The labor union representing the faculty at Wilberforce University has issued a vote of no confidence in President Floyd Flake that the school said on Friday is tied to contract talks. Black enrollment at the University of Colorado is up 24 percent within this year’s freshman class while the University of Louisville has hired 45 Asian, Black and Hispanic professors.

Flake No-Confidence Vote Dismissed as Contract Ploy

WILBERFORCE, Ohio

The labor union representing the faculty at Wilberforce University has issued a vote of no confidence in President Floyd Flake that the school said on Friday is tied to contract talks.

Flake, a former Democratic congressman from New York, was named president of the private historically Black university in southwest Ohio in July 2002.

The no-confidence vote occurred in March, according to Richard Deering, chief negotiator for the Wilberforce University Faculty Association. Deering said the vote wasn’t revealed publicly until now because teachers wanted to discuss the matter with the administration first and the union was reluctant to talk publicly about the vote.

A statement on the vote accused Flake of rarely being on campus, saying a lack of administrative oversight had resulted in a decline in academic activities.

Marshall Mitchell, executive vice president and university spokesman, said Friday that Flake typically spends between 1.5 and three days a week on campus.

Mitchell said the vote is tied to contract talks.

“We’re in the middle of union negotiations, and they’re not getting everything they want,” he said of the faculty.

Mitchell said one reason Flake was hired was so he could use his extensive connections to give the university more of a national reach.

“What they (faculty) viewed as a downside, the board of trustees viewed as an upside because the university had become so insular in the past,” he said.

Mitchell said that under Flake’s leadership, the school has reduced its debt, increased fundraising and boosted enrollment.

About 725 undergraduates are enrolled at Wilberforce, about 15 miles east of Dayton.