year, but the candidate turned the job down because it was only part-time, according to the minutes of a Sept. 23, 2008 FEC meeting.
When the University imposed a hiring freeze on all staff positions soon after that date, Tan said, the FEC decided that "although this position is important, we would temporarily put this on hold."
The Web site of the ombudsperson's office directs users to take questions and concerns to Tan, Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Valerie Wilson or Rod Beresford, professor of engineering and interim associate dean of the faculty.
"We are all faculty or administrators, so by definition, we're not impartial," Beresford said. Rather than try to replace an ombudsperson's neutral view, the current structure provides the faculty with "helpful" resources, he added.
"This is an interim or short-term arrangement," he said. "The long-term plan is not settled."
Tan and Beresford said they have not yet assisted any faculty member with a concern this year.
To see if the current structure is working, the FEC will review how many faculty members come forward this year, Tan said. Past ombudsperson reports indicate the approximate number of cases that arise each year. "After a year we'll probably want to review what's transpired this year," he said.
In the past three years, during which the University employed an ombudsperson, the number of cases taken to the FEC or the faculty's Committee of Grievances declined, according to past FEC meeting notes.
"In the past, the grievance committee would basically have both jobs," of addressing formal grievances and handling more general faculty concerns, Tan said.
An ombudsperson resolves problems before they become formal grievances and "can usually act much more quickly" than the grievance committee, "at the satisfaction of everybody else," said Professor of Mathematics Richard Kenyon, the grievance committee chair.
The FEC still intends to hire an ombudsperson but has not yet decided when, Tan said.
In light of the University's financial needs, Beresford said, "It would be difficult to justify this (position) at this time, although that could change."
There is a "possibility" that when the position is offered again, it will be as a two-thirds or three-quarters time job, rather than half-time, since the increased benefits might make the job "slightly more attractive," Tan said. The ombudsperson's role might also be expanded to address staff or student needs, he added.
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