As damage control continues in the scandal surrounding President Amit Chakma’s double salary payout, a review of Western University governance practices has been released.
The review, which was released on Thursday, was generated by a governance review task force and lays out a number of recommendations to enhance communications between Western’s Board of Governors, its academic governing body and the campus community. Western officials say the recommendations will also provide the board more opportunities to hear the range of views among stakeholders and to improve effective decision making.
Some of the recommendations include introducing regular board reports and holding more meetings between the school's governing bodies.
“The recommendations reflect the principles of good governance that are intended to help ensure Western succeeds in accomplishing its strategic goals,” says task force chair and Western board member Matthew Wilson in a media release.
According to the review, one of the most common observations made by the task force was the board appears "disconnected and insulated from the university community and makes its decisions without fully understanding what is happening across the campus."
The review says the board also needs to establish better ways of letting the campus community know what it is doing and how it operates.
The governance review task force was created by the board back in June after concerns were raised when the 2014 public salary disclosure revealed Chakma was paid nearly $1-million that year, which is more than double his regular salary. A provision in his contract allowed him to collect a year’s salary in lieu of a paid year off at the end of his first five-year term.
The salary disclosure caused outrage within the Western community, spurring online petitions, protests and an attempted vote of non-confidence in the university president.
The governance practices report will be presented to the Western's Board of Governors for approval at its meeting on November 26.
To read the complete review and the task force's recommendations, click here.
-With files from Scott Kitching
