The purpose of this document is to present to the members of the Board a faculty perspective on recent events at Edison State College. For this reason this open letter has been circulated, edited, and voted upon. In its current form it has been approved by a majority of the members of the District Faculty Senate of Edison State College. In the list below there are several issues of deep concern pertaining to Dr. Kenneth P. Walker’s actions or lack of action. What follows the list is a more detailed account of those same issues and why we have concluded that Dr. Kenneth P. Walker should be removed from office immediately, an Interim District President be named, and a search committee be formed to bring new leadership to the College.

• Insufficient progress on Dr. Walker’s self-created “Six Point Plan”
• Poor transparency and disclosure of information integral to the institution
• High rates of administrative attrition and organizational restructuring
• Appointments, promotions, and raises for individuals (often with a lack of appropriate credentials) without proper search committees or justifications
• Over-consolidation of several job titles and duties into singular administrative positions
• Under-funding and under-staffing of key areas of the college serving students
• Censure and silencing of District Faculty Senate’s collective voice and debate in general

President Kenneth P. Walker told Edison's faculty, staff, and other College stakeholders that he would take several actions (summarized in his “Six Point Plan”) to improve the College with regard to academic standards and processes, financial disclosure, administrative transparency, and shared governance.  The “Six Point Plan” was a promise to the Board and other College stakeholders that he would open up the governance of the college and that he would seek diverse viewpoints. Unfortunately, few meaningful changes have been implemented with no attempt to explain the lack of progress.

Recently the President claimed that the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate agreed to postpone progress on the six points until after SACS visit on November 7-10, 2011. However, this was not the case. The Executive Committee of the Senate agreed to postpone only the Independent Third Party Review until after the visit from SACS. Furthermore, this was done at Dr. Walker’s request. Our agreement was a good faith effort on the part of the Faculty Senate to establish a more cooperative working relationship with the President. However, Dr. Walker's consistent failure to take the actions required to win back the respect of the community, combined with the unfortunate appearance of retaliatory actions, has brought the College to a point where institution-wide distrust is the norm.

Dr. Walker’s attempt at postponement on the “Six Point Plan” begs the question: What good could come from delaying progress toward transparency and shared governance?   Requests for information from the Faculty Senate, going back to those regarding the President’s own compensation, have been repeatedly denied. Key documents regarding the status of the College has been under-circulated despite the President’s commitments to the contrary. For example, when the AACRAO report was first received it was not made readily available to the public. Only formal requests from Senate officers allowed that report to be circulated. Furthermore, serious questions have been raised about Dr. Walker’s possible role in controlling the flow of such information. There needs to be a public discussion about whether or not Dr. Walker offered the AACRAO investigator a consulting job, and asked her to remove any reference to a “culture of fear” from her final report. In the name of “transparency and full-disclosure” (Walker, point 1) this needs to be clarified. Furthermore, it should be explained why Dr. Walker did not follow the personnel changes recommended in the final AACRAO report despite the fact that they were deemed appropriate by the well-credentialed and well-respected former Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Steve Atkins.

This appears to be yet another instance of a pattern of publically emphasizing the good news and carefully avoiding open debate about questionable decisions and institutional weaknesses. Dr. Walker’s control of the agenda for debate, especially prominent in Board of Trustees meetings, has contributed to the deterioration of the administrative function of the College. At the October 25^th meeting of the Trustees, Board member Chris Vernon made a compelling case that this control crossed a line to the withholding of information that inhibited the effective function of the Board. Further evidence of this deterioration is the consistent and frequent turn-over within the administration, leaving the organization with only a handful of leaders, some of whom appear to lack the appropriate levels of experience for the jobs to which Dr. Walker appointed them. More than once, a single person has been appointed to administer three functional areas that normally would have three experienced administrators. The lack of a coherent and stable organizational structure that should contain the appropriate numbers and kinds of effective administrators (as cited by more than one external audit) has made it increasingly difficult for the faculty and staff to execute their duties. With the four most recent departures during October of 2011, the incoherence and instability have reached crisis proportions.

Issues of instability are exacerbated by what seems like a torrent of misinformation and the President’s double-standard in dealing with his staff. In April, Dr. Walker had a report prepared on the course substitution issue by Dr. Edith Pendleton, whom he had appointed as Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs when Dr. Atkins resigned in March of 2011. Dr. Pendleton’s report, presented to the board in April, essentially claimed that her thorough analysis of the course substitutions showed that there were no serious problems for the College. Four months later in the August Board meeting, President Walker proposed a third-year $177,000 contract extension for Dr. Pendleton. He attempted to justify his proposal by stating that her work had been nothing but exemplary.

Thereafter, the Board also received the AACRAO report which indicated that the substitutions were indeed egregious and required significant organizational and staffing solutions. To add to the irony, President Walker has recommended that Dr. Robert Beeson be terminated in large part for recommending that Ms. Denette Foy, central in the course swapping scandal, have her contract be renewed in March of 2011. Yet, Dr. Beeson’s written evaluation of Ms. Foy explicitly references her problematic decisions and the college’s General Counsel, Mr. Mark Lupe, is said to have told a Florida Senate subcommittee that Ms. Foy was renewed while the investigation into the situation was ongoing. Meanwhile, in March of 2011 Dr. Beeson was allegedly told in no uncertain terms by President Walker’s self-appointed Vice President, Dr. James Browder that Ms. Foy should remain. To further confuse matters, Ms. Foy’s immediate supervisor during most of the period of illicit course substitutions, Mr. William Roshon, was brought back to Edison to work as a Dean at the Hendry/Glades Center in August of 2011, even after being on administrative leave for his role in the matter. The situation is quite complex, but it might be reasonably summarized as follows: the primary culprit, Ms. Foy, was allowed to resign; the immediate supervisor, Mr. Roshon, was brought back initially then allowed to retire; Dr. Beeson, who pointed to the problem explicitly despite being pressured to the contrary is up for termination; and the person who said there wasn’t a problem, Dr. Pendleton, was offered a lucrative third contract extension.

In the name of “full disclosure,” the senate requests that Dr. Walker attempt to explain these inconsistencies in an open debate allowing for alternative viewpoints. This is important if only to avoid the appearance of retaliation, double-standards, and misinformation. However, President Walker’s unwillingness to do so is another clear indication of his ongoing efforts to block appropriate transparency and solutions to problems in favor of hiding them and eliminating contrary views. Furthermore, we have seen no steps to form a search committee to recruit an experienced and professional registrar as recommended in the AACRAO report. It seems the President will again attempt to stonewall any changes even after problems have finally been identified by a qualified outside organization.

In fact, this seems to point toward another way in which the President has controlled the agenda and debate at the College to the detriment of its function. Over the years, it seems that the Dr. Walker has been reluctant to bring in qualified administrators from outside the College.  There were no searches made for Dr. Browder's position, not when he was hired, nor when he was promoted.  Full searches were not conducted for the two most recent appointments at the Hendry/Glades center, or for the President of Collier, or for senior administration on the Lee Campus. The current Senior Vice President for Operations was appointed, as was the current Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs. We searched for a year for a new Lee Campus President after losing both Dr. Thomas and Dr. Jones from that position, and when one was finally hired from the outside he was demoted within months of his arrival. A list of appointments, promotions, and raises that are questionable could go on. In fact, at the November 4^th Board meeting, the original agenda proposed promotions and substantial raises for two more current staff, Ms. Doeble and Mr. Lupe, without any apparent justification. However, those Personnel Actions were conspicuously removed, along with the action to terminate Dr. Beeson when Board members seen as most loyal to Dr. Walker were finally replaced two days before the meeting. Perhaps all these agenda items will be revisited by the new Board at an upcoming meeting. If so, at least we will then be able to understand the imagined justification with some tougher questions being asked than have been historically.

Let it be clear that nothing written here is meant to personally disparage the people who have been appointed by Dr. Walker. With the obvious exception of Dr. Browder, many are long-standing, valuable employees who have made significant contributions to the College.  However, when one looks at the pattern and scrutinizes the qualifications, reasonable concerns can be raised about important hires, raises, and promotions at the heart of the institution, especially within the last tumultuous year. To say the least, President Walker has not guarded the College’s reputation effectively against suspicions of impropriety, retaliation, discrimination, or conflict of interest. That Dr. Walker hired the law firm which does the majority of the College’s business to investigate the recent discrimination allegations raised by Dr. Atkins and Dr. Beeson (one fired and one up to be fired) is another example of failing to guard the College’s reputation.

One might sincerely inquire if we are hiring the most qualified people or those known to be the least critical of Dr. Walker. Whichever is the case, the failure to name several of the appointees as "interim,” and to announce the formation of search committees reflects a troubling tendency to avoid open and transparent searches.  The College must be able to assure all stakeholders that our administrators are experienced, and represent the best available talent at a reasonable compensation.

Unfortunately, rather than progress since the District Faculty Senate’s Vote of No Confidence in Dr. Walker last April, we have experienced new depths of disappointment. At the September Board of Trustees meeting Board members raised reasonable questions about the appropriate level of funding for physical plant maintenance. Board member Chris Vernon made a very persuasive case that the $2 million amount proposed as discretionary funding for Dr. Walker was at least double a very conservative estimate of what was necessary. However, although the position had clear merit, former Board Chair Mary Lee Mann simply closed the debate. Ironically, when discussing the very next agenda item, former Board member Mahlon Houghton asserted the need to exert greater fiduciary oversight as cause for questioning budget amounts in the hundreds of dollars for curriculum development by faculty. This was not even the first time since the faculty started asking questions of the administration last spring that such an unfortunate appearance of retaliation has occurred.

The real tragedy is that while overinflated compensations and unnecessary discretionary funds are approved, critical student service functions such as the Registrar’s Office, Advising, the Libraries, and College Prep, have been critically underfunded. This seriously impacts and jeopardizes the success of our students. In fact, it would seem that Student Services has been severely underfunded for years, and even several hundred thousand taken from the President’s as yet unexplained compensation package would significantly transform the struggling department and improve student success, especially that of our open-enrollment students.  According to a State Report, until very recently Edison ranked near the bottom, 28^th out of 29 colleges, in the level of support for Student Services with a 1:1000 advisor-to-student ratio. Over the years the President’s focus on funding his vision for the rapid growth of an Edison Educational System, while bringing much to the College, has basically starved key areas of adequate resources and personnel. Today many of the problems we find the College dealing with seem to be a legacy of years of such neglect. Even our beautiful new Rush Library on the Lee Campus is in need of more space and faculty to deal with the explosion in student population. Yet, few could explain why a public display of art linked to Dr. Walker’s own family is of greater importance than the Library’s expansion.

The President has spoken of his intentions to deal with the faculty and staff in good faith; however, his actions say otherwise.  The Senate’s efforts have been met with hostility and censorship, culminating in his refusal to allow the Faculty Senate President the right to speak during the standing Senate Report period of October's Board of Trustees meeting.  As can be documented, the Senate President dealt with an increasingly complex set of bureaucratic hurdles to continue the Senate’s standing report since the report was created by the Board in the spring of 2011. By October Faculty Senate relations with Dr. Walker reached a new low when the President used an uncharitable interpretation of the College Operating Procedures and his control of the agenda to block Senate representation from asking questions about the “Six Point Plan.” The impression this creates is that rather than listening to faculty concerns, Dr. Walker has chosen the path of silencing contrary and opposing views. This unfortunately results in a reinforcement of the perception of a culture of fear that has been fostered under Dr. Walker’s reign.

Instead of full disclosure, it now seems that the President has gone out of his way to inhibit faculty access to information and limit our opportunity to have input into the shared governance of the College. Without a commitment to a more open and transparent debate involving multiple perspectives, the President would seem likely to continue making poor decisions, like the recent one resulting in the loss of nearly the entire SACS reaccreditation team just a few weeks before our site visit and hours after a SACS representative met with them. Sadly, until the recent changes to the Board of Trustees it seemed obvious that our faculty input on these matters could only be brought forth in the form of an open letter. However, in light of the recent changes to the Board there is a new sense of optimism. We now present this letter with a renewed hope that different perspectives will be thoroughly considered as we unravel our recent turmoil.

Over the last five decades hundreds of faculty and staff have dedicated their lives to building Edison State College into a great educational institution. This has not been the work of any single individual. Last March, the District Faculty Senate decided not to stand by and watch all these years of work compromised by an increasingly isolated and intransigent leadership. This is why we took collective action. It has been difficult and exhausting. We do not always agree on how to proceed and we do not all see everything that has transpired at Edison over the last year in exactly the same way. However, this letter attempts to convey a general consensus about some of the major and most telling events. To this day, all the members of the faculty remain committed to the shared governance of this College, to its positive contribution to the larger community, and to the education of its students.

Fortunately, it appears a new day is dawning for Edison as our new Board members have arrived to bolster some of the best of the old Board of Trustees. It would seem that a new era of genuine integrity, transparency, and accountability has arrived. However, the faculty remains convinced that the way forward is not under the current President. We reiterate our recommendation for the immediate removal of President Kenneth P. Walker, the appointment of an Interim President, and the initiation of a search for new leadership at Edison State College.