Kennesaw State faculty members accused members of the university administration, including President Dr. Pamela Whitten, of passing a policy that affects staff compensation without following certain steps in KSU’s policy development procedure.
According to KSU’s policy on university policies, a proposed policy must be heard by the university’s shared governance bodies before it is sent to the president’s office. The staff senate and faculty senate must then be allowed a period to review and comment on the policy before it is sent to the president’s office to be signed.
Dr. Susan Raines, associate director of the School of Conflict Management and member of the Committee on Transparency and Accountability, said that the new compensation policy removes staff members’ ability to earn extra money by teaching classes they are qualified to teach outside of their regular work hours. The policy only affects their ability to teach at KSU, so they are still allowed to do so at other Georgia universities.
“KSU’s highest leaders, particularly President Whitten, the provost and the VP for human resources have repeatedly failed to consult shared governance bodies before creating new policies or radically changing past policies and practices,” Raines said.
Raines said that the lack of shared governance can be attributed to KSU’s recent loss of several college deans and faculty members.
Staff Senate President J. Michael Fellows said that the policy had been presented to the staff senate in a November meeting. University Spokeswoman Tammy DeMel also said that the shared governance bodies received a draft of the policy and discussion of the policy had been on the agenda for several meetings.
“Representatives from the Staff Senate, Student Government Association and Faculty Senate were all provided the draft policy in Sept. 2018 and were present for the meeting of the council where the compensation policy was discussed,” DeMel said.
DeMel also provided documentation showing the compensation policy on meeting agendas for the Staff Senate and Faculty Senate from late 2018.
Staff Senate Representative Jeannine Jones said that while the policy was presented in the meeting, there had been no opportunity to give feedback or review it in detail.
“Staff are deliberately being excluded from communications as well as any plans of implementation,” Jones said. “As far as I and many other staff [are] concerned, this issue has not been resolved and is most definitely not supported by staff.”
KSU’s Director of Policy Kevin Gwaltney said that the policy did not go through the normal process in a Nov. 28 email to Staff Senate Representative Tiffani Reardon.
“The president of a University System of Georgia institution has authority over that institution, which includes making policy without approval by shared-governance and administrative bodies, and the president may delegate that authority to others,” Gwaltney said.