I have to start a new category on my blog, because I got appointed to a task force here at Santa Clara that will recommend a process for soliciting and presenting feedback from faculty to top administrators (President, Provost and Deans).  Had a helpful conversation with a management department colleague, who lamented that we have no HR or OB (yes, the jargon starts flowing) faculty, but had two good insights.  One was to make sure we have some “nudge” incentive when we do a broad-scale solicitation of feedback (i.e. the ipad lottery for the survey).  The other was to pursue multiple methods, such as complementing the broad survey with randomly selected one on one interviews.

Another method would be to do a snowball investigation of a specific incident, with the idea of drawing out from those involved or affected by a decision how they saw the administrator’s behavior.  I could sink my teeth into that.  Journalism of the best kind: Gossip with a higher purpose!