Laney Graduate School students voted through an electronic ballot Tuesday that they do not have confidence in James W. Wagner as University president. The Graduate Student Council (GSC) passed a bill earlier this month that allowed the vote to take place.
Twenty-two percent, or 433 students, of the approximately 2,000 total Laney students voted. On the question – “Do you have confidence in James Wagner as President of Emory University?” – 68 percent of voters, or 295 students, voted no, while 27 percent, or 117 students, voted yes, and five percent abstained. The results were announced on the GSC website this afternoon.
GSC President and fifth-year Laney student Rob Rankin wrote in an email to the Wheel that the voting process went well overall. He said about one percent of voters experienced problems.
He added that the voter participation rate was “not surprisingly low,” noting that he wishes Laney students “would be more involved in the University.”
A vote of “no confidence” does not affect Wagner’s employment position as president, but indicates that the Laney student body feels Wagner is no longer fit to lead. In a separate electronic ballot held last week, College faculty rejected a motion of “no confidence” in Wagner after five days of voting.
“Of course I respect the actions of any of our governance bodies to adopt resolutions and make decisions in what they consider to be in the better interests of Emory,” Wagner wrote in an email to the Wheel last week, in regard to the passage of the GSC bill that enabled the vote to be held.
At the Wheel‘s open forum with Wagner yesterday evening, Wagner said he spoke with Dean of the Graduate School Lisa Tedesco “to understand some of the issues in the graduate school” soon before the Laney vote took place.
“There is some listening and discussion that needs to be done. … I don’t really know much about the grievances as expressed by [those who voted yes],” Wagner said at the forum. “That’s part of what I look forward to learning from. It might be nice to be invited to the Graduate [Student] Council and talk to them.”
Voting for Laney students was held online at emory.edu/vote. Those who voted “no” on the ballot represent 15 percent of all Laney students, while those who voted “yes” represent six percent.
“The vote was important to get the students’ perspective of the perception of President Wagner and how we think the University has been run this year,” Rankin wrote. “Personally, I think the results indicate a large number of [Laney] students are unhappy with how the University has been run [and] President Wagner’s actions.”
In the first place, fourth-year student in the Laney Graduate School Andy Ratto presented the bill calling for the vote at an April 4 GSC meeting. The bill passed after it was amended from its original version to add a space on the ballot where voters could type an additional response. Ratto declined to comment.
The voters’ additional comments have not yet been posted on the GSC website.
Ratto had presented another bill at a Student Government Association (SGA) meeting last month, which would have added a question on the student leadership elections ballot about whether students have confidence in Wagner. While the bill was amended to focus on the direction of the University as a whole rather than Wagner himself, the legislature ultimately failed the bill by a vote of 6-14-3.
Some members of the Emory community have questioned Wagner’s leadership this semester after the publication of his controversial column about the Three-Fifths Compromise in the winter edition of Emory Magazine. The column sparked local and national criticism, and Wagner issued an apology, most of which was later taken off the magazine’s website.
The Laney bill did not specifically cite the column or Wagner’s role in the department changes announced last semester – a topic that College faculty members have discussed at their monthly meetings – as reasons for the vote.
Instead, it was meant to serve as a “method of evaluating performance,” according to the bill.
Following the College faculty vote, Wagner sent out a University-wide email Monday morning, in which he wrote, “I pledge to do my best to lead that change and to grow along with you, in order to help Emory change and grow, while making best use of our resources to serve and lead in our challenging times.”
Wagner’s employment at the University ultimately lies in the hands of the Board of Trustees.
In a statement released shortly after the results of the faculty vote were announced, the Board’s Chair Ben F. Johnson III said on the behalf of the Board that Wagner “remains extraordinarily well-suited to maintain Emory University’s forward momentum.”
– By Jordan Friedman
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
One thing to be aware of : only 90 people voted in the last GSC elections. Which means that when it came to voting on Wagner, turnout went up fivefold. Also, more Graduate Students voted in twelve hours than did faculty in a week.
I keep seeing people argue that “more Graduate Students voted in twelve hours than did faculty in a week” – do we not have any math students in Laney? There are 4 times as many eligible grad student voters as there are eligible college faculty voters. Given that, the fact that we had less than 100 more graduate students vote than faculty (433 grad students versus 334 college faculty) is not impressive. Almost 80% of our graduate students didn’t care enough to take the 10 seconds required to click the link and vote.
Um, dude, you can say what you want, but even with a biased sample (IE, people who chose to vote in any election) that’s still a substantial turnout relative to past figures. and it’s dubious of you to assume that abstention or not voting represents a particular stance on the issue – we have no way of knowing why those people didn’t vote.
Oh and FYI there are lots of LGS students who are traveling research abroad, etc – it’s part of the gig for a lot of us, as I’m sure you know. we should have had a week
Yeah I’ve heard that argument too. Do you have any actual numbers for how many LGS students are currently abroad, or do you just want to pretend it’s pretty much the 78% that didn’t vote?
I’m not making any assumptions about how those that didn’t vote feel about Wagner, except that I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of LGS students have time to check their email at least once during the hours of 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM. Thus, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that for at least the majority, if they didn’t vote, they didn’t care too. Plus, the vote was advertised for weeks. I should hope that the majority of LGS students: A. Can plan ahead and B. Have at least 10 seconds of free time and an internet connection between the hours of 8:30 AM and 8:00 PM. If you want to argue that those things aren’t true for a significant portion of LGS students, then Laney probably has bigger issues than whether or not the President is fit to lead.
“remains extraordinarily well-suited to maintain Emory University’s forward momentum.”
This is definitely a much nicer way to say he’s doing a great job at the helm of a slow, cringe-inducing PR death spiral. See the Wheel article about our record-low 1% admissions growth, which admin explicitly attributes to “media problems.”
I don’t think the 1% admissions growth was a record low. I think that applications fell year-over-year a few years back. I’m amazed that the University had a 1% rise in applications this year. They must have waived application fees and requirements to get people who weren’t interested in going to the school to apply and boost the numbers.
A better question is how much of the growth is among Chinese international students? Another dirty little secret the Wheel should explore.