Editors note: This story contains comments from an anonymous source who feared retaliation for speaking out. Her identity is known to The Daily.
Questions linger among some OU staff members about their place at the university under a new administration, especially after a presidential forum this month stirred more concern.
Extra seating had to be set up on stage in Meacham Auditorium Sept. 20 when OU President James Gallogly addressed the crowd of staff before him.
“There’s a reason that this is a standing room only meeting, because so many of you are wondering what is going on at our university and what does it mean to you personally,” Gallogly said at the beginning of his speech that day. “That’s the question you would really like to ask, and that’s the question that we don’t have the answer for at this moment in time.”
OU staff were the last of three constituencies Gallogly addressed in the forum setting, faculty being first and students next. The president reiterated many of the priorities he had previously stated to the first two groups: finding and fixing campus-wide inefficiencies in order to hold tuition flat, giving faculty raises and doubling research — promises that rang true for the previous two audiences but elicited more anxiety than satisfaction from the third.
“I think what the staff were really hoping for — certainly what I was hoping for — was reassurance that we matter and that our contributions are valuable,” said a Jane Doe staff member who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear for her job. “But I think what we heard is, ‘You’re here to support the faculty and to support the students, and the faculty are more important.’”
Justin Daniels, OU fire marshal and chairman of the staff senate, said that while staff feeling underappreciated and less valuable than faculty is nothing new, he wants to advance a message of positivity instead. In a speech just before Gallogly’s address, he called staff “the glue that holds everything together.”
“Without staff, there would be no one to advise our students and keep them on a path to graduation. Without staff, there would be no one to clean and maintain our buildings and ensure classrooms are prepared for learning. Without staff, there would be no one to ensure the safety and security of our campus community,” Daniels said at the forum. “Staff are loyal, dedicated and committed to the university and its mission.”
While faculty members generally hold a doctorate and teach in the classroom, staff serve a variety of other roles such as administrators, secretaries, advisers, landscapers, custodians and more. In 2017, there were just fewer than 4,000 full-time staff on the Norman campus, according to the OU Fact Book.
Gallogly fired six senior administrative staff members, including the vice president for administration and finance and senior associate vice president for public affairs, on his first day in office, an action he referenced in his speech while talking about difficult choices ahead.
“We have some really hard work to do, and frankly, I am not looking forward to that — I am not. You see the emotion that I have around that subject — I do not look forward to that one second,” Gallogly said. “But I am not one to ever shy away from hard decisions because we have to make those, because the mission is so important ... We started on July 2 looking inside Evans Hall and taking some very tough actions there — because if we don’t set an example, how can we ask anyone else to do it?”
Doe said job security is an underlying concern for staff members that few like to discuss because “it becomes a little more real.”
“I think in general, the lower on the totem pole you are, the less secure you feel,” she said. “That's not necessarily reflective of what we’ve seen so far — so many of the public firings were the ones at the top — but I think just in general, when you have less responsibility, less authority, less financial security, you feel more threatened and it's easier to feel threatened.”
Daniels said he is unaware of any layoffs that have occurred from cuts to areas deemed inefficient.
Daniels, who just stepped into his role as chairman this fall, said after meeting with Gallogly individually, he has established three goals for OU’s staff: increasing diversity and inclusion, striving to be good stewards of university resources by improving inefficient processes and being leaders at OU.
Daniels said he and other executive members of the Staff Senate have arranged to meet with the Faculty Senate, student government and staff leaders on the Health Science and Tulsa campuses to increase communication and a spirit of working together.
“We’re communicating and we’re working and we're talking,” Daniels said. “It’s only been a few short months. I think a lot of people want lots of answers and lots of things, and President Gallogly has only been on the job since July 1, and I’ve only been doing this for 30 days ... What I’m trying to express to our staff is that message that we’re still talking and there’s still a lot of things to work out — but we’re going to get there, and we’re going to get there together.”
Staff members have brought questions about raises, benefits and job security to Daniels, who said he thinks change and uncertainty is a given under any new leadership.
“(Staff) want to know, ‘Well why does he always talk about faculty and ... why has he said that faculty are going to get raises, but he hasn’t said anything about staff getting raises?’” Daniels said. “I don't know the answer to that question — you’d have to ask President Gallogly himself. But I do know that we have a dialogue with him. We’re communicating with him, and we’re expressing how important the staff are to the mission of the university, and that’s all we can do really.”
At the forum, Gallogly said he is opting to give raises to faculty, not staff, because “what goes on in the classroom is what makes us a great university,” though he thanked staff for what they do and for their patience and forbearance.
“Our staff wages need a little work here and there, too, don’t they?” Gallogly said. “And we’re going to be working on that too. I only have so much money at each point in time. I recognize that, I have not forgotten it — I’m trying to show you that I understand the importance of paying a fair wage, paying market value, because ultimately there are other opportunities for great people ... I understand those issues, and I want to solve those with you, but I have to take it a step at a time. Have to make sure everything's affordable.”
Doe said while some of the changes being made are necessary, there is an atmosphere of negativity and general frustration in her department regarding the forum and Gallogly’s initiatives.
“We really felt like he was talking down to us,” Doe said. “We know that the university’s in financial trouble — it doesn't take a genius. You don’t even have to be paying that much attention to be aware of it. You feel helpless and powerless when you feel like you're being talked down to and when that kind of attitude comes across. And I’m not saying that's necessarily what the president actually thinks or feels, but this is how it's being perceived.”
Doe, who said she works directly with students from colleges and majors across campus, believes staff have specific skills different than those of faculty that should be respected.
“There are things that I do that they can’t do, and just because they have an extra degree doesn’t make them more worthy than us,” Doe said. “All staff should be respected — whether they're senior administrators or they’re groundskeepers, student advisors — everybody has a distinct role to fill, and everyone is a human being and should be afforded dignity.”
Doe said she was previously uninvolved in the Staff Senate but has reached out about serving on one of the council groups starting this month.
“I feel it's important for somebody to be there to be hearing what’s going on and be able to keep our college informed, so hopefully that will help to curtail some of the hearsay and some of the speculation,” Doe said. “If people are generally unhappy, I get that, but nothing’s going to change if you just complain and don’t do anything.”
