Dear Editor,
I am a graduate of the University of La Verne and have been an adjunct faculty here for 23 years. My brother and daughter both are graduates of ULV and the school has long held, as the school song says, “a dear favored spot in our hearts.”
With this in mind, I am writing to bring to light what I feel is a serious issue at the University. I have watched over the years and seen ULV move from a culture of help, cooperation, commonality and family to what I see as a disjointed organization. In my mind, the strength of La Verne has always been the close relationships between administration and faculty… but, more importantly, the close relationships between faculty and students. Some examples of what I see as problem areas: (1) Departments are understaffed; as a result, faculty feel pressured and morale is affected negatively; (2) We’ve had chaos at the president position, including forcing highly-respected senior professors to resign; other faculty are nervous, fearful and apprehensive about the possibility of being next on the chopping block; (3) We have deans of some colleges who are rarely on campus and hard to access; (4) Because morale is low among faculty, new staff are not learning the processes by which ULV attained it’s past greatness; the culture is not positive; (5) There appears to be little or no transparency; (6) It appears that publishing is becoming more of a priority than teaching; this cuts down on classroom focus and also on the amount of time faculty can spend with students.
This is all problematic, but there is a further effect that occurs as a result. I believe that any institution of higher learning should function under the philosophy that we (faculty and administration) are here to serve the students. I also believe that staff/organizational morale and culture issues trickle down to those students. I’m not criticizing students; we as an organization are responsible for creating a positive community for learning. Factoring in our own culpability, here are some trends I have noticed, both in my own classes and the classes of other instructors: (1) Far more absences than previous years; (2) Far more tardies; (3) Fewer students taking notes in classes; and (4) Less and less class participation. I believe that many of these issues stem from students sensing the low morale of the faculty.
The students, in my opinion, are suffering due to the culture of the University. Culture in any organization starts at the top and, unless some steps are taken to address this, I believe that we as an organization will continue to struggle and that students will not receive the quality of education that ULV has long been able to provide.
I have seen, both as a student and a faculty, ULV when it was a tight-knit, productive, positive organization with a “family” culture; my desire is to help facilitate corrective actions and return the University to that state. I welcome an open dialogue re: what can be done to rectify what is seen by many as a deteriorating situation.
Dan Kennan
Adjunct Professor of Sociology
