Discussion on campus about an evaluation of Ohio University President Roderick McDavis and Provost Kathy Krendl did have a role in the Board of Trustees’ decision to include the opinions of six constituent groups in their annual review of the president, board chairman Greg Browning said.

The board was not approached by any of the six groups — Faculty Senate, Chairs and Directors, Administrative Senate, Classified Senate, Student Senate and Graduate Student Senate — before it instituted the more inclusive process, he said.

“Nobody came to us asking for it to be done,” he said. “We were aware of the realities of the situation over there (at OU) and we wanted to do something about it.”

Other trustees declined to comment on the evaluation process.

Details of how the process will be conducted or what questions will be asked have not reached the constituent groups yet, said Phyllis Bernt, Faculty Senate chair. The OU Faculty Handbook states that the trustees are responsible for the annual review of the president, but the inclusion of the six groups in the process depends on the makeup of the board at the time, she said.

The board used feedback from faculty and other groups in some of their annual evaluations of former OU President Robert Glidden, but abandoned the process in the middle of Glidden’s administration, Bernt said.

“When you have changes in trustees and changes in administration, sometimes things just fall through,” she said.

Feedback from campus groups is an important part of what the Faculty Handbook defines as “comprehensive reviews,” which take place every five years, Bernt said. Comprehensive reviews are conducted by the Board of Trustees and designed to inform a decision on whether the president should be reappointed.

But with recent dialogue about making the evaluation process more inclusive — including a proposal in the Faculty Senate to institute a survey including a vote of confidence that ended in a tie at last week’s meeting — the trustees’ decision is a step in the right direction, she said.

“I think they’re doing the right thing,” she said. “It’s important for the trustees to see the president from different perspectives.”

McDavis also endorsed the trustees’ decision at his press conference Wednesday.

The evaluation process will be what Browning called a 360-degree review — a business term for evaluations done by members of different levels of an organization rather than a single superior.

“The 360-degree review is a common business practice that we feel we can put to good use,” Browning said.