WESTFIELD – The Executive Committee of Westfield State University’s Board of Trustees met Thursday to set a timetable for evaluating the job being done by Interim University President Dr. Elizabeth Preston.
A former vice president of academic affairs and faculty member at the school, Preston ascended to the presidency following the departure of former President Dr. Evan S. Dobelle, who retired amid a litany of allegations of spending improprieties.
Components of the final review package to be sent to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education include Preston’s written self-assessment, the board’s evaluation of her performance, an account of a face-to-face meeting between Preston, the board chairman and the executive committee, a follow-up report to the full board and a letter from the board chairman to Preston describing the process and general results.
These components are in addition to the university’s strategic plan and the establishment of goals and objectives for the coming year.
“It’s a new process for me. I have not been involved in the past,” said Elizabeth Scheibel, chairperson of the board of trustees and former Northwest District Attorney. “We have been given a deadline for the submission of our evaluation – October 10. We have a short window of opportunity.”
Several members of the executive board stated that they had been in contact with Jennifer Perkins, director of the office of trustee relations for the state board of higher education regarding altering the Oct. 10 due date.
It was the hope of the executive board that trustee Steven Marcus would be able to get an extension from State Commissioner of Higher Education Richard Freeland.
“I’m going to see if we can push this off an additional 30 days to be able to make sure we have good, careful thought and that everyone is on the same page,” said Marcus.
Preston said that the Commonwealth-mandated presidential evaluations used to be due on October 15, but have since been moved up to Sept. 15 and will occur in June next year for all institutions.
According to the university’s bylaws, the board of trustees’ executive committee is responsible for conducting a comprehensive evaluation every three to five years in addition to the annual evaluation.
“What we’ve tried to do in the past, whenever you do an evaluation you have metrics you have to go against and the metrics have to be clearly defined,” said Board Finance Chairman Kevin Queenin. “We asked the president to outline objectives for the coming year, put some measurement to those objectives and, at the end, how they were met or whether they were met.”
Queenin added that the objectives of the president should correlate to the strategic objectives of the university.
“In our business, we try to make it simple, clear, not ambiguous and not subjective,” he said. “We try to quantify them as specific as possible.”
While Queenin said that the evaluation needs to be completed by October 10, the other objective should be a review of what went on for the last number of months, with measurements of what the expectations were and whether they were met “in the context of what was going on.”
“This year’s (evaluation) will be an anomaly.” said Queenin due to the extenuating circumstances relating to Preston’s appointment as president.
Scheibel said that she didn’t think the 30 days was going to happen but encouraged Marcus to use his powers of persuasion to express to Freeland the need to extend the deadline.
Preston informed the board that she will have her self-evaluation completed by September 29 to grant the trustees ample time to conduct their annual evaluation.
The next scheduled meeting for the full board of trustees is on October 8 and the hope of the executive committee is that some type of concensus can be drawn together to complete the review, regardless of whether Marcus is able to get an extension.
“I think October 10 is doable, collectively, if we break up the work and assign tasks to people,” said Sheibel. “We can use the executive committee to fine tune it (the evaluation) after the October meeting so it can be ratified at the December meeting.”
