Thu, Nov 26 2009
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Published November 02, 2009 12:34 am - Some MSSU professors say a ‘perfect storm’ led to the campuswide vote. Faculty votes today By Derek Spellman and Greg Grisolano news@joplinglobe.com Facing criticism and questioning from faculty members, as well as a no-confidence vote, Missouri Southern State University President Bruce Speck last week said he remained somewhat bewildered as to the source of at least some of the frustration. The faculty complaints formally leveled against Speck in September included assertions of breaches of shared governance and instances in which he allegedly overstepped his bounds in several personnel decisions. Speck said there had been no culture of shared governance before he came to the campus in February 2008, and that the “cardinal sins” of which he is now accused were committed “fairly frequently” before his arrival, although he did not cite specifics. Phone messages left for Speck’s predecessor, Julio Leon, have not been returned. Some faculty members have said there is a big difference between Speck’s leadership and that of his predecessor, and not just because the former said he would be different from the latter. “(Leon) had some skill at dealing with the politics of faculty,” said Stephen Schiavo, a professor of computer sciences. “He could keep the discontent down. You would never have seen him getting defensive and belligerent in his relationship with the faculty. Certainly not in the paper. So I think there was a level of confidence in his abilities that was different than a lot of people see now (in Speck), even though a lot of people resented his (Leon’s) single-handed way of doing things.” Speck had said he would help advance plans for shared governance and supply information to the campus. Yet more than a year into his administration, he sent the then-faculty senate president, Carla Walter, an e-mail in March 2009 stating: “(I)f the Faculty Senate believes, incorrectly, that they will dictate to administration how the university is to operate, we have a serious problem on our hands, and I think it only proper to inform you, as the Senate President, that I have no intention of reporting to Faculty Senate or any committees established by the Senate. In addition, I will no longer allow those in administration to take requests for information from faculty members, whether representatives of the Senate or otherwise.” Joy Dworkin, an English professor and chairwoman of the university’s faculty welfare committee, wrote to the Globe in an e-mail that today’s no-confidence vote is the byproduct of a “perfect storm” of factors that included “extreme budget pressures, new movement toward some form of shared governance, continued institutional growth in realizing its university status.” ‘Accountability’ 
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