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Comments Written by Our Colleagues, Staff Association Polls

COMMENTS (ENGLISH) STAFF ASSOCIATION OPINION POLLS, 2011 APRIL

(Ported across from the UGC Higher Education Forum after they were deleted)

COMMENTS ON THE PRESIDENT

Too single-minded.

Give me a way out.

He should be fired.

The worst President so far.

Our President should (must) go!

Totally incapable to be the President.

Ignore staff opinion, lower down moral.

Pay too much attention to ranking of Universities.

He is a complete incompetent and unmitigated disaster.

The President should step down, he is the worst President of CityU.

In general, the management of CityU is poor, including provost office.

The worst President at CityU that I’ve seen.  Prof. CXXXX is the best at CityU as president.

Hope the President will listen more to staff and should not be influenced by those “yes” people around him.

He totally neglects the career path problem of the full time teaching staff.  It seems that he doesn’t care the future of existing instructors.

He should resign as soon as possible to stop further damage to the University.
Do not implement any system to demoralize staff.

I’ve never seen a President who could not make decision. He has been creating chaos within the University. Very disappointing!

President has no integrity; misxxxxxxx as nuclear expert in media sacrificing long term interest of university for his own career.

As someone who has worked for more than a decade, I am saddened by the direction this university has taken in recent years.

I don’t see him anywhere except in the canteen early in the morning.  He didn’t show any interest to interact with anybody there.

As a President, he only concern international ranking of the university.  He never cares about the needs of students and the society.

The President only works for the benefit of his show case regardless of the whole university, staff and student well-being.  Sxxxs!

Manipulating all activities, policies and making the University an old age home.  For show casing & window dressing.  Draining lot of resources.

The President should be sacked immediately as he treats the staff here like garbage. This working environment reminds me of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.

Hope he can leave after the term.  He is the worst President I have ever seen.  His heart is not in CityU.  He simply aims at improving his CV looking for another job.  Get rid of him.

I believe the President has the interest of CityU at heart but he is not going about it in the right way.  A university needs a scholarly president not a business executive president or CEO.

Mr. President does not take away our right to life.  Let us walk in a healthy environment.  Please value the contribution of every employee.  Try to enforce fairness and benchmarking.

Not to listen to opinion, only does what he wants to do without considering others’ comments/views.  He himself thinks he is a savior of CityU, ignoring contribution of all employees.

We need a consulting firm to identify the issues at CityU first and they hire a president to carry out the tasks to address these issues. Don’t hire a president as a free cannon that shoots at his or her will.

I appreciate the President’s determination to take CityU forward although, it may be at the expenses of some staff. For staff association, before you attack others, please do your homework first stop barking.

The President is the most destructive president I have ever seen. He has completely devastated CityU and managed to demoralize almost everybody. I think he should resign and keep a bit of decency to himself.

Examples of bad management of the President.  Allow Chief of staff 助大.  Employ retired staff (NAME) to work on the Vet. School project.  Promote (NAME) so that he can work on the U ranking – path the way for the President’s extension of tenure.

(The President) does not add value to CityU!  The management of CityU are following the wrong mission.  UGC wants us to be a top level teaching university!  The management are only focused on world ranking and do not care about student/staff development/morale.

It is discouraging for the morale of non-academic staff as the replacement of staff manpower is being banned by the University to a large extent.

The President has no respect for non-academic staff. He often says that the University has too many non-academic staff.  Perhaps his royal highness can fire all non-academic staff and ask his highly paid and highly respected Professors to do the administrative work for him.

The President doesn’t concern and care the welfare of staff, especially the administrative units. He has no idea on the operation and function of administrative units and doesn’t show his interest to understand.

The incumbent president of City University is the worst academic leader I have ever seen among the 8 institutions.  He does not seem to have his heart in the right place, certainly not in education, certainly not in the university, staff or students.  For whatever policy or goals he wanted to push or bulldoze through, be they Vet school, PBPR, or discontinuation of employment for some contract staff, he did not even have the moral ixxxxx to stand up and speak his own mind for his own thinking or beliefs (never mind how ill-formed they are).  He has always been busy working sneakily under the table, pulling strings and twisting arms behind the scene.  But when he is confronted, he would always find a scapegoat to shoulder the blame.  For a person who is only interested in polishing up his own portfolio, who is not interested in how his staff or students feel or think, who is so autocratic that he doesn’t want to hear any dissent (thank the Providence for not giving him any political power, or he will turn into another Mxxxxxxx), who believes he has the absolute power to pursue his hobby horse (such as the Vet School) and then when the chips are down, who does not have the courage to face the music, he does not have my respect and I do not think he is fit to be a president or leader of any academic institution, local or overseas.  He is the first president or Head of a university who doesn’t even bother to deliver his own address in congregation.  That speaks volumes of his attitudes and thinking, of what his values are, and of perhaps his self-knowledge that he is not particularly impressive in public speaking.  It is most unfortunate that City University is led by the incumbent president and his hand picked team of management who all kowtow to him.  City University under his leadership is undergoing its Dark Age.

Opinions about the Veterinary College

The future of CityU lies in the veterinary college!

The President did not follow UGC’s “instruction” to give best resources to the “334” reform. Instead of giving resources to it, he cuts budget for central admin office who works hard at the reform.  He just keeps the money for veterinary school (again not UGC’s wish).

Only support his own baby, i.e. veterinary college and school of energy environment.  Against UGC’s will in setting up the vet college.  He might use up all CityU’s reserve for this college and leaving other academic development suffering for this college and leaving other academic development suffering from cutting of resources.  As a whole, he only concern his own desire, but not the best interest of CityU.

Since (the President) assumed the role of President of CityU, many established aim at reducing the benefits or remuneration of staff, not to the welfare of the university in general, but for supporting the unwelcoming vet school.  He also promoted or endorsed policies that limit the freedom of speech, open communication etc., and all these adversely affect the morale of staff.  His performance is simply not up to standard.

 

 

Opinions about PBPR

Quality over quantity (number) measurement for University should be considered first and foremost.

Assessment criteria are not transparent.  Assessment criteria are not standardized across departments.

The President sincerely cares for the university’s development.  He was initially handicapped by a lack of background of CityU issues during the first year of his term and the judgment over PBPR is one of such casualties.  His capacity and performance has gradually improved in the recent months.

As a Non-academic department, we don’t have “Professor”. How come we have 3-professor?

Why the PBPR measures of the president and his beloved professors are much less demanding than those associate and even assistant professors?

PBPR would only facilitate the president’s control on all staff. Who supports his pet projects such as vet school or up and coming nuclear power related programs would be rewarded and who resists them would get nothing and even fired.

The existing Staffing Committee has rank-and-file equitable representatives, they provide valuable information to the Committee for staffing decision as they know the assessing staff well.  PBPR’s DPAC does not have any representation from association professor and below staff thus the professor posed from the president know nothing about the assessing staff.  That would be disadvantageous to the interest of the assessing staff.

For Admin staff, the PBPR will be implemented in Jan 2012 which mean the pay increase between April and Dec 2011 (which we used to have in the past will not be given to us this year).  This is not fair.  That means the salary implement will be postponed for 9 months.

We all know that inflation rate is very high this year.  The salary increase, if any, for the PBPR will be effective in January 2012.  However, if COLA still exists, the increase in salary will be effective April 2011, so they are taking away 9 months of back pay from us.  In addition, those on the top point of the salary scale are only getting an allowance, the salary level remains the same for the rest of their lives.

While there is nothing against the principles of reward by performance, the implementation for PBPR needs to be well planned and communicated to staff before the scheme can gain acceptance in an institutional environment. Despite staff views are solicited, these were not well taken care of. Seems that the attitude is just to go ahead, get it done to please our President or even pass the bulk to Council. The simple-minded thought is just that this kind of reward scheme can be done in commercial organizations and US universities, why not in CtyU. Have careful thoughts been given to the background, culture are mission of the University and what will be the repercussions?

Staff suffered from the salary cut following that of Civil Service last year, why we simply followed despite heading for a performance based reward scheme! Look at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, they adopted an annual merit reward scheme but they did not blindly follow the Civil Service’s salary reduction. Heard that they are now reverting back to have COLA. There is some uniqueness in the institutional development, mission and environment that may cause a change to the COLA to be very disruptive.

Do we really have sufficient funding to make a good differentiation in reward by performance? Learnt that staff on maximum point will also receive an allowance for good performance, they do not have pay raise before, is extra budget give to meet this measure? If not, those below top point will have their merit increments squeezed to a small amount. Heard CAO said in the forum that we have no problem with the financial budget for the scheme.  Really hope so, otherwise the whole purpose will be defeated.

Will faculty members like to give so much effort on annual evaluations which is time consuming and diverting efforts from their main tasks on research and teaching? Can evaluations be really impartial, there is danger of favoritism especially in the evaluation of non-academic staff which is difficult to be really quantifiable? Heard that the criteria to be set by departments and vetted by the Central Committee have not been fully completed. Have the scheme was made known in November 2010 as a late starter? Are staff members and management ready for the scheme, is there sufficient trust in the system to ensure that fair and objective evaluations will be the outcome. Why all these rushes?

What have we learnt from the pilot run of the scheme for academic faculty, why are these not made known to staff. If the University community is not yet ready to implement such a scheme or if modifications and improvements are needed, why not give it hold! Were staff views and the difficulties in implementation brought to the attention of the Council? What role is the Director of Human Resource and the Chief Administrative Officer playing? Do they have to blindly follow what the President favors and just go ahead to simply execute, with little or no open communication to staff?  Seems that they are neither playing a strategic nor an advisory role to management; what kind of professionalism is this!!  Come on, admit the inadequacies and take actions to improve.

 

Other Comments

Totally disappointed with the senior management.

On the whole, lack of accountability & transparency.

The worst administration I have ever met in my working life.

Poor management, lack of understanding of student, staff and social needs in HK.

University policies have moved us further from close collaboration with and from serving the industries of the public.

The role and power of the Chief-of staff are badly defined. There has not been a clear justification for the position.

The President has sent/is sending a number of staff to prisons which I think should better be replaced by an internal disciplinary judgment.  Such act has turned CityU into a “corrupted” university by image!

CityU lacks an appeal system for staffing.  Management does not have staffing.  Management does not have transparence in promotion exercise.  In particular, there is no official response to each promotion exercise applicant.

CityU is becoming a “wild-chicken” Univ. at least in teaching.  (1) At least 30% less in teaching hrs. compared to HKU, CU, UST.  (2) TFQ has many negative effects: (i) poor quality teaching, (ii) high TFQ in return for high marks, (iii) too much cheating, ……..

Real issue is with new Provost who is a disaster area – fails to take responsibility for anything.  Does not make decisions himself but sets up endless working groups and appoints Associate Provosts to take the blame.

The President, Vice-Presidents and Deans have been recruiting a lot of Professors who happen to be their acquaintances.  These Professors are highly paid and all with a start-up grant of millions of dollars (UGC money).  In the meantime, they are taking away the COLA from us.  Is this fair?

 

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