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Wednesday, 28 February 2007 16:16 |
 When UNC Ashevilleís new chancellor, Anne Ponder, took the helm of the school in October 2005, she undoubtedly knew that the position would require hard work and dilligent efforts to mediate the various competing desires, visions and intentions the collegeís students, faculty and staff members.
Clearly, anyone in such a position has to make tough choices.
But a growing chorus of UNCA community members has started to challenge some of the choices that Ponder and other administrators have made in the past year.
Particularly troubling to many has been a number of terminations of long-term faculty and staff members.
Last week, one such termination resulted in a demonstration and walk-out by a large group of students.
The students
were protesting the layoff of Margaret Weshner, a therapist at the
schoolís counseling center who has worked at UNCA for 29 years. Her job
was eliminated as a result of a restructuring that will combine the
schoolís health and counseling service.
However,
according to Weshner, she was given only two weeksí notice of the
change, after which she will have to stop counseling students. For her
last three months, she was told, she will be on ìspecial assignment.î
Angered by this
development, more than 100 students left classes last Wednesday and
gathered on the UNCA quadrangle for a rally at which the schoolís
employment policies were decried as unfair and one prominent banner
read ìDown with UNCA tyranny.î
We feel that, hyperbole aside, the students have a valid point.
In her 18 months
in office, Ponder has ruffled more than a few feathers. Many students
and faculty members have complained that the administration under
Ponder rules with a heavy hand from the top down ó and with little
regard to seniority.
It is notable
that the UNCA Faculty Senate last week passed a resolution supporting
Weshner and asking the administration to allow her to work through the
end of the year. Clearly, the students are not the only ones upset with
these developments.
To be fair,
Ponder, no doubt, inherited many of the problems being addressed by the
students and faculty. Complaints about unjust terminations of employees
predate her tenure.
Nonetheless, if
she is to serve as an effective administrator, Ponder will have to find
a way to balance the need for the school to restructure itself more
effectively with the importance of respecting and valuing the faculty
and staff ó especially those who have given so many years of their
lives to UNCA.
In the meantime,
we urge the school administration to honor the request of the Faculty
Senate. No one deserves to be dismissed with just two weekís notice
after nearly three decades of service. |
