Weaknesses / Areas of Improvement

Executive Leadership Team

  • Buy into EWU
  • Morale
  • Accountability/assessment/data – informed decision making
  • Financial forecasting
  • Budget development
  • DEI infrastructure
  • Organization development/talent development

Directors and Administrators

  • Student retention
  • Semester/quarter/online academic calendars / make a decision as to which one, not offer both
  • Campus experience for students
  • Senior leadership 
  • Focus/prioritization

Faculty Group 1

  • Catalyst building – lack of utility as classroom/overburdening processes
  • Doing SRA 2 years after PRD
  • Reorganization – put folks in positions of leadership without support or mentoring
  • Too much funding in athletics and not enough in academics
  • Faculty and staff burnout
  • Retain/replace/recruit staff and faculty

Academic Deans

  • We are very risk averse
  • Right sizing the regional public university
  • Morale

Faculty Senate Leadership

  • Need more effective/invested leadership
  • Need more diverse Board of Trustee members
  • Administration reluctant to spend money to make money and need institutional incentive structure that benefits the university
  • Recognition for student advising
  • Merit pay for grant work
  • Workload for add on service (accreditation, strategic plan, etc.)
  • Relationship between campus and community groups could be improved
  • DEI/Social Justice – no institutional, long term offers to change environment; “check the box” mentality with no vision
  • Retention of faculty and staff of color

Community Diversity Leadership

  • Activism to support community
  • Connect with youth in schools
  • Build programs to support / drive local youth to EWU
  • Establish DEI training during student orientation
  • Improve the internal culture
  • Improve community exposure
  • Improve the value alignment around diversity
  • Improve the support for students from diverse populations

Community Forum

  • Staffing and class offerings
  • Increased focus on student centric thinking
  • Remove obstacles to enrollment/graduation
  • Genuinely engaged and dedicated president
  • Spokane strategy / develop / students / alumni / businesses
  • Indecisiveness – we change strategy every two years

Staff Group

  • Staff retention / employee burnout and retention
  • Living by the value(s)
  • Cooperation vs competition
  • Resources
  • Too many priorities

Athletics

  • Facilities out dated
  • Campus housing
  • Financial management processes
  • Business practices / processes
  • Training table
  • Retention
  • Alumni disconnect
  • Hiring process
  • Onboarding
  • Professional development – staff / salaries

Student Leaders

  • Lack of agreement on major requirements
  • Inconsistent admission requirements for programs/poor advising
  • Students of color treated differently by faculty
  • No response to discrimination complaints / lack of support for students of color
  • Inconsistent caring and performance of faculty

Internal Diversity Leadership

  • Facilities
  • Housing
  • Recruitment/retention/staff, faculty, students
  • DEI (Staff/faculty and students)
  • Morale (especially staff and faculty)
  • Support staff

Department Chairs

  • Help for lecturers/senior lecturers / professional development support + opportunities / staff positions – not enough funding to hire more faculty
  • Marketing and branding at the micro level
  • Transparency, cost/budget/leadership
  • Stable leadership
  • One system
  • Improve campus experience / ownership of buildings downtown

Faculty Group 2

  • Improving the internal communication, marketing and advertising / consistency between department websites
  • More transparency and connection between Spokane campus and main Cheney campus such as quarter semester scheduling, recruiting employees, training, faculty, training, mentoring / onboarding, faculty workload, etc.
  • Better advising – confusing process and needs more training / student support
  • Communication with CAAR and department schools
  • Value faculty advising
  • Stability
  • Administrative / leadership
  • Permanent to interim
  • Retention of faculty and staff
  • Reward exceptional service
  • From bottom up

Union Leadership

  • Infrastructure problems
  • University doesn’t support mental / physical health of employees
  • Employee turnover burnout
  • Desperate need to right size athletics
  • Stop cuts to DEI/Affinity groups as these are major areas to recruit students
  • Management stability
  • Inadequate student recruitment

Alumni Association Board

  • Enrollment/student recruitment
  • Fund raising
  • Clarity of Goals/direction
  • Invest in high enrollment programs/disinvest in low enrollment programs
  • Buildings/infrastructure
  • Community Partnerships/engagement

Campaign Cabinet

  • Focus and alignment
  • Target high impact programs with resources
  • More Advancement staff focusing on major gifts, principal gifts, and planned gifts
  • Marketing University and its successes