The University of Akron Faculty Senate will take a no-confidence vote in the administration of University of Akron President Scott Scarborough on Thursday.
The move is to express the group’s dissatisfaction with many of the changes Scarborough has made since he took over as president in 2014.
A meeting is scheduled with the senate at 3 p.m.
Consideration of a no-confidence vote was made in November by Daniel Coffey, an associate political science professor, who told the Beacon Journal that he made the proposal to look into the matter because of “widespread dissatisfaction with everything from the budget to the lack of faculty hiring to spending on athletics.”
Coffey made a motion for an ad hoc committee to work on a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in the president. It passed overwhelmingly. Seven members were selected for the committee. They proceeded to meet and drafted a resolution listing the reasons they feel the university has been negatively impacted under Scarborough’s leadership.
Faculty Senate President Bill Rich said a no-confidence vote is rare.
“I’ve been in the Senate a long time and I don’t know of any other time that this has occurred during my time,” said Rich, who has been with the university 34 years and on the Faculty Senate for about 20 years.
Some of the concerns include a 30 percent decline in enrollment, lack of transparency by the president, the rebranding of the university as a polytechnic institution with minimal input from faculty or students, hiring significant numbers of non-tenure track faculty, outsourcing fundamental university responsibilities to outside, for-profit, and out-of state vendors and a 42 percent decline in donations.
A mass email with the proposed resolution was sent to faculty members for their review. The e-mail advised them to contact their Senate representative if they wanted to express their views on the resolution. It included a list of the representatives. There are about 60 members of the Faculty Senate.
Only members of the Senate get to vote.
Although the meeting is open it is unclear whether the vote will be open. The members may decide to hold a secret ballot.
The resolution will then be given to the board of trustees.
“The board governs its own agenda for its meetings. I don’t know if they will put this on their agenda or what,” Rich said. “A copy will be presented to the chairman of the board of trustees, then it’s up to them on how they want to respond to it.”
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.