Gaylord College has hired an external consultant to assess its workplace climate and conflict ahead of the arrival of a new dean, per an email sent to faculty and staff on Wednesday afternoon from Interim Dean David Craig.
The email, sent to OU Daily from an anonymous source, read Craig invited Moira Kelly, president of Kelly Consulting LLC and self-described “Dispute Doctor,” to survey Gaylord College’s workplace, including power imbalances, conflict, morale, climate perceptions and relationships.
“I hope the insights gained from this process will help us all in reflecting on how to further strengthen the Gaylord family and lay a stronger foundation for the arrival of the new dean,” Craig wrote in the email.
Kelly Consulting LLC is a client-consulting organization concentrated on training on dispute resolution, labor relations and effectiveness. Kelly, according to her resume, has experience as a mediator resolving “hundreds” of disputes concerning discrimination, civil court subjects and general workplace issues. Her resume read that she has worked with private and public-sector organizations.
Kelly will visit Gaylord College after spring break to conduct voluntary interviews with faculty and staff.
Craig’s email recounts how he told faculty and staff at Gaylord College’s faculty retreat and first staff meetings that one of his priorities as interim dean was to “strengthen the Gaylord family,” looking to strengthen the climate of the college as part of the expectation for its accreditation and upcoming OU Academic Program Review.
“But more than that, building a welcoming community of belonging for everyone is the right thing to do,” wrote Craig, who has been at OU since 1996 and specializes his research in journalism ethics, coverage of ethics in professions and values for ethical decision making.
Craig told OU Daily Thursday that the review and in preparation for accreditation, degree-granting institutions have to take inventory of its workplace and climate. Craig said he wanted to make Gaylord College a better place.
“This idea of strengthening the Gaylord family, that's something we really value a lot in the college,” Craig said, while declining to be more specific about what prompted the need to commission a consultant. “I wanted to do this because it gives us a chance to make sure everybody, if everybody in the college chooses to participate, that our full-time faculty and staff, they'd have a chance to air their perspectives. Because I want to make sure that everybody does feel like they're heard.”
OU Daily on Thursday requested Kelly’s contract through the university’s open records office, which often has a delayed response time. A Daily reporter additionally asked Craig if he would supply the contract, and he declined.
Craig said he chose Kelly after learning of her work from another university employee and because she has a background in journalism.
“She's got a lot of experience interacting with people about all sorts of workplace environment issues,” Craig said. “And she's got some familiarity with academia, but she understands business practices, and she's got a really great interview protocol.”
In a video posted to the Wisconsin Special Education Mediation System, Kelly explained her work as a mediator.
“What I’m gonna be able to help you do is to creatively solve the problem so that it stays fixed. No one wants to come back into mediation,” Kelly said.
Former Dean Ed Kelley retired at the end of June, citing a need for younger leadership. Kelley also told OU Daily in May that while Gaylord College is a family, it is dysfunctional.
“We all know that families can be dysfunctional. First, admit there are times that we're probably dysfunctional here at Gaylord as well,” Kelley said in May. “I do think that it's really important for everyone at OU, not just here at Gaylord, but everyone at OU, to students, to help them get through here. I think we do a pretty good job of that.”
Gaylord College’s dysfunction publicly reared its head in February 2020 when former professor Peter Gade used a racial slur in his journalism capstone class. Gade stepped down from teaching the class a few days later. In 2022, Imran Hasnat, a Gaylord College assistant professor, was charged and later convicted of making lewd proposals to a child under 16.
Between fall 2022 and fall 2023, Gaylord College has lost four faculty members for various reasons, such as retirement, job changes or other matters.
“I think we have a good work environment, but we can make it better,” Craig said. “And that's what I want to do. That's the bottom line.”
The Academic Program Review, which began in 1986, is an institutional self-study for OU’s degree-granting units and is mandated by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Gaylord College’s review will take place in 2024-25, possibly under the new dean.
André-Denis Wright, senior vice president and provost, told OU Daily in September that he expected potential candidates to visit campus in the spring and a dean to be named before the next academic year begins.
The OU Board of Regents approved a search committee for the new dean in September. OU announced qualifications and recommendations for the new dean a month later amid questions about the composition of the search committee and the debate of an academic dean versus one with professional journalism experience.
In September, Wright met with Gaylord College faculty and staff. An OU Daily reporter attempted to attend the meeting but was turned away by the provost.
Wright told OU Daily after the meeting that faculty and staff frustration stems from lack of experience in dean searches.
“I think the concern that comes through is that they've never done a search before,” Wright said. “So while this is normal and we do searches for deans and for chairs and for faculty across the campus, this is not what they've been privy to. My role here was to explain to them the process and how that works and to remind them that the search committee is not the decision making body.”
OU currently has five of its 15 Norman dean positions filled by interim leaders, with a sixth opening at the end of this academic year with the departure of College of Law Dean Katheleen Guzman.
Wright announced in February that OU’s Board of Regents will consider reorganizing its University College, which oversees the first-year experience and is currently led by Acting Dean Ken Petersen. The reorganization would remove its status as a college and place it within the provost’s office as a new Academic Success Center. University College hasn’t had an official dean since 2022.
As of fall 2023, Gaylord College had 66 members of faculty and 108 staff members, according to data available through OU’s Institutional Research and Reporting website, which subsequently breaks it down by gender, male or female, and minority/IPEDS race.
Of the faculty, 15 are minorities and 30 are female. Of the staff, 30 are minorities and 65 are female.
For the 17 tenured faculty, six are minorities and eight are female. There are six faculty members on a tenure track, with them evenly split by gender and minorities. For the 11 faculty members on a renewable term, four are minorities and five are female. For the 32 faculty who are not tenure eligible, two are minorities and 14 are female.
Wright said the search committee goes through the applications and makes recommendations on who the university should bring to campus and consider more closely, but does not make the final say on who will be the college’s next dean.
Wright said once finalists have been picked, they will be invited and visit campus and all facets of the campus and college: faculty, staff, students, Gaylord College’s Board of Visitors, Harroz and the provost’s office. Wright said he and Harroz will discuss comments, recommendations and concerns to make their final decision, which is ultimately forwarded to the OU Board of Regents.
Wright said the search will have a decent level of confidentiality, meaning that the nominations and the candidates who applied will not be made public. Wright said the finalists will be made public, and he hopes these finalists will be announced sometime in the spring.
No announcements about possible dean candidates have been made as of Thursday. OU’s College of Law and Honors College also have active dean searches underway with no possible candidate announcements made as of Thursday.
Craig said Kelly is juggling other duties, and so no specific dates for her visit have been set, but he said he hopes her interviews and recommendations will be completed by the end of the academic year.
“This is really a great opportunity to get a very broad range of perspectives from people on things that we think are important,” Craig said.
This story was edited by Peggy Dodd and Anusha Fathepure.
