On November 9, 2017 the Portland Business Journal published an interview with Wim Wiewel on "why his retirement from PSU didn't last long." (Access the article from the Library’s databases list.) After describing how he would prefer to continue making a difference somewhere instead of living in Spain and working on his tennis game, interviewer Andy Giegerich asked: "There were some union issues with the PSU administration, as well."
Wim responded:
"PSU has a faculty union, and I think those unions created an atmosphere of distrust between faculty and staff on the one side and administration on the other that's just not helpful. It got in the way of doing things. All faculty have a natural skepticism toward administrators, and that might be healthy, but at PSU, it veered toward disrespect. Here, I just enjoy the more collegial atmosphere we have here across the institution."
Well there you have it folks- that's how Wim really felt about working with AAUP.
I won't comment on the falsity of Wim's statements, but I will gladly take the credit for "getting in the way of" Wim's removing 15 pages from our Collective Bargaining Agreement. I'm sure we all remember vividly why the faculty authorized a strike with a 94% of the vote in 2014.
It is nice to close a chapter on an administrator who clearly was not a good fit for PSU.
EF 11/28/2017