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Report of the Ombudsman A Two-Year Report by Walter D. Wales, University Ombudsman, 1999-2001 This report is both an informal account of my impressions during my two-year term as Ombudsman and a formal record of the cases that have come through the Office of the Ombudsman during that term. This account must be prefaced with a statement of my own gratitude to my colleague Gulbun O'Connor. Dr. O'Connor, with her long experience as Associate Ombudsman, has provided essential continuity within the Office. Her insight into the operations of the University and her sound judgement not only made my work much easier, but have been the key elements in the successful operation of the Office. At the outset it must be noted that the Office of the Ombudsman has a purely reactive role at the University. The Office neither sets nor enforces policies. Individuals who feel that they have been--or are going to be--treated improperly seek out the services of the Office. The Office attempts to find redress for those complaints if--and only if--the individual allows the Office to contact those against whom the compliant is made. The Office has no formal authority, but relies primarily on the goodwill of the individuals with whom it interacts. The Office serves in many ways as a "court of last resort"--at least within the University--for individuals whose problems have not been satisfactorily addressed by other offices of the University. The University is, on balance, a community in which most units work effectively and in which most of the members of that community are relatively productive and satisfied. However, it is probably inevitable, given the function of the Ombudsman's Office, that the picture of the University that is presented to us is frequently an unflattering one. We focus on the frayed edges of the fabric of the University, where individual units do not always function well and where individuals are often neither productive nor satisfied. Worse yet, too often problems reach us at a stage when an impasse has already been reached, and our efforts to find mutually-satisfactory resolutions to those problems are not successful. Conflicts between supervisor and employee were more numerous than I had anticipated. Although in some cases the employee and the job were simply mismatched, in many cases the supervisors appeared to lack the ability to help a less-than-perfect employee become an effective contributor and sought instead to solve the difficulty by replacing the employee. In too many of such cases the supervisors appeared to lack the ability to lead and depended instead on their authority to command. It is possible that in some cases the "Peter Principle" had resulted in very able employees being given managerial responsibilities for which they lacked both aptitude and training. Among the most distressing conflicts which come to the Office are those that occur between a graduate student and that graduate student's mentor. Most graduate student-mentor relationships are very close and productive--indeed, I suspect that most of our graduate alumni recall those relationships as among the most stimulating and productive relationships in their lives. It is therefore particularly distressing to see the few cases where breakdowns occur--even more so because those breakdowns can seldom be repaired. Unfortunately, I did not discern any pattern that would be helpful in either predicting or preventing future breakdowns. The sample of cases that come to the Office of the Ombudsman seems relatively small considering the overall size of the University. Since the sample is also very biased toward dysfunctional relationships it probably represents a few freckles on an otherwise healthy system rather than a festering blotch heralding melanoma. I did get a sense that many parts of the University are moving closer to a corporate style of management. If this is indeed the case it may make the operation of the University more efficient. However, it may also cost the University part of the reputation that has made it one of the most desired employers in the region. Since the Office was not always able to find satisfactory solutions to the problems that were brought there, it would have been easy to become discouraged--and indeed I did so quite regularly. One of the aspects of the work that made it much more gratifying than it might have been, however, was the positive attitudes of everyone--both complainants and those complained of--with whom we worked. They treated us with unfailing courtesy and they gave the Office consistent respect. I am grateful to all of them for helping the Office provide the service the University expects. The data in the table (below) represent three different periods of time. The first column at the left is included to provide a baseline for comparison. The figures in this column are annual averages over the three-year period from 1992 to 1995. The figures for those individual years were reported--with some minor differences in categorization--in the fall of 1995. The next columns--1995-96 through 1998-99--are data from past years that have not previously been reported. The final two columns are data for the two years of my term as Ombudsman. The records in all cases reflect cases initiated between September 1 and August 31 of the specified time interval. The most striking feature of the overall table is the pronounced drop in the number of cases from the 1992-1995 average to 1997-98. This drop occurs across all categories, but is most striking for graduate students. While there has been a small increase since then the recent totals remain less than two-thirds the 1992-95 averages. There is no obvious explanation for the decrease. On the supply side one might speculate that the University's personnel practices underwent a remarkable transformation during the period. On the demand side one might speculate that the availability of the services of the Ombudsman's Office has not been widely recognized by changing populations such as graduate students. I know of no reason to believe that either of these speculations has any basis in reality, nor do I have any other explanation for the decrease. I leave it as a mystery to be solved by agents more perceptive and energetic than I am. November, 2001
Almanac, Vol. 48, No. 14, December 4, 2001 |
ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS: Tuesday,
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