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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
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HURRAY, UA
President-elect fails confidence vote by faculty senate By TOM MORAN, Staff Writer In an inconclusive Monday meeting, members of the University of Alaska Fairbanks resoundingly failed to lodge a vote of confidence in president-elect Michael Hannigan, who has caught flak for receiving his doctorate from an alleged "diploma mill" in the Caribbean. But no one on the senate proposed Hannigan's ouster. Senate President Abel Bult-Ito said he considered the results of the meeting a clear vote of no confidence in Hannigan, an associate professor of social work at the UAF Northwest campus in Nome. But he said whether that results in anything depends on what senate members choose to do at future meetings. "It really depends; it depends on how strongly people felt about it," he said. The controversy over Hannigan's degree from International University for Graduate Studies, located in the island nation of St. Kitts & Nevis, arose when he was quoted about it in June in a national weekly paper for academics. Hannigan told the paper he considered the university "light weight" and said he was "used to a bit more rigor in academic things," while the article questioned the university's apparent lack of faculty, five-day residency requirement for a degree and the extensive credit that a pair of sources said the university offered for "life experience." The article led Susan Andrews and John Creed, a husband-and-wife team of professors at the UAF Chukchi campus in Kotzebue, to send out an open letter in August arguing that Hannigan should resign both his senate presidency and membership because of the degree. They also requested the senate consider the situation, which led to the discussion at Monday's meeting in the UAF Wood Center. An angry Hannigan showed no indications Monday he would consider stepping down. He called Andrews' and Creed's letter an "attack" and noted that he took all but 15 of his doctoral credits at another university. He also pointed to his long history at UAF. "I've got 19 years at this institution," he said. "I'll match my record against anyone in this room." Hannigan also argued that scrutiny of his degree could lead to a similarly strict crackdown on all faculty. "We are going to start looking at everybody's work, everything everybody's done," he said. "It's a very slippery slope." An ad hoc committee appointed to determine whether or not Hannigan's degree was legitimate--and if so, what the senate should do about it--gave an inconclusive response on Monday, leading senate members to debate the issue Jane Weber, an associate professor of developmental education, noted that Hannigan's doctorate isn't listed in the university register and that he didn't bring it up when running for the seat. "I feel like we should just end the discussion," she said. "It shouldn't be about his degree." But others on the senate argued against letting Hannigan serve as president. "We need to uphold whatever standards we have, and in order to uphold them we need to personally exemplify them," said geology and geophysics professor Rainer Newberry. Weber was the only professor to support her proposed vote of confidence, which drew 16 "no's" and six more abstentions. Some faculty members said they felt uncomfortable making a judgment on the issue with limited information and a thick report from the ad hoc committee that they had just received. Hannigan was chosen in April to be president-elect of the senate, a group of 37 elected faculty members that serves as the primary creator and overseer of academic policy at the university. He is set to serve as president-elect for a year under Bult-Ito, then become president in 2005. Bult-Ito said it would take a two-thirds vote to remove Hannigan from his position or from the senate altogether. But Professor Norm Swazo, head of the ad hoc committee, warned against making any quick decisions regarding Hannigan's status. He noted that the legitimacy of his degree is still unclear, and that union and constitutional issues could be involved as well. "We're saying 'hey, there's a need for care with respect to how you proceed.'" |