UMass faculty take new dean to task

Yawu Miller

Shortly after Adenrele Awotona came on as dean of UMass Boston’s College of Public and Community Service, professor Dianne Dujon received via email notification that she would be serving on a committee to host the International Conference on Experiential Learning in the year 2010.

Dujon, who turns 60 this year, says she’s not sure she will still be at UMass Boston in 2010, but even if she is, the courtesy of an invitation would probably go over better with her.

“He never asked any of us whether we would like to serve on any committees,” Dujon says. “He didn’t even know who we were or what we were doing.”

Instead, Awotona emailed each of the college’s faculty members to notify them of their committee assignments. The move did not go over well with the faculty, which has for years operated on a flat, non-hierarchical organizational structure.

From there, relations between the dean and the faculty members went downhill.

Awotona insists he has made every effort to reach out to the faculty, but says the governance structure and constitution the professors at CPCS have operated under is not in keeping with UMass regulations.

“That constitution was problematic,” he said. “It was, in effect, saying that the college did not need a dean or a provost.”

Awotona took the constitution to the provost, Paul Fontaine, who passed it along to the chancellor, Michael Collins.

“Here I was, a brand new dean and faced with a constitution that was in dispute,” Awotona said.

Dujon, however, says the CPCS constitution that Awotona rejected was approved by the faculty council, provost and chancellor three years ago.

Collins, who was hired as UMass Chancellor last year, issued a memo declaring the CPCS constitution invalid because it failed to conform to the rules set for the college by the board of trustees.

By then, relations between Awotona and the CPCS faculty had reached a new low. In February, the 18 tenured faculty members took a vote of no confidence in Awotona. The measure was approved 18 to 0.

Several weeks later, faculty and staff at CPCS took a vote again on a no-confidence measure against Awotona. On this ballot — in which faculty and staff submitted blind ballots which were counted by faculty and staff from outside CPCS — the measure passed 45 to 0.

“It’s unprecedented that any dean at UMass Boston has had so much trouble with faculty, staff and students in so little time as Awotona has,” commented retired faculty member David Rubin. “Major conflicts were showing up early in his tenure.”

Dujon says Awotona’s edict-by-email approach to governance at CPCS has run counter to the college’s culture.

“We’re used to having a dean who is part of us,” she said. “We should be able to talk about things. We’ve always worked together. We’ve never before had a dean come in and act like a king.”

The College of Public and Community Service was established in 1973 as part of UMass Boston’s urban mission to serve Boston area residents who would not ordinarily be able to attend college. Students in CPCS are given credit for coursework as well as for life experience. The average age of students in the program is 35 years old.

Awotona says he is committed to upholding the college’s urban mission.

“I believe that CPCS is an asset to the city, to the state, to the country and to the whole world,” he said.

Awotona said he has met with various community leaders to discuss how CPCS can better work with the community. He is working on forming partnerships to work on research projects with Roxbury Community College.

CPCS faculty members, however, say UMass is moving away from its mission of providing education to students who would normally not be able to receive a college degree. They point to the college’s contract negotiations with former dean Ismael Ramirez Soto two years ago.

Soto stepped down as dean after the University offered him a short-term contract with no job security.

“The problem was, he was doing his job too well,” said CPCS professor Andrew Leong.

Soto, who filed a discrimination complaint against the university, would not comment for this story.

UMass Boston spokesman Ed Hayward says there’s no substance to the CPCS professors’ contention that the university is trying to close the college.

“People have said that before,” he said. “CPCS is still here. The provost and chancellor remain committed to a healthy CPCS.”

After the fight over the constitution and the two votes of no confidence, CPCS faculty members began to take their message to the community their college purports to serve. The faculty members have held a series of meetings at the offices of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative inviting community members to discuss the fate of their program.

Monday evening, the CPCS faculty will be holding a meeting at Roxbury Community College in an effort to reach a broader audience.

At stake is the very mission of CPCS, according to associate professor Carroy “Cuf” Ferguson.

“When it comes to the urban mission, who gets to define it?” he questioned during the meeting at DSNI.