...according to this news story. Indeed, the APA's information about the "site visit program" seems to imply that the report is strictly for the Department that requests the visit. I suspect the breach of confidentiality here was the doing of administrators at Colorado, and not the APA Committee, but it would be in the interest of the site visit program for the APA to take a stronger stand on the confidentiality issue, lest other departments be scared off. (The Colorado Department initiated this visit, not the Administration.)
ADDENDUM: A faculty member at Colorado tells me that, "It was the administration who decided to release the report publicly. But it was the Site Visit Team that decided to release the report _to the administration_. The administrators asked for it, and the team just sent it to them, despite prior assurances to the contrary." I do not have other confirmation or disconfirmation of that description of events.
ANOTHER: Amy Ferrer, Executive Director of the APA, writes with the following helpful information:
Just wanted to get in touch regarding your addendum to your most recent post on CU Boulder.
It was the understanding of the site visit program that the request for the site visit at CU Boulder came from the dean, the provost, and the department. In keeping with the site visit program's policies, it therefore released the report directly to those three parties.
Also, the letter of expectation provided to programs requesting a site visit includes the following language, though I have no direct knowledge of whether this played into the CU Boulder administration's release of the report:
Compliance with open records laws
Open records laws vary from state to state and by type of institution. It is the responsibility of the Department to know to what degree its Site Visit report is subject to open records laws and to comply with such laws.
AND ANOTHER: Philosopher Dale Miller (Old Dominion) writes:
Just thought you might be interested that the APA Site Visit Program webpage has now been changed to say that “Normally, site visits would be conducted at the request of a department chair…” and that “The team will write a report for the Department Chair (or whoever requested the visit)….” As you noted, until today the site only referred to department chairs initiating visits or receiving the report. The previous wording can still be seen here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131014194018/http://www.apaonlinecsw.org/home/site-visit-program
AND A FINAL ONE: Philosopher Peggy DesAutels (Dayton) writes:
As director of the APA CSW Site Visit Program, I am the person who makes the initial arrangements for all visits. In my communications, I send the following document to whomever is arranging the visit. Please note that in the "Confidentiality" section, it states that the "Dean will receive the report if the Dean requests the visit". This is the exact copy of the "APA CSW Site Visit Process and Expectation" document I sent to CU's department chair prior to the visit (and the to the Chairs of upcoming departmental visits).
As you can see at the very beginning of the Summary of the Report, released by CU, in the "Background" section, this visit was requested by CU's Provost, Dean, and Department of Philosophy.
This sentence can be found in CU's summary of the Report at the end of this article: http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_25035043:
"In April 2013, the American Philosophical Association's Committee on the Status of Women was invited and approved to conduct a full review of the climate for women in the department. The invitation to conduct that review was issued by the philosophy department, Dean Steven Leigh of the College of Arts & Sciences, and Provost Russell Moore."
Unfortuantely, I can't get the document to upload, but it is as Professor DesAutels describes it.
Recent Comments