Faculty at D’Youville University plan to picket the school’s opening assembly Tuesday over ongoing frustration at going nearly two years without a new contract.
But it’s not just the divide over medical insurance, short-term disability, paid time off and other labor issues yet to be resolved for 150 full-time faculty and librarians at the bargaining table.
The action also reflects the union’s deep distrust of President Lorrie Clemo, whose tenure that began in 2017 has been marked by mass layoffs, multiple lawsuits, a revolving door of human resource directors, a vote of no confidence from the faculty and lingering distrust over what union officials say has been a lack of transparency and candor concerning an internet security breach in February.
“We’re at the lowest morale point that even people with decades of prior experience at D’Youville have ever experienced,” said philosophy professor Brandon Absher, president of the D’Youville chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “There is a general climate of retaliation that has exacerbated the conflict between the faculty and administration.”
In a letter sent to the executive committee of D’Youville’s board of trustees Wednesday, Absher said the administration offered “incorrect information on multiple occasions” over the loss of web access across the campus beginning Feb. 8. It wasn’t until months later that the union learned there had been a security breach. This was acknowledged by the administration to both the New York and Vermont attorney general offices but never, Absher said, to the faculty or student body.
“The public spread of misinformation and failure to communicate adequately regarding the nature and cause of the breach has been incredibly corrosive to the already frayed relationship between the faculty and the administration, most especially President Clemo,” the letter said.
The Faculty Senate gave a vote of no confidence in Clemo’s leadership…
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