This report covers Spring, Summer, and Fall 2007, the fifth full year of operation for the Faculty Ombuds service.  As in previous years, the office has continued to provide its service to faculty in a wide range of situations, many of which extended over a number of months.  Ombuds assistance has taken several forms, depending on the needs of the visitor(s).  For individuals, the Ombuds role has typically involved listening, brainstorming to identify options and resources, and helping visitors to arrive at their own solutions to problems. In some instances, the role has extended to helping individuals to find and contact the recognized university channels through which to follow through with the solution they have chosen.  For groups of two or more, Ombuds have aided with conflict resolution by facilitating constructive communication and clarification of the issues, both surface and underlying, which have led to the conflict.  Below we will summarize our activities for the year, maintaining the strictest anonymity/confidentiality for all concerned and we will look ahead to plans for the near future.

Summary

The raw numbers for 2007 show that we had contact with 39 faculty overall, down from the 48 we saw in 2006 but still within the range of volume of visitors seen in previous years (i.e. 35 (2005), 40 (2004), 30 (2003).  These 39 contacts were spread over 17 different cases or situations, some involving multiple parties and others involving work with only one individual (i.e. the person who contacted us).   Like the volume of visitors, the number of cases is consistent with past experience, very close to the 18 cases in 2006, 17 in 2005 and 21 in 2004.  In terms of length of Ombuds intervention, 8 cases required more than one meeting or conversation while the other situations usually involved a single meeting of an hour or more. Simpler inquiries, made by individuals seeking information on procedures, University policies, or the operation of the Ombuds service and requiring at most an information search and one return phone call comprised the remainder (and the minority) of the contacts made to the Ombuds office in 2007. 

Visits to the Ombuds office ranged in length from less than an hour to over two hours, with the amount of Ombuds time devoted to each situation after the visit varying between a brief information-gathering phone call and follow-up call to the visitor to numerous hours of further consultation with the visitor and with the other Ombuds. In every case, we ask the visitor’s permission to share his/her situation with the Ombuds who was not present at the initial visit and this permission has always been granted. This opportunity for the two Ombuds to consult and brainstorm with each other has proven extremely valuable and has had the result that both Ombuds are involved (to varying degrees) in every situation brought to the attention of the office, providing the benefit of two perspectives and two analytical approaches.

Among the people we worked with in 2007, as in previous years, we saw a distribution of male and female visitors, as well as a diversity in ethnic origin and faculty ranks, including tenured and tenure track faculty and lecturers/instructors.  As in past years, tenured and tenure-track faculty (with numbers being more or less equally divided between the two) comprised the majority of Ombuds visitors with non-tenure track faculty represented in much smaller numbers. In any case, such calculations must remain estimates, since especially with passing inquiries, we are not always aware of the academic rank of the person inquiring.  It is unknown how the contract negotiations between the University and the collective bargaining unit representing non-tenure track faculty affects the availability of the Ombuds office as a resource for non-tenure track faculty.  As our Operating Papers make explicit: “In those instances where one or more of the individuals involved are represented under a collective bargaining agreement, ombuds services can only be provided if they do not represent a violation of the covering agreement.”

As has been the case every year, the issues brought to the Ombuds office in 2007 were diverse, and generally overlapping—i.e., in any given situation, several issues are at play simultaneously.   Faculty availed themselves of Ombuds services at various points as the difficult situation unfolded and played itself out for them. Some contacted the office fairly early, as they saw the problem developing or continuing, thus using the office in more proactive and exploratory ways, while others brought their concerns to the Ombuds when it seemed that all other options, short of a grievance or separation from the university seemed viable. The following list provides an overview of the types of issues for which Ombuds assistance was sought in the past year.

Retention, tenure and promotion decisions

           Retention reviews and decisions regarding promotion and especially tenure provided a context for many of the situations brought to the Ombuds office.  The procedures and policies that governed those decisions, as well as the interpersonal relations and histories that surrounded the situation have been a recurring focus of visitors seeking Ombuds assistance.  Due process in cases of termination, whether related to tenure and promotion or not, was also an issue. 

Relationships with supervisors/department heads and other faculty colleagues

         Issues related to departmental climate, perceived supervisor bullying, communication difficulties with colleagues and ongoing problems with turf definition and collaborative management of programs figured prominently on the roster of
concerns expressed by visitors to the Ombuds office in 2007.  Questions of collegiality and professional behavior, perceived unfair treatment of non-tenured faculty by their tenured colleagues, evaluations of faculty by Chairs and Deans, administrative judgments perceived as somewhat capricious by the faculty member involved and/or the absence of adequate policy guidelines in some retention, tenure and promotion decisions
have been identified in past reports as perennial issues and these continued to be among the most frequent types of situations that prompted a visit to the Ombuds office. As has been the infrequent case in the past, during 2007 the Ombuds office was contacted by more than one department Chair in order to explore options for dealing with problematic relationships between members of the faculty in the unit.

 
Compensation and benefits issues

            Salary and benefits concerns, while not among the most frequent, remained among the reasons that faculty contacted the Ombuds office.  In these cases, the Ombuds function, after listening to the visitor and, if necessary, providing assistance in identifying issues, was to seek information and clarification from other university offices about what options might be available in a particular situation.

Problematic situations with students

            As in past years (but less than in 2006) faculty contacted the Ombuds office to discuss problems they were having with students, including disagreements over grades and matters of classroom management. In some of these situations, the faculty member
also expressed concern over what he/she perceived to be a lack of support from the department Chair in resolving the conflict that had arisen with a student.

Miscellaneous

            As is the case every year, the Ombuds office is contacted by individuals, either staff or students, who are not covered in the scope of Ombuds services as currently written. These contacts, typically few in number (as in 2007 when they did not exceed ten) result in a short discussion in which the Ombuds indicates campus resources that are available to the caller/visitor. 

Reflection

Evaluating our success or failure in helping faculty come to terms with their challenging situations is difficult to do in any but the most anecdotal ways because asking people what they think about what we do is not part of the Ombuds function.  Some people who work with the Ombuds office end up leaving the university as a way of resolving the conflicts in which they are involved, and whether this is to be regarded as a successful resolution or not is far from clear; it depends entirely on the perspective of the person evaluating the outcome. Other people continue in the same stressed situations that brought them to seek Ombuds assistance, only with a greater degree of orientation within the situation and a greater sense of the range of options available to them (in some cases, few options), thus providing a certain degree of comfort if not exactly resolution.  Still others do report a clear improvement in their situations as a direct result of actions taken upon consultation with the Ombuds. This improvement can take the form of a work still in progress or of a truly happy outcome. Our general impression throughout remains that the Ombuds service is a valuable resource for faculty in need, however few the faculty served may be, that it provides help when most needed of a kind otherwise often totally lacking, somewhat humanizing the bureaucratic edges and political rough-and-tumble of academic life. Although they understand that the Ombuds function does not include the power to take action of any substantive kind, most people we deal with seem to be nothing but appreciative of the service the Ombuds office provides in assisting with working within and through recognized channels and university policies, identifying options, weighing the pros and cons of each from a neutral perspective and providing a listener committed to confidentiality and impartiality who hears their concerns non-judgmentally.

In addition to our primary activities as outlined above, we have been engaged in the ongoing maintenance of the Ombuds Office itself.  As in past years, we participated in New Faculty Orientation, introducing incoming faculty to the types of services we offer. 
As a further step, in Fall 2007, we initiated another round of visits to every department and faculty unit on campus, aimed at increasing awareness of the Ombuds functions and availability, distributing flyers describing the Faculty Ombuds service, and answering questions. During the Fall term as well, we met with Provost Paul Ferguson, university general counsel Jeff McLellen and assistant to the Provost Julie Hopwood to discuss the parameters within which our office operates. These meetings centered on an examination of the Operating Papers and a discussion of possible mechanisms for providing upward feedback (one of the stipulated responsibilities of the Ombuds position) while protecting the confidentiality of those who have brought their concerns to the Ombuds office. In addition, we worked with Connie Schmidt from the Provost’s Office to improve the physical environment of the Ombuds office space in an effort to provide an atmosphere which, as much as possible, puts visitors at ease and helps them to feel comfortable.

Professional development

 In July 2007, Prof. Schmidt attended Ombuds 101, a training workshop for beginning Ombuds, offered by the International Ombuds Association.  Both Ombuds maintain membership in the IOA which also serves as a resource for practicing Ombuds.

Looking ahead

Our chief concern as we reflect on 2007 and look ahead to 2008 and beyond remains to ensure that the Ombuds service is utilized by as many people as may be helped by it, to continue to see the service integrated into the life of the University.  As in past years,  after the  2006 Ombuds annual report was approved by the Faculty Welfare Council, it was added to the Ombuds webpage in order to provide visitors to our website with a more nuanced view of the types of services the office provides. Sharing the annual report, while respecting the confidentiality and anonymity of previous visitors, provides us another opportunity to make our office known to the faculty, in addition to the email announcement of office hours that we send out at the start of each semester (in August, January, and May).   As mentioned above, the round of visits to every department and faculty unit on campus is continuing during the Spring semester 2008 and very few units should remain to be visited in Fall 2008.  These campus visits have allowed Dr. Cynthia Schmidt, who was selected to replace Jeff Skoblow at the conclusion of his second term in Fall 2007, to create her own Ombuds profile on campus. The transition from Jeff to Cindy, the first turnover since the inception of the office, has taken place seamlessly, and we look forward to welcoming the soon-to-be-named Ombuds who will join the office this year at the conclusion of Debbie’s second term.  A second workshop for department Chairs (similar to the day-long conflict resolution training session offered in 2003) is under discussion. This will serve as both a follow-up to the initial training the new Ombuds receive through The International Ombudsman Association and as a way of extending training in mediation skills to a larger segment of the campus population.

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URL: http://www.siue.edu/UGOV/FACULTY/OMBUDS/
Published by: Faculty Ombuds Service Office
Last update: April 29, 2008