Faculty Council is right to push for more communication
Kudos to the Faculty Council for aiming to improve communication, both internally and externally (Dec. 8 issue). As Chancellor Wartgow stressed at the Dec. 3 meeting with CLAS faculty, it is crucially important that the public understand how hard and constructively we work on the behalf of our students, community and state. This external message can and should be amplified.
As was also obvious at the Dec. 3 meeting, greater internal communication would benefit our system as well. At that meeting, important questions about Chancellor Wilson and branding were raised by several faculty and it would benefit our community to be able to hear or read the answers given by our chancellor and Provost Nairn at that meeting. The reinstitution of an independent conduit for news reporting about CU would go a long way toward meeting that objective.
One final thought. Perhaps the most damaging prejudice that people can have about a university is that it is insular or "out of touch."
This happens when information about important decisions and expenditures are not transparent or shared democratically. The Faculty Council seems to understand that the more we emulate a democracy (both in the ways we communicate with each other and with the world outside our campuses), the more we earn respect from the public and keep internal morale high. They are right – we need to push earnestly in this direction.
David Hildebrand
Associate professor, Philosophy
UC Denver |
