UW President Ed Seidel and Provost Kevin Carman stated that they intended to submit what they called the “final and revised” plan regarding the academic restructuring on campus to the UW Board of Trustee today.
The timeline that the administration has moved on thus far has been incredibly fast and has not done enough to properly communicate and detail what this academic restructuring looks like.
When Seidel presented the plan revolving around the School of Computing to ASUW on Oct. 26, ASUW responded firmly that they could not in good faith support the decision in the current moment.
Under this plan, as we know it now, the administration would have a two folded goal of reconfiguring certain academic departments as well as begin the early stages of developing a School of Computing for the university.
With the way this plan has been structured this far, it is clear that the School of Computing and the restructuring are inseparable. You cannot have the School of Computing without the restructuring.
In an ASUW “Student Issues Survey” sent out earlier this year, 43% of students did not feel as if they were well versed enough to make a decision regarding supporting the School of Computing.
While the other 57% responders were mixed in their support, this still needs to be recognized as a massive problem.
Nearly half of the student population does not feel they have been communicated with properly enough about the issue of the School of Computing, and therefore are also not informed enough about the academic restructuring.
Because of the issues in communication and transparency Seidel and the rest of the administration have left in the wake of this move towards restructuring, the Branding Iron calls for this plan to be slowed down, held off, and reconsidered at this time.
We stand alongside ASUW and countless other student, staff, and faculty voices in support for this plan to be halted.
There has not been a sufficient amount of reasonable response and feedback taken into consideration.
This results in three primary issues that need to be resolved before any restructuring can continue.
First, the lack of transparency and communication needs to be addressed.
Even if Seidel and the UW administration feels that they have been open enough about this process, it is clear that the students are not receiving the message that is being put out.
If students are not versed in the primary decision that will affect them, their instructors, their departments, and countless other students to follow for years on, it is not a decision that can be made at this time.
Second, Seidel nor the other architects of this plan have properly given the time nor attention to student and professor feedback regarding perceived issues.
Despite the claims of an improved and revised plan, an appropriate amount of time and feedback has not been given to help design a plan that makes students, staff, and faculty at the university feel this plan should be put forward.
The primary stakeholders of this university do not feel comfortable in the state of the plan or that they have had proper representation in it, therefore it should not move forward at this time.
Third and final, this plan may lead to a normalization of the administration firing who they want and taking active steps without student or staff support so long as it is under the guise of “reconstruction”.
Should this plan be pushed forward without properly addressing the above two concerns, it could allow for a setting where the administration of this university feels it can take steps without fully needing to inform, address, and work with us all.
We cannot support a plan that is out of our control and out of our consent, especially while recognizing the problematic harms it may bring later on.
The Branding Iron calls on the president and all UW administration to halt this plan until we can properly address these problems.
Furthermore, we call upon Seidel to make himself more available to students to directly communicate and inform themselves on both the plan and any other possible occurrences at the University of Wyoming.
When Dr. Laurie Nichols was the president of our university, she made herself available in the form of “town hall” meetings where students and staff could directly come and press her on what they felt important.
This is one of the many things we believed Seidel could do to address our concerns of transparency and communication.
That would be a good first step towards achieving a more connected and communicative university.
We need more communication and transparency from our administration in order to better inundate ourselves with the information required to make a conscious, informed, consensual decision.
This plan to be halted until we can get the communication we need to decide the future of our university.
