Labor Day 2012: Is OBU a Good Place to Work?

We've already discussed at length the many problems OBU faculty have faced as a result of the new regime.  And we continue to provide context and comparative information about OBU's generally declining performance in the various college ranking publications.

OBU is rightly proud of its performance in the U.S. News rankings, which continually point to OBU as one of the best regional baccalaureate colleges in the Western United States, not to mention a "best value" university.  And OBU had been doing quite well in the new Forbes rankings, which began in 2008, though we have slid badly under President Whitlock's tenure:

Instead of bringing attention to the continuing decline (from #299 to #390 in the past year, down from a high of #109 in 2009), OBU's P.R. shop wisely decided to sieze on being named a Princeton Review "Best of the West" college for the umpteenth year in a row.  What they don't say is that being on the "Best of the West" list is a lot more like a participation ribbon than a blue ribbon.  There are some pretty unimpressive schools on that list, and our inclusion doesn't really mean a thing.  Also unreported is the fact that students' "glaring" complaint was a "severe lack" of communication between administration and students:

Anyway, in honor of Labor Day, I'd like to point out a list that OBU didn't make but should aspire to.  The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released its 2012 list of "Best Colleges to Work For."  I don't really know whether OBU is a great place to work.  I suspect opinions vary.  But there's no reason OBU can't aspire to this kind of recognition.  A number of Christian colleges made the list (whether you measure Christian identity by confession, affiliation, or the almighty CCCU, the final arbiter of which institutions are "intentionally Christ-centered" (hint: the colleges that pay CCCU dues tend to make the cut in the CCCU's eyes).

The only Baptist-affiliated colleges to make the list were Baylor, Hardin-Simmons, and Howard Payne.  All three are affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas -- the state convention that SBC fundamentalists love to hate.  No other state convention-controlled Baptists schools were recognized.  In our neighborhood, both Oklahoma City University and the University of Central Oklahoma made the list, which was based on performance across 12 categories.

A brief look at some of the categories make it all too clear why OBU is nowhere near being recognized as a great college to work for: Collaborative Governance, Diversity, Confidence in Senior Leadership (hahahaha), Tenure Clarity and Process.  (Look for the tenure process to become Provost Norman's favorite way to weed out whatever moderates may have snuck through the hiring process.  It the debacle surrounding one professor's dismissal, the administration showed complete disregard for rules governing the tenure process.)

Now, this is not to say that I am suggesting OBU employees do not or should not love their jobs and the university very much.  It has been my experience and observation that they are the most devoted and faithful teachers I have ever seen.  But the university does not have the right to take them for granted.  It's not right for them to say, "Well, historically we always ask for faculty input and weigh it heavily in hiring decisions, but this time, we've already found our man so we're not going to bother" or "Well, these people are mostly moderate Baptists, but we're going to constantly make them listen to speeches and sermons by men who loathe moderate Baptists" or "These people have mortgages and their spouses have jobs in the community, so we know they're stuck here no matter how much we try to remake the institution in our own image," etc.

As we celebrate labor, let's make sure we're racing toward the top, not the bottom.

New Hires at OBU and Elsewhere

Happy new academic year!  You might have come expecting analysis of the Princeton Review report that noted a "glaring complaint" from students: "Lack of communication" from administration.  (Looks like students are unhappy with administrators' answers to questions like "Why are our favorite religion professors disappearing?")  You might also be expecting a continuation of our series on the 2012 Forbes rankings (in which OBU has declined from #109 to #390 during Rev. Dr. David Whitlock's tenure as president).  These posts will be coming soon.

Today we're looking at some items related to new faculty and the search/hire process at Baptist universities.

OBU Announces New Faculty

One of our initial concerns was widespread faculty anger that search committee recommendations based on achievement and promise for future success were being overruled by administrators who prefer to hire based on adherence to fundamentalist dogma.  We received encouraging news in April from sources who predicted that the English department would be able to fill its vacancies without undue pressure from administrators who would impose doctrinal/social/political litmus tests (link to MS Word document) in hiring, which past OBU job candidates faced.

Credit where credit is due: We have received no reports that any of these searches (three in languages, two in teacher education) were tainted by fundamentalist meddling.  Given the outsized impact OBU faculty have on their students, and especially considering the fact that the two English hires are replacing retiring legends, these new Humanities and Social Sciences colleagues have large shoes to fill.  We wish them the best.

Likewise, we were pleased to see three new hires in the Hurley College of Science and Mathematics.  As a person who studied religion, I'm particularly sensitive to the kinds of litmus tests new Bible, theology, and ministry faculty face with Mark McClellan as dean and Stan Norman as provost.  But let's not forget that science faculty could be the next targets.

There was an announcement about new faculty in nursing and fine arts as well.

In the coming weeks, we'll have more to say on the new Hobbs College hire and the process (or lack thereof) used to select him.

Shorter Begins Filling a Bazillion Vacancies

At Shorter University in Rome, GA (about which we've blogged here before), the situation could not be more different.  Shorter is filling dozens of vacancies due to the mass exodus of faculty this year in protest of the university's "lifestyle statement."  The devastation there is the work of Dr. Don Dowless, the puppet president installed to appease the increasingly fundamentalist Georgia Baptist Convention.  I'll let our friends at Save Our Shorter explain the new hires.  Short version: A lot of adjuncts and part-timers got promoted, at least one lesser fundamentalist college faculty got raided, and several handfuls of desperate and/or fundamentalist junior professors signed on.  The accrediting body will let the lifestyle statement slide.  But it might not smile on such an amateurish faculty.

Looking at Shorter and other Baptist schools helps us remember two sobering and related facts:

1. Things could get worse.
2. They probably will.

Yet as some Baptist schools begin their year with elaborate ceremonies where new faculty are forced to sign creedal statements, we can take comfort in the fact that OBU is still a place where students are free to learn and teachers are free to teach.  But we are mindful of the recent problems and the threat of future encroachments.

Best wishes to everyone on Bison Hill for a great 2012-13 academic year!