|
|
Prof. Janusz Supernak
Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dear Janusz:
I am responding to your letter of February 4, 2004, in which you express concern regarding the handling of Dr. Mirat Gurol's application for difference-in-pay leave in the academic year 2004-2005.
As you correctly state in your letter, the CIVE Personnel Committee met in a timely fashion and made a positive recommendation. As Committee Chair, I communicated this decision to you verbally and returned the application on or around October 10, 2003 to the departmental secretary, for forwarding to the next higher level, i.e., the department chair. Now, I have been at SDSU for more than 23 years and am very aware of procedures. I could not have told the secretary to "file it," as you state in your letter.
As you state in your letter, only by January 17, 2004, did you discover that Dr. Gurol's application had not been properly processed. You then checked the document, which had remained on file in your office. Apparently, I had forgotten to sign the document; a clerical error on my part. By that time, more than three months had passed, and no further action had been taken regarding the document.
We are all busy, and deal with enormous amounts of paper every day. At any level, overlooking an administrative signature on a document is a fairly routine occurrence. It is for this reason that the system has a built-in system of checks and balances. Documents regarding official actions are checked at each level to ensure that correct procedures have been followed and that the required signatures are present. If the documents in question are not received at the higher level in a timely manner, there is follow-up at that level to determine the reason. I therefore submit that the problem with Dr. Gurol’s application was not so much a case of a missing signature, but rather, in the length of time the document remained at the departmental level without being reviewed or moved forward.
You mention in your letter, and I quote "One of the responsibilities of [the] Department Chair is to oversee the operation of different departmental units and make sure that any relevant procedures and rules are followed as they should [be]." I could not agree more with you. I forgot to sign the letter, but I did forward it to you and did communicate to you the outcome of the Committee's decision. The fact that you did not have to sign the document does not clear you from the responsibility to oversee the process.
In closing, while I regret the incident, I cannot, given the facts, take the full responsibility for it.
Sincerely yours,
Victor M. Ponce
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
cc: Dr. David Hayhurst, Dean of Engineering
|
|