Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina is up for his first evaluation by students and faculty at Syracuse University.

The vice chancellor is evaluated every five years. This year, students and faculty were asked to complete a survey via their syr.edu email accounts. Less than 10 percent of the student population has filled out the survey, according to an email sent to students Tuesday.

As vice chancellor and provost, Spina is the chief academic administrator at SU. In the Vice Chancellor Review Statement, Spina described his different roles as vice chancellor and provost.

He said the title of provost means he is responsible for the quality of academic programs and research enterprise. He is also supervisor of SU’s deans.

‘As supervisor of the deans, I work with them to build, encourage and support the faculty in the delivery of high-quality academic programs,’ he said in his statement.

Spina said his role as vice chancellor means that he supports the activities of the chancellor. This includes fundraising, student affairs and budget planning.

The survey itself consists of basic questions about the quality of academics, top concerns and the evaluation of the vice chancellor himself. The email sent out with the survey encouraged students that, even if they had no opinion about the vice chancellor, their responses about topics like registration and classroom facilities were still valuable because they reflected areas that Spina oversees.

Samuel Gorovitz, philosophy professor and chair of the review committee, said the survey about the vice chancellor is given out every five years because the University Senate requires the chief academic officer to be reviewed during that time frame.

Gorovitz said the choice of five years was probably historical, and the drafters in USen must have thought five was a reasonable compromise.

‘It’s very costly in time and effort do a comprehensive performance survey, and one wants to allow enough time for the holder of any office to establish a significant record,’ he said.

To do the survey every two to three years would be inefficient, he said, because it would not give the office holder enough time to make a significant attribution. Likewise, it would be inefficient to give the survey every 10 years, as it would give no time for the survey results to be applied.

As far as students not knowing much about the vice chancellor, Gorovitz said the survey was designed so students could skip questions they felt they couldn’t answer. If a student didn’t know anything about Spina’s character, they could skip questions pertaining to his leadership qualities. But if a student did have a significant interaction with the vice chancellor, those reactions would be welcome.

Harris Leung, a sophomore political science and international relations major, said he took the survey despite not knowing who Spina is.

Because he is part of the Student Association, he said felt he had an obligation to give serious responses.

‘I’d rather have someone answering seriously than have 10 kids answer who aren’t serious,’ he said. ‘You’re paying for the service. You are the customer at a private university.’

Though evaluating is important, he said he wished he knew more about the vice chancellor before taking the survey.

‘It’s a nice gesture,’ he said. ‘We just don’t know who he is.’

But Gorovitz said he wasn’t concerned about the apparent lack of student response to the survey, as it received a strong response from faculty and staff. There have been 2,000 completed responses from faculty and staff, and about 1,100 from students, and they’re still coming in.

‘That’s a lot of information,’ he said. ‘We’d love to see more responses coming in, but I don’t think the solidity of the evaluation is at any way at risk on the basis on volume of responses we’ve gotten.’

Students have until Friday to complete the survey. The Vice Chancellor Review Statement is attached to the beginning the survey, and it provides more information about Spina and his duties on campus.

‘I’m very appreciative of every single instance of a student who provided a response,’ Gorovitz said, ‘no matter how much, or little, a student had to say.’

seschust@syr.edu 

Published on April 17, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Sarah: seschust@syr.edu