Even though O'Neal Smitherman, provost search committee chairman, announced at University Senate that the Ball State University community would be permitted to review the provost candidate evaluations, university officials barred student media representatives from reviewing the documents.
When the evaluations were made available in the president's office Wednesday, anyone who wished to see the forms was required to sign a form stating, "I agree to review the Provost evaluations for my personal information only. I understand that permission from personnel completing the forms was not obtained for public distribution, and I agree not to distribute this information publicly."
"The evaluations were made available for review in response to interest expressed by faculty, and this is an unusual arrangement ... it's not typical in the search process for it to be done this way," Heather Shupp, executive director of University Communications, said.
Ralph Baker, president of Ball State's American Association of University Professors, told members of the AAUP that the form was basically a gag order.
"If you do go into the AD building to look at those ... you have to sign a form saying that you will not share what you learn from those," he said. "So one cannot use those in any way to say, 'Well, I believe this is a good decision or a bad decision,' because even though you have that information, you have a gag order placed on you. And that raises some obvious first amendment questions."
Joe Losco, vice president of the AAUP said when he heard about the requirement, he called the AAUP lawyer who told him not to sign the form.
"Our AAUP attorney told us that if they had decided at the outset to make those forms available to only the committee that it might have been okay, but in fact, they have volunteered to make them publicly available," Losco said. "Once they've done that, they have no right or legal rationale to force people to sign a document that says they can't talk about it."
Shupp said there is a misunderstanding that the evaluations have been made public. She said that is not true because they are simply being shared with a large group of people - the university community.
"The purpose of the form is really to try to make a distinction to people that the intent is for their own review," Shupp said. "Certainly people are at liberty to discuss their views and what they've seen and talk about it. Discussion is part of the process."
She said because people who filled out the evaluations were not told in advance that the forms would be made available for review, the university needed to put limitations on how the evaluations could be replicated.
"I think that what was intended to be indicated is that the documents shouldn't be copied even by hand - that they shouldn't be distributed or published," she said. "There was never an intention to inhibit discussion."
However, discussion was inhibited because the AAUP members were advised not to sign the form, and therefore, did not have access to the evaluation information.
"Bad process begets bad process and bad subsequent decisions," Baker said. "We have to realize that under our system the president makes this choice but should be open to advice."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
