Seven Questions with Chancellor Jim Woodward
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for Chancellor Woodward. We spoke with him Monday about everything from tenure to athletics to transparency to e-mail. An edited transcript follows. We hope to announce our next “Seven Questions” subject soon.
1) You talk a lot about transparency. Can you explain what that means to you, why you think it’s important and what you plan to do to spread that mindset throughout the university?
It really goes in two directions. Let me talk internally, because that’s a lot easier to speak to. The campus community needs to understand [and] needs to have reasonably full information on how major decisions are made and, where appropriate, an opportunity to participate in those decisions. To some degree, I’m talking about faculty, but there are other organized groups on campus—students and staff—as well. Internally, transparency [means] that key decisions will result after there is appropriate consultation. Once decisions are made, they will be carefully explained. That’s not to say that you make, say, budget decisions based on a democracy. That’s not it. This is a hierarchy. But the faculty, staff and students need to understand, for example, how the budget decisions we’re now confronting are made and why and, when appropriate, have a say so in [them]. (more…)
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