EDITORIAL: Faculty Association leadership needs to release voting numbers
After months of admonishing the administration for secrecy, Faculty Association leadership seems to have become what they hate.
Following the Thursday announcement that a three-quarters vote of FA members was in favor of a contract agreement with Central Michigan University, FA President Laura Frey refused to give details of the voting to media outlets and, more importantly, to FA members.
As tensions erupted between administrators and FA members following a strike on the first day of fall classes, Frey rightfully spoke out against the university for its lack of transparency.
Too often information has been hidden from the public eye until an outside organization forces the university's hand. The perfect example is in documents related to the College of Medicine, which weren't released until Central Michigan Life, the Academic Senate and the FA all requested the information be made available through the Freedom of Information Act.
And as the old adage goes, one must practice what they preach. Refusing to release numbers and reveal potential division with the FA's ranks to its own members makes the leadership lose its transparent righteousness, and instead the union looks just like another organization out to serve its own ends.
While the FA isn't required make the numbers public, deciding not to release them to union members could cause unnecessary tension by not knowing how close or far from consensus they ultimately came.
Had the members been informed of the count on Thursday, it's unlikely there would have been much, if any, conflict. Granted, the information would have almost assuredly leaked to the media, but that's just a reality of maintaining a large organization.
How much does the FA really benefit by keeping tight control of these figures?
After all, voters would have been none too pleased if the 2008 election was boiled down to a simple "Yep, Obama won!" from the polling places instead of an actual breakdown of where the nation's choices were made and why.
