Motivations.

So it's no big secret that I'm an employee of a large Pacific Northwest public university. Hell: most of my 3 devoted readers also work there. I don't write this and try and cloak my anonymity. Too much work! It's hard enough avoiding offending my mother (czeszcz matka!). But what I never talk about is office politics. But tonight I feel a need to talk about university politics.

So the U is selling off a big chunk of off-campus housing. Now whether or not that's a good decision is another issue that maybe I'll get to later. What's germane tonight kiddies is how that decision was made.

As part of my many collateral duties, I get to eat cookies, drink free coffee, and listen to people complain (I'll admit, I jump in too) that our administrators make decisions without enough input from faculty. This happens time and time again, and if I had a dollar for every time I hear someone quote the charter that says the faculty and president share in the governance of the university I wouldn't complain so much about my meager cost of living increase. When the whining gets particularly intense, the cookies and coffee are really the only reasons to be there.

I've noticed that as part of the fallout of the property sale, the tenants of the housing have repeatedly asked for help, but no one has stepped up and actually done much about it. I fully expected to go to the coffee klatch, er, senate meeting today to encounter at least symbolic motions of support. But I got no hint that such a move was in the works.

One specific thing the tenants have asked for is to be exempt from fees associated with an Open Records Law request. They made a pretty broad request for all the documentation leading to the decision to make the sale, but they had help writing it and I showed it to an expert and he said it was pretty well formed. He also reminded me that someone sued another one of our fine institutions of higher learning last year over excessively large records request fees and won. So sure, the request is broad, but it seems reasonable. What my good friend specifically didn't say was that it would be an easy or cheap request to fill. I would have told anyone that if they had asked.

The most recent message that was sent out by the tenants was a boilerplate note saying that the request had been received and that there was no way to tell how many records would be uncovered, if any, but that they'd be happy to provide an estimate. Oh, and the tenants would have to pay in advance.

So to make a long story a bit shorter, the coffee klatch voted to exempt this records request from any fees. I'm not entirely sure what exactly what my motivation was. I'd like to say that it's the least we can do for these students that are fighting what most likely is a losing battle. Maybe I was just tired of the whining: 'Whaaa, no one asks our opinion before decisions are made.'

One thing I thought of as I rode home: The constant bickering about process (or lack thereof) makes me doubt the decisionmakers. And I'm really far too busy to be second guessing the decisions of the people who, for all intents and purposes, are in charge. I've got my own job that they pretend to pay me for to do. So if it turns out that this really is a good decision, will I have more faith in the administration and put a little less stock in the faculty? They do have a lot of valid points: the main one being that we're a public university and should therefore be at least somewhat transparent.

Or perhaps I'm secretly hoping that there is something there that's being covered up? (If that's the case, I really doubt they'd actually release incriminating evidence.)

Or maybe I just really like Robert's Rules.

Whatever the motivations for my actions today, the decision-making process deserves to see the light of day in this case. It should have been made in the open to start with. Hopefully we'll all see that this is really for the best and the university will be better off in the long run.