No Confidence letter & support
View the VCFA Faculty No Confidence Letter • September 26, 2022Today, twenty-two faculty members signed and sent to the VCFA Board of Trustees a letter expressing No Confidence in President Ward's leadership.
The letter carefully details the lack of adherence to college shared governance, repeated requests for information and transparency that have gone unanswered, and a shocking lack of professionalism repeatedly exhibited by President Ward.
The signed faculty — all at will employees, some employed for decades at VCFA — have shown great patience and great courage in registering their concerns. Additional faculty have come forward today expressing a desire to add their voices to the No Confidence letter, but because they fear retaliation in their workplace, they wish to sign on anonymously, so the number of voices in opposition to this deeply problematic leadership will continue to grow.
The VCFA community is invited to support our VCFA faculty by adding your name to the letter.
Though the letter sent to the board listed each signatory's name, faculty names have been redacted from this more public version in order to offer faculty members some insulation from negative responses on social media.
If you wish to support the faculty signatories, but prefer to remain anonymous, you may also email stakeholders.vcfa@gmail.com or friendsofvcfa@proton.me with general information (i.e. alum, faculty, former faculty, etc.), and your general information will be added to the letter but your identity kept private.
Faculty waited more than three months before taking this extraordinary step. The secrecy, lack of inclusion, lack of respect, burden of unpaid additional work, repeated expressions from leadership that if faculty aren't on board they are free to seek employment elsewhere — all these are unacceptable. Leadership has publicly paid lip service to how valuable faculty are, and how vital to the continued health and well-being of the college, and yet, behind closed doors, faculty are ill-treated, ignored, and dismissed. This is antithetical to everything the VCFA we know and love stand for.
Sharing permissions open. And anyone can sign.
View the public version of the No Confidence letter and additional signatures