Chancellor Brady Deaton received a positive evaluation last month from MU faculty. More than 400 faculty members responded to a survey about Deaton’s performance over the last seven years.

Deaton received mostly positive marks on the evaluation, with his lowest scores being in the areas involving communication with the faculty.

Following the evaluation, Deaton met with the Faculty Council, the organization in charge of the evaluation, to discuss ways to improve.

“The area that stood out for me that requires additional attention is that of more direct communication with the faculty,” Deaton said in a letter to the university faculty.

Following the meeting with the Faculty Council, Deaton expressed four ways to improve communication between himself and the faculty.

He plans to “increase the frequency of email updates,” attend more college and divisional meetings, “institute an annual town hall meeting with faculty, staff and students,” and meet with the full Faculty Council once each semester.

Faculty Council Chairwoman Leona Rubin said she believes the meeting was very productive.

“I think his plans are very good and right on target,” Rubin said.

Rubin also said all of the blame for poor communication between Deaton and the faculty does not fall to the chancellor himself. She said it is the responsibility of the deans of individual colleges to invite him and have a reason to invite him.

“Communication is a two-way process,” she said. “It’s actually about you saying to something and someone saying something back to you and having a dialog and I think that’s what the faculty is looking for.”

Although the Faculty Council and the chancellor are looking for ways to improve the results of the evaluation, Rubin said Deaton scored highly in most areas.

“I would say just based on my impression, Chancellor Deaton’s evaluation was much better than evaluations we’ve seen in the past,” she said.

The June evaluation was Deaton’s first as chancellor. Normally, the Faculty Council does evaluations every five years, though it does not always happen.

“One of the issues with Chancellors is they don’t usually stay long enough to get evaluated,” Rubin said.