July 02, 2024

University of Massachusetts Amherst Hires MWI to Bridge Ombuds Office

Following the departure of Interim University Ombuds, Lea Occhialini, at the end of 2023, UMass Amherst asked MWI to provide Ombuds services to over 38,000 students, faculty, and staff across 12 schools and colleges. The initial six-month contract was renewed July 1, 2024 for an additional six months. The UMass Amherst Ombuds Team of Derrick Johnson, Birthe Reimers, and Larry Hunt work with the existing Ombuds office manager, Kristen Farrell, and reports to the Chancellor. As with all of their clients, MWI's Ombuds Team practices to IOA Standards as specified in a written agreement.

Johnson has been the Ombuds at Florida State College at Jacksonville since 2018 and brings decades of experience in student services services and counseling in substance abuse, juvenile justice, and vocational rehabilitation. Reimers is an Ombuds, mediator, coach, and published conflict scholar-practitioner with 16 years of experience in the field. Since January 2018, she has been the Director of the Office of the Ombudsperson at Georgia State University. Hunt has been the Ombuds for Amherst College since 2019. (UMass Amherst Ombuds; MWI UMA Ombuds.)

Update 7/12/24: The UMass Amherst Ombuds webpage now explains: 
The university is launching a search for a permanent ombudsperson in Fall 2024. While the search is ongoing, ombuds services will be provided virtually by MWI, a nationally recognized dispute resolution provider. Limited in person meetings are also available upon request.

8 comments:

  1. Bridging to what? Another MWI contract? Bridging implies a transitionary period from one long term stable period to another. I think a more appropriate title would be "UMass Amherst Extends MWI contract for additional six months." I know you strive for impartiality as a reporter, Tom, but I think you missed the mark on this one. This item reads like MWI promotional material, which is disappointing since there is a legitimate controversy among organizational ombuds about whether ombuds can or should be outsourced.

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    1. Fair point. But "bridge" makes a shorter headline than "extends contract for another six months." And, to be honest, many of my posts sound promotional.

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    2. Ombuds should support other Ombuds. This harsh criticism towards our peers is not helpful. It’s not their fault that organizations choose a particular method for filling a role. If anything, we should be celebrating the fact that they’re investing in the role and find it valuable. There are pros and cons, benefits and vulnerabilities with both models. There is no upside to creating rifts when we should be supporting our community of professionals and respecting organizations who choose IOA-compliant Ombuds.

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    3. UMass Amherst asked MWI to submit a proposal to provide organizational ombuds services to their campus. Our proposal was accepted and the ombuds team has done an amazing job providing IOA-compliant services to visitors. The contract was renewed. There is no controversy as to whether this can be done. Our goal is to provide organizations with high-quality ombuds services as I assume you strive to do as well.

      I look forward to engaging in legitimate and meaningful conversations about how ombuds can best serve their organizations, vs responding to unfounded claims of whether ombuds, who are independent of the organizations they serve, can or should work with visitors.

      I hope you will consider shifting this conversation from "should" to "how." and contribute to supporting each other as we each provide the best possible ombuds services to the organizations we serve.

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  2. Outsources Ombuds should not be looked as the problem, it is the symptom of IOA’s failure to professionalize the Ombuds field.

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  3. Perhaps we (the broader Ombuds community - insofar as we are one - as well as IOA specifically) could do a better job of having conversations (including available to public) about the pro's and con's of the outsourced/fractional/contract option vs having an in-house employee Ombuds? My team at Harmony Strategies Group has had quite a few internal conversations about it, and there are clear differences and both benefits and drawbacks. Given that the broader Ombuds community ourselves haven't discussed contract vs employee Ombudsing, it's possible, nay likely, that our clients are completely in the dark and are not considering the alternative. That's not to say they don't benefit from having SOME FORM of Ombuds, but perhaps one model is best fitting certain organizations where the other would best fit a different one. For example, my team at Harmony Strategies typically work with clients who do not need full-time support due to their small population size, and it can be challenging to find people with experience in the role for part-time, as-needed work - it makes more sense in many of these spaces to outsource. I can't speak to what the considerations are for an outsourced full-time support system, as that is not our experience. I myself am curious to hear what the considerations are for this kind of setup and welcome a conversation - perhaps IOA might help and host a conversation for everyone to engage and chime in with thoughts and critiques of the different approaches.

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  4. Thanks for your comments, Kira.

    I hear your point about how giving organizations a choice of who to work with is good for them and for the field. It seems counter to our work as ombuds to limit options and choice, especially if ombuds (whether in-house or outsourced) practice to IOA standards and are experienced.

    I welcome participating in the conversation and wish all the best to you and your team at Harmony Strategies!

    Chuck.

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  5. As with individuals and teams the foremost service we can provide organizations is to help them understand what they truly need and (as Kira points out above) perhaps some models better serve institutions better than others. As Chuck also points out limiting the options and choices for orgs seems counter to what we do. I will always believe that some form of an Ombuds function is better than none. Having provided in the past contract Ombuds services that were contract remote, contract on-site/remote, and full-time on-site only (and nowadays post-Covid hybrid Ombuds services) I believe there are indeed advantages and disadvantages to all models. My preference being that most orgs with a non-distributed population should have a fully IOA Standards compliant Ombuds on-site/hybrid. That is truly the gold standard (and by implication all others are fiat?). Again, different models for different needs.

    What I hope future conversations (here's looking at you IOA and hoping you have an Undebate Session on this topic) flesh out is that we have the needs of the org., the constituents/visitors we serve AND let us not forget the professional needs of the Ombuds. Over the years we've moved into more go a gig economy and (as with everything) there are upsides/downsides to such an economy. Let's keep the conversation (in a better medium) going.

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