On Friday, the University of Denver’s Faculty Senate began voting on a motion to publicly express no confidence in Chancellor Jeremy Haefner.
Since last November, several colleges, including the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the Morgridge College of Education and the Graduate School of Professional Psychology, have also individually voted in favor of no confidence in the Chancellor.
If the motion passes, the faculty senate will also call for an “anonymous referendum of the full faculty of the University of Denver on the question of no confidence in Jeremy Haefner.” This means if the faculty senate’s vote passes, the rest of the faculty will then engage in their own vote.
Senators are currently voting anonymously on Qualtrics, an online surveying tool. According to Ronnie Pavlov, Chair of the Faculty Senate’s Nominations, Credentials and Rules Committee, voting will likely conclude on Wednesday.
Current Faculty Senate President Dean Saitta invited the Chancellor and several members of the Board of Trustees to attend and speak at the meeting — a decision that took some Senate members by surprise, as it is rare for the Chancellor or the Board to attend Faculty Senate meetings.
Saitta recently announced his resignation from his position as faculty senate president in a statement addressed to faculty on May 21 in which he declared his opposition to a vote of no confidence.
Prior to the vote, DU’s branch of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and a contingent of over 1000 students had also voted in favor of no confidence in Haefner.
Student groups, including members of DU’s Student Union and Divest DU, were also in attendance. Several students had taped papers to the windows of the senate room, which advocated for a no confidence vote.
The Faculty Senate is the primary mechanism for faculty participation in DU’s shared governance. It has 90 members elected to represent the university’s many academic units.
It is still unclear whether the Senate’s vote or even a vote from the entire faculty will result in a leadership change.
Mohammed Albow, a teaching professor in the computer science department, asked the Board, “If the faculty goes ahead with a vote of no confidence… will you commit to providing the faculty, staff, and all the people who have to do the work with leadership that they can trust and follow?”
The board’s response was clear: “We are committed 100%, unreservedly, behind the leadership of the Chancellor.”
According to the motion, “misguided financial priorities, lack of a shared vision, top-down decision making that undermines faculty’s ability to do their job well…[are all] points for discussion in considering a vote of no confidence.”
Before the vote, DU’s AAUP circulated several materials to faculty and leadership in support of the no confidence vote.
Those materials mainly alleged that the 4D experience and Kennedy Mountain Campus were unpopular among students and wasted critical university funds through the trademark and logo design process. The AAUP statement also hinted that faculty do not understand DU’s decision to rebrand itself with the 4D experience and the Kennedy Mountain Campus, which was donated to the University.
Financial decision-making is another crucial aspect of AAUP’s and several other colleges’ disagreement with DU’s executive leadership. DU has recently asked its academic programs to meet higher margins and cut budgets while simultaneously asking them to increase enrollment and improve programs.
“As some deans have noted, the incentive structure created by excessively high margins expected on units is to cut staff, faculty, and programs,” said the AAUP statement.
Another point made within the AAUP materials and written about in past Clarion articles is that the Board of Trustees appointed Chancellor Haefner without conducting a formal search process. Thus, the claim goes, Haefner was not given a mandate for leadership by the faculty, staff or students.
The former chair of the Board of Trustees, Doug Scrivner, gave a speech that he said represented the thoughts of the entire board. He vehemently characterized criticisms of the Chancellor as “highly inaccurate or misleading.”
Responding to the claim that Haefner was appointed without a search, Miller said that the former Chancellor Rebecca Chopp had left suddenly and unexpectedly and that a lengthy search would have “threatened the significant momentum we had achieved in carrying out the DU IMPACT 2025 strategic plan.”
Miller also articulated that Chancellor Haefner has “earned the full support of the Board of Trustees.” He said the University achieved several milestones with Haefner, including increased student retention and graduation rates, increased fundraising and DU’s newfound R1 research status.
Overall, the Board’s appearance at the Senate meeting strongly supported Haefner while criticizing claims made against him as misplaced anger or misinformation.
“We acknowledge and respect your passion and commitment to DU, as well as the deep concern, confusion, and even fear that has led to this moment… However, we must also reiterate that many assertions and statements presented in the no confidence materials circulated and discussed are highly inaccurate or misleading,” said Scriver while speaking directly to faculty.
Haefner, who read a statement he sent out to faculty on the morning of May 31 just before he and the Board responded to questions, also talked about the dissemination of “misinformation.” He implored the senators to, “do the hard work of analyzing the evidence objectively, and by all means, vote your conscience.”
The Chancellor and the board implied that much of the faculty’s anger is due to broader issues facing DU and other higher education institutions.
“I believe that there are so many challenges right now that are both at the national level and at the local level that are immediately and deeply impacting all of us at the University of Denver. It is frustrating. It is resulting, of course, in fiscal challenges… These express, of course, a real anger and frustration. And I acknowledge that, and I wish—it were different. But these are largely external forces,” said Haefner.
After speeches by the Board and the Chancellor, the audience was allowed to ask questions.
One meeting attendee asked the Board, which sets the compensation of the Chancellor, if they believe that Haefner’s salary is too high given DU’s current budget problems. Per Clarion reporting, despite budget issues and faculty cuts, Chancellor Jeremy Haefner’s salary has not been cut and remains over $1 million annually.
“Hello, my question is simple yet, I think, very important, and there’s a lot of discussion about fiscal constraints today. So I was curious to see how you, Chancellor Haefner, and potentially the Board of Trustees would explain and justify the disproportionate salary that the Chancellor receives and the recent salary increase amidst budget cuts across the University,” asked senior Ellie Barnett-Cashman.
Scrivner responded to the question.
“I would encourage you all, I think you all have access to The Chronicle of Higher Education, to know that there is a section on presidential compensation for private institutions. You will see that the Chancellor’s compensation is, in fact, not out of line for DU. In fact, as part of the process, we set the goal of the 50th percentile for compensation of all senior leadership, and we have made some adjustments along the way,” he said.
Scrivner also said that he viewed performance-based bonuses, which are only paid if the performance is achieved, as the “right kind of structure.” This sort of performance-based compensation structure is common with executive leadership roles at large institutions like DU.
The Board did not discuss or mention the recent finding by an AAUP-hired financial consultant that DU’s 15 executive cabinet members, whose average and median salaries are all over $300,000, are an area of overspending compared to peer institutions.
In response to the question, Haefner also mentioned that he is looking into reducing the number of cabinet members to improve in that area.
Scrivner and Haefner also explicitly told faculty that a vote of no confidence would endanger DU’s public profile and possibly enrollment.
“We encourage the faculty to consider the big picture of all that is going on in higher education and the broader impact of the cultural, operational and financial damage to this institution as a result of a vote of no confidence,” said Scrivner.
Some faculty viewed this as a misplaced fear.
“Personally, I am tired of the fear-mongering that we are hearing today. All of the gloom and doom about what will happen to the university if we vote in favor of no confidence takes the focus off the real crisis here at DU,” said Dr. Renée Botta, a former faculty senate president.
Aidan Phillips, a fourth-year history student, asked the Chancellor why the history department had been facing cuts even after a recent increase in history majors.
“As a student at DU, the most important part of my experience has been my professors, not 4D or the Kennedy campus. The history department, despite the national trend to the contrary, has been expanding and attracting more students. Why is it that despite this and its amazing professors, they face cuts too?” asked Phillips.
The Chancellor praised Phillips and the history department, but did not offer a specific answer to the question. Instead, the Chancellor said that financial decisions are not solely up to him. Instead, they are made in conjunction with the Provost and academic deans.
“That’s why we have a provost. That’s why we have colleges and deans that make those financial decisions on their own. And I empower and expect those deans to make good decisions on how those investments are made,” said Haefner.
After the Chancellor and Board had left, one senator introduced a motion to postpone the voting on no confidence, but their motion was later voted down. Then, several senators implored their colleagues not to vote against the Chancellor, citing similar concerns raised by the board of trustees and the Chancellor.
Several individuals at the meeting seemed frustrated by the assertions that the faculty’s gripes resulted from misinformation and misplaced anger.
“He’s not bothered to address faculty concerns. He’s merely tried to refute them… charges of misinformation undermine the dialogue required for shared governance,” said Dr. Renée Botta, a former faculty senate president.
“Just look around this room. I think a lot of faculty members here are not gullible and easily led, right? Do you really think that all of these students are here just because they’re victims of misinformation or vague feelings of frustration?” asked Dr. Robert Urquhart, an associate professor in the economics department.
The Chancellor responded to the question with a simple: “No.”
