Faculty Approaches Board of Trustees

The faculty has recently voiced its need to address the strike of May 2016.

Back in May, the faculty went on strike to protest President Eileen Ely, who would resign shortly after.

The faculty believed that she had unfair labor practices and had no confidence in her or the Board of Trustees leadership abilities at the time, according to The Seattle Times.

With the recent shifting of power of higher administration, the faculty has kept quiet.

Jaeney Hoene, english faculty, stressed that the report was not to convey a sense of discontent, simply that the faculty feels it is time to start addressing what has been avoided until this point.

“It takes time to move past an era of conflict and that we haven’t moved fully past that yet and that we probably needed to start addressing that a little bit more directly,” Hoene said.

“I think the remaining skepticism probably arises largely just from years of feeling the faculty voice is not valued,” Hoene said.

When new projects arise, faculty found themselves skeptical to assign their name to it. Upon assigning their name to a project, faculty and staff find that the credit due is not received.

“You may go to these committee meetings and contribute your perspective and your expertise, but when the end of that project in no way reflects those contributions, you start to feel a little cynical,” Hoene said.
President Ely was in office for six years and after all that time, the faculty began to question whether or not participating was worth their time and energy.

Hoene read a detailed and well-written report to the Board and was given mixed and confused responses concerning what exactly she was saying. “I think we [now] have a president that is very receptive to this discussion, and I think this came off as a critique of her and it wasn’t that at all.”

The Board was confused exactly of what Hoene was asking that they do for the faculty. “We have had a kind of ‘Let’s not talk about the past’ kind of culture over the last year of so since the strike,” Hoene said. “I was not asking of any particular grand action, but was just to say ‘Can we start to open up a little bit about this?’”

The stigma around the strike often stops students, faculty, and even some board members from learning about the subject. “Jackie Boschok, one of these trustees, expressed this as well as the newest person on the board, that she has wanted to learn a little bit more about what happened but hasn’t even felt that she could ask,” Hoene said.

Faculty and staff across the campus were affected by the strike and some feel that they are unable to talk about what happened, and the hope is that slowly, with the help of the new, accepting administration that this something that can be talked about in the quarter and years to come.