By Greg Paeth
NKyTribune Reporter
In what is thought to be an unusual procedure, eight members of the board of directors of Gateway Community and Technical College have completed separate evaluations of Gateway President and CEO Dr. G. Edward Hughes.
During a 15-minute special meeting Monday, the board voted unanimously to follow through on its plan to send all of the evaluations to Dr. Jay Box, president of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) in Versailles. Box makes hiring and firing decisions about the top administrators in the state’s 16-school community college system and is not obligated to follow any suggestions or recommendations from local boards.
Like other two-year colleges in the state, the Gateway board is not in a position to make any decisions about Hughes, who has been the top executive of the school since it was created some 14 years ago.
In the past, Hughes was evaluated by a committee that would prepare an assessment that reflected the views of committee members and send that on to state officials who oversee the community and technical college system. Those evaluations had been glowing in their praise of Hughes, according to one source who is familiar with the process.
Last year, when five new members were appointed by Gov. Steve Beshear to serve on the 10-person board, the board opted not to evaluate Hughes because new board members had not had sufficient time to assess the president’s performance.
“It’s a statutory obligation of the board to conduct an evaluation and send it to KCTCS,” said Jeff Groob, who chairs the Gateway board.
In past years, the board would go into a closed executive session to discuss the evaluation.
But Groob said that Box informed the board that it could not go into executive session to discuss the evaluation of Hughes because he is not an employee of the board.
“We wanted this to be candid, constructive and confidential,” said Groob, adding that board members did not want to hold an open meeting in which board members might say something critical of Hughes in a public forum.
Ken Paul, who retired after 41 years as an executive with Cincinnati Bell, also pointed out that there are hidden landmines when employees are asked to rate the performance of anyone above them on the management chart. “If I didn’t give them a favorable review, I probably wouldn’t have a job,” said Paul, who has served on the board since it was created in 2001 and has served as an elected official as Campbell County Judge-Executive, Campbell County Commissioner and as a councilman and mayor in Southgate.
Two members of the board are Gateway employees. Michelle Deeley Wilhite represents the faculty and Daniel Ridley represents the staff.
Julie Ann Smith-Morrow, who chairs the board’s evaluation committee, said the committee agreed that all of the evaluations would be unsigned and that they would not be reviewed by anyone on the local board.
In response to a question from The Northern Kentucky Tribune, the board declined to make the evaluations available to the media and the public.
After the meeting, Hughes declined to make any comment about the evaluation process that was being used this year.
Board member Paul Whalen, who is an attorney, said that he believes an evaluation of an employee’s performance is a communication that can be “protected” and does not have to be released to the media or anyone else.
Groob said Box had been informed about the procedure that the Gateway board intended to follow.
In the cover letter that was sent with the evaluations to Box, Smith-Morrow said the board regretted that it was unable to “candidly and confidentially discuss evaluation results with Dr. Hughes. This would have provided a comprehensive summary evaluation to assist you in conducting Dr. Hughes’ official evaluation. We request that KCTCS standardize use of an acceptable instrument and process supporting candid, constructive and useful evaluations of KCTCS regional presidents. Using a common instrument would eliminate uncertainty and lack of rigor while assuring the use of best practices by individual boards…
“The Gateway board is committed to increasing the breadth and depth of Gateway’s contribution to the Northern Kentucky community, including increasing student access, enrollment, educational attainment, completion rates and developing a high- quality workforce consistent with the needs of area employers,” the letter concluded.
Groob, Paul and some of the board members who were appointed to the board last year have raised questions about the issues raised in the last paragraph of the letter.
Gateway and its foundation, a separate entity that is distinct from the board of directors, has spent millions of dollars acquiring property in downtown Covington to create the school’s urban campus. City officials are optimistic about Gateway’s ability to bring thousands of students downtown to invigorate a downtown business district that has, like other older downtowns, deteriorated as many businesses either closed their doors or moved to suburban locations.