CONNOR HOFFMAN
News Editor
This semester, the University Senate released the results of a survey review they conducted last semester on President Virginia Horvath. Although there were many strengths listed for her, there were also a few areas of concern noted in this review.
The review team was selected by the University Senate in February 2016, and they created a survey with three main questions regarding Horvath’s performance as president. The survey asked people how they felt under Horvath’s leadership, what strengths and positive changes has she brought to the University, and what suggestions for improvement they would make for President Horvath. The committee also supplemented the survey with internal and external reviews.
Dr. Rob Deemer, who recently ended his tenure as University Senate chair, explained that Horvath asked for her performance to be reviewed and that this kind of review is typical of a vice president, but not typical of a president.
Some of the strengths this review mentioned were her dedication to shared governance, her open and collaborative leadership style and her open and engaging communication skills.
Horvath explained just exactly what she thought was her most important strength listed in this review.
“That one of inclusion is really important to me, because it also includes respect for diversity, respect for the people who are involved in decision making,” said Horvath in an interview last year. “In a community like Fredonia, where we really do want people to get along and work together, the fact that there were positive comments about that, that was important to me.”
However, the review was not entirely positive, as some areas of concern were included.
One of them was that some felt the rebranding efforts by the University were a costly failure, and that some of the elements of the rebranding, specifically the new logo and website, stripped the campus of its identity.
Horvath explained that she felt the rebranding was necessary to bring our university into the 21st century, and that the rebranding was mostly done using Fredonia talent and wasn’t as expensive as some thought.
“We did it all in-house, and it was our own design team that came up with our logo,” said Horvath. She explained that the University Senate then voted on a few different logos. She also mentioned that most of the money spent for the rebranding effort came from the University’s branding and trademark account that is made up of royalties the University earns off promotional material sold.
She said that she doesn’t refer to the entire process as rebranding because she really only wanted to update the logo.“I think, at that time, it was an innovative and modern looking logo, but it didn’t look modern anymore. It needed a refresh,” said Horvath.
Deemer explained why he thought some people might feel differently from Horvath.
“To change from one thing to another is a just a very hard thing to deal with at any point,” said Deemer. “It’s almost to the point that where it would be impossible to make everyone happy. There’s always going to be a portion of your collective community that is not going to be happy because they wish it had gone in another direction or they wished it had stayed where it was or whatnot.”
Despite some hailing Horvath as a great communicator, some felt that Horvath should communicate her plans even more to the university.
Deemer feels that it’s a tough job for Horvath to please everyone when choosing a communication style for a few reasons.
“I think part of it is because different people hear different things or pay attention,” said Deemer. “The people who are very interested in things like diversity inclusion, rightfully so, they have been very happy with the way that President Horvath has been communicating through that because they are really focused on that.”
Deemer said that there are other people who may be more interested in other issues and feel that Horvath isn’t paying enough attention to their issues.
Horvath said communication is a challenge that every leader has to overcome.
“I took very seriously that people said that they wanted more communication from me. They don’t just want me to send memos. They want me to be listening to them, as well,” said Horvath. She mentioned that she plans to communicate with the community in more frequent and varied efforts in the future.
Overall, Horvath said that she enjoys this kind of constructive criticism, and that she feels she can use this survey to better serve the university.
“I was really happy with [the review],” said Horvath. “I like that we had more than 400 responding to the survey, and I really liked that the committee did such a qualitative analysis. They really did a good job of saying what are the most important things from this to bring forward. It will help me. It will help a lot.”