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An Argonaut survey found that faculty morale at the University of Idaho is a 5.16 out of 10. When you think about it, that’s not a number students should want to see.
Faculty morale is important to students because their performance directly effects what they get out of the college experience. It is beneficial to have faculty that is happy, well paid, and maybe more importantly, well respected by the UI administration.
If faculty morale is this low, administrators need to listen up and take faculty concerns seriously.
There are people working toward fixing “climate issues” at the university. On Monday and Tuesday there will be a university-wide seminar called “Being Heard: A Prelude to Action.” This certainly is the first step. Actually listening to faculty issues and concerns could be the start to some very productive work, but really listening then acting will be key.
The UI administration does have a responsibility to listen to the faculty, but this whole communication thing is a two-way street. Faculty members have to voice their opinions while still being willing to work together to fix things.
To many faculty members the Yardley report, which said among other things that faculty has a mistaken sense of national prominence, was hurtful.
This is true. Some of the information in the report was very critical and could be harmful to faculty morale. But sometimes it takes a harsh wakeup call to make people think. The report may have been overly critical which hurt some feelings and damaged some egos, but it may end up as a vehicle for change.
Faculty expressed concerns after reading the report and hopefully the UI administration listened.
It may be that things have to get bad before things change, but things must change. Morale among faculty should not be this low and if something is not done, it will affect everyone at UI.
—RH
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