Purdue faculty group calls for provost’s resignation, wider vote of no confidence
AAUP: ‘Unilateral decision-making’ by Provost Patrick Wolfe undermines faculty and campus. Wolfe: Aspiring to be a Top 5 public university brings decisions ‘bound to be uncomfortable for some.'
A group of Purdue faculty are pressing for the resignation of Provost Patrick Wolfe, calling for the faculty-led University Senate to hold a vote of no confidence over the handling of faculty hires, lingering dean searches, “fostering a climate of self-censorship” and more than a dozen other issues since he was promoted in 2023 to be the university’s chief academic officer.
Purdue’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors – a group that often has been critical of the administration on the West Lafayette campus – drafted and voted on a letter in late January that contends “students, staff and faculty have suffered from the effects of his unilateral decision-making.”
From a letter recently shared with University Senate members and obtained by Based in Lafayette: “Boilermakers across campus have lost confidence in Provost Wolfe’s leadership and have been unable to get Provost Wolfe to course-correct through internal channels. Our ethical and professional obligations to Purdue and to the state of Indiana require us to speak up in order to protect the community we hold dear.”
“Rather than a single breaking point, the issue was the range of ways in which the provost’s actions have harmed faculty morale, weakened our community, and undermined fairness and transparency on campus,” Erin Moodie, president of the AAUP at Purdue, told Based in Lafayette.
Wolfe, who is entering his fourth year as provost after time as dean of the College of Science, did not respond to specific claims in the AAUP letter.
“At any given time there are bound to be channels active outside those we recognize for faculty shared governance at Purdue, and as such we don’t have a university response,” Wolfe said Tuesday. “I will note that our declared aspiration to become a Top 5 public university in the United States requires considered choices and trade-offs, and understandably such are bound to be uncomfortable for some.”
Moodie declined to say where the request stood with the University Senate and whether a vote of no confidence had a chance to happen. An attempt to reach Mark Zimpfer, University Senate chair, wasn’t immediately successful Tuesday. Agendas for the next University Senate meeting, scheduled for Feb. 16, had not been posted, as of Tuesday.
The letter goes through 16 points the AAUP chapter contends show “a pattern of short-sighted decision-making that has negatively impacted nearly all parts of Purdue.”
Among the allegations lodged against Wolfe:
