The Board of Trustees recently released a public survey regarding President Siedel’s performance as president. The Board of Trustees are wanting public input especially from students, staff, and faculty, but also the general public.
According to a press release by the university, Seidel’s initial contract was three years long which began on July 1, 2020, the contract required that a review be done before the end of 2021. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the trustees amended the contract to allow the review to occur in September 2022.
Thirty students around campus were asked about the president’s job performance and about the survey; however, all of them declined to be interviewed for various reasons. Many students stated they were unaware that UW has a president and what the president does.
A few students said they were fearful of commenting because of possible retaliation by the university if they spoke up. And others were aware of President Seidel but were unsure of how his role affects them as students.
15 faculty and staff members who worked in different areas of campus and different colleges/departments were also asked about how they felt the president’s job performance was, all of them declined to be interviewed for this article.
Many cited their fears of workplace retaliation, job security, or other consequences for speaking freely about Seidel’s job performance.
President Seidel declined to be interviewed. In an email to the Branding Iron from his office, they stated “while the president is interested in talking with you, we prefer to wait until the evaluation process is complete and the results are published.”
“I think the hope is, you know, to get good feedback about how things are going. Annual evaluations are standard practice in all markets,” said Kim Chestnut, Vice President for Student Affairs discussing the administration’s hopes about the survey.
“My hope is that we come out of there with a better sense of how folks are feeling about our president and maybe our larger administration. And what we do from there to continue towards success,” Chesnut said.
“I would say that President Seidel is committed to the University of Wyoming. No question about it. So even though it has been fairly challenging and dynamic, he has really weathered the storm I think on his end.”
Chestnut was asked about how she felt about students declining to be interviewed.
“I am sad to hear students feel like there would be retaliation for offering their perspectives. And so that’s something that I personally professionally feel like I could help attend to,” Chestnut said about students who feared consequences for speaking up.
“I think that there’s a fair amount of reality at any institution that students don’t dial in to the administration of the President. I’d like to think every student knew we had a president and who it was, but I don’t think it’s an overly hard stretch to recognize that students are busy.”
On Oct. 10, the evaluation survey will be closed. All students, faculty, and staff members are welcome to take the survey and the survey responses are anonymous.
