Survey Reveals Discord At Nic Many Employees Found To Distrust Administrators, Resent Low Pay

A campuswide survey reveals many employees distrust administrators, fear retribution and resent low pay and favoritism at North Idaho College.

The campus is torn between gender lines, however, about whether there is sexual discrimination and what to do about it.

“It is my personal hope that the worker bees will make personal commitments to make positive change at NIC in how we communicate with one another and that the board and administration will support them in that,” said Campus Culture and Climate Committee Chairwoman Linda Erickson.

The survey of 321 students and 273 employees is the result of a six-month effort by 18 committee members charged with examining the campus culture. Interim President Ronald Bell formed the committee after English professor Fran Bahr began calling for campus reforms of “questionable management practices,” including gender discrimination, inconsistent administrative policies, increasing workloads and lagging salaries.

“I felt the concerns a lot of us had were validated,” Bahr said Tuesday. “I relaxed a little when I saw that because there were times I wondered if I was way off base. I’m fairly satisfied with the results, if the recommendations are acted upon and the new president and board take it from there.”

Based on the survey, the committee will recommend a series of changes to the NIC board of trustees tonight - including better grievance and conflict mediation policies, more consistency in administrative decision-making, active recruitment of women and minorities for supervisory positions and mandatory sensitivity training.

The schism between men and women’s responses appeared 46 times in the survey, more than differences in age, position, or years of service, according to NIC’s statistical analyst Larry Haight.

For example, when asked whether discrimination of women was a problem at NIC, 57 percent of men believed it wasn’t, while 23 percent of women believed it wasn’t a problem. Forty-three percent of women believe there is a discrimination problem at NIC, while only 19 percent of men think so.

Little more than 25 percent of men surveyed believed there’s a need for more female administrators, compared with 60 percent of women. When asked if they perceived women to have equal opportunities for promotion, less than half said they did not, while nearly 60 percent of men felt they did. Likewise, when questioned about fair female representation on decision-making committees, less than half the women felt there was not, while 50 percent of men agreed it was fair.

“There did seem to be a big difference in perception between things between men and women so I think that’s one thing we need to work on,” Bahr said. “The men think (the climate) is OK but the women don’t think it’s OK at all.”

This gap may be a result of the relatively small number that returned the surveys.

Of 650 surveys sent out, only 109 men and 162 women returned them. Those most likely to return such surveys are usually those with concerns or those feeling defensive about concerns, said Boise State University sociologist Jane Ollenburger, who just released a book on gender in the workplace.

“It probably reflects the self selection of individuals who returned the surveys,” she said.

The news wasn’t all bad.

The survey showed most employees feel they are treated kindly and equally by their supervisors, and that controversies don’t appear to have an overwhelmingly negative impact on students. Many reported that despite some problems, they have positive working environments.

Many respondents felt workloads have increased over the last five years, part-time faculty are underpaid, some benefit from “special deals,” and reclassifications of positions are not handled fairly or in a timely manner.

To address these concerns, the committee will recommend that NIC establish an appeal process for reclassification decisions and accelerate the rate of pay increases to boost salaries to the median level among peer schools.

The report also calls for hiring and salary guidelines for temporary and part-time employees, as well as mandatory workshops to include communication, management practices, gender and ethnic sensitivity and empowerment.

, DataTimes