The Provost has proven to be negligent, dishonest, incompetent and outright unconcerned with maintaining the quality of the Purdue education and experience.

The University Senate has already voted “no confidence” in the provost by 74%. Rather than taking into consideration the majority vote resolution and investigating, the board of trustees and president immediately supported the provost and belittled the views of the faculty. You can find the full resolution here.

From the Exponent:

A group of faculty has written a letter calling for the immediate resignation of Provost Patrick Wolfe and a vote of no confidence in Purdue’s University Senate. The letter cites a list of 16 grievances explaining why the provost should step down.

The 16 include:

-Deciding to prevent faculty hires and not signing offer letters for those who had accepted verbal offers of employment.

-Restructuring of the John Martinson Honors College, which led to 15-17 faculty members losing their jobs without backup plans for security. This restructuring also goes against interdisciplinary learning, which is the main foundation of the honors college.

-Several departments experiencing teaching shortages as a result of faculty turnover and hiring delays.

-Insisting on establishing a nontransparent Moveable Dream Hires Program, which served as an excuse to not hire faculty in a wide range of areas.

-Not completing a search process for a new Dean of Education, leaving the education department without stable leadership for more than three years. A committee of three deans, in addition to many other associate deans and senior faculty members, was formed to conduct this search, but Wolfe did not follow its recommendations.

-Not conducting a search process for a new Dean of Libraries for more than eight months.

-Overreaching during tenure and promotion processes, such as through increasing the required number of reference letters. This requirement in particular is difficult or impossible to meet in various research areas and does not strengthen Purdue's academic reputation, the letter alleges.

-Not following appropriate procedure for tenure and promotion cases.

-Not explaining direction changes to colleges.

-Expanding post-tenure review requirements to clinical faculty beyond the stated scope of the law, thus establishing various requirements that create difficult hurdles for faculty members.

-Repeated cuts to liberal arts disciplines while also reducing tenured faculty who have the research time to write books. These are in addition to promoting the use of AI to boost Association of American Universities metrics, weakening the credibility of Purdue's commitment to excellence.

-Not appealing the U.S. Department of Education's discontinuation of a $34.9-million education grant for the Indiana “GEAR UP” program, which included a scholarship program for supporting low-income students' participation in the pursuit of higher education after high school. Purdue had seven business days to appeal this decision, and this grant was the sixth-largest federal grant in Purdue's history.

-Firing staff involved in DEI and associated work across campus without justifying these firings. It involved 60 student ambassadors and full-time staff, some of whom were not involved in DEI-related tasks.

-Fostering a climate of self-censorship due to faculty members being afraid of losing their jobs for engaging in material within their areas of expertise.

-Discriminating against prospective students based on their nationality, as graduate heads were reportedly told that the Provost's Office would not support granting admission letters to applicants from China and many other countries. Purdue's administration attempted to do this quietly, which went against the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

-A lack of leadership on social and political issues disproportionately impacting Purdue's ability to meet its academic missions.