Valparaiso University faculty are voting on a resolution of no confidence in President José Padilla after the Faculty Senate approved the resolution earlier this week.
The resolution, provided by a Post-Tribune source, notes six areas in which the Faculty Senate said Padilla had failed the university, including failing to fulfill his key fundraising responsibilities and failing to improve student enrollment and retention.
The Faculty Senate vote on Wednesday was 15 in favor, two against and one abstention, according to the source. The entire faculty has until Saturday morning to vote on the resolution before a board meeting this weekend.
Faculty Senate President Bharath Ganesh Babu declined to comment.
“We are disappointed that the Faculty Senate considers it appropriate to take this action, without input or feedback from the faculty as a whole, prior to their vote on this issue,” said university spokesperson Michael Fenton, in a statement provided to the Post-Tribune. . “However, we remain hopeful that all members of the university community can continue to unite in pursuit of our common goals. »
According to the Faculty Senate resolution, “Padilla’s approach to rectifying our financial deficits has moved our budget further and further from our core mission of educating students, reducing the percentage spent on academics to 38 percent, more further below our peers.
Padilla received widespread criticism for his plan to sell three key paintings from the Brauer Museum of Art to raise money to renovate freshman dorms. The sale of the paintings, worth millions of dollars, is expected to take place after a court ruling in favor of the university said the trust that provided the funds for the artwork could be amended to allow the sale.
The resolution also notes that Padilla “has not demonstrated the ability to effectively recruit and lead senior administrators, as evidenced by, among other things, significant turnover in key management positions”; his leadership style “created discontent and a deep sense of insecurity among the University’s constituents”; and Padilla, “from the earliest days of his tenure, took a confrontational approach with faculty, staff, and the community at large, eroding the reputation and fundamental mission of the University.”
The university’s student population has continued to decline, despite recent partnerships with community colleges here and in Chicago.
Both the decline and the number of new students have declined over the past two years, after numbers began to increase slightly in 2022 as the direct impact of the COVID-19 pandemic began to ease. Yet, according to enrollment figures posted on the university’s website, both numbers are lower than in fall 2019, before the pandemic began.
The university had 852 new students in August, up from 1,004 five years ago. Likewise, total enrollment in the fall of this year was 2,598 students, down from 3,521 in fall 2019. Only 16 students in the latter count were attending the university’s law school, its last cohort before its closure.
The university announced Padilla as president on December 2, 2020, according to his biography posted on the university’s website. He previously served as vice president, academic advisor and secretary of the University of Colorado system. Prior to that, he served for 15 years in senior leadership positions at DePaul University in Chicago, most recently as vice president, general counsel and secretary.
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
