We recently spoke with a person who holds the title “Director” in another department – outside the College of Veterinary Medicine – on the Stillwater campus of Oklahoma State University. This person, who asked us not to share their identify for fear of retaliation, regularly works with OSU leadership and shared “outside looking in” views about what is happening at the CVM.
“VetMed was always a crown jewel for OSU, but I think most of us in administrative roles know it’s bad now,” this person shared. “Everyone knew about the accreditation problem a few years ago,” referring to CVM being placed on probation by the American Veterinary Medical Association for “deficiencies” in 6 of 11 standards necessary for accreditation.
When the discussion turned to explore whether her area of the University was experiencing the same rate of attrition as CVM, which has seen more than 50 faculty and staff members depart in just two years, this person offered an interesting take: “Main Campus HR is a revolving door. Lot of young people who don’t have the wisdom or experience or training to speak up if something is wrong.” In this person’s opinion, this is a potential reason why the office of Human Resources is so mistrusted at CVM and has not been able to identify any institutional or personnel issues that may be driving staff loss.
”After a few people leave, you’d think a well-functioning HR team would say ‘hey, maybe something’s wrong – coaching, culture, something’ but after fifty people leave and it still continues? You just don’t see fifty people all of a sudden throw in the towel overnight. The only thing I can think of why HR is just letting people leave like this, not even asking a question about what’s causing it or if things are happening properly, it’s the revolving door of inexperienced people in the main campus office who won’t ever tell someone senior that something’s wrong.”