By Greg Grisolano
and Derek Spellman
news@joplinglobe.com
Regardless of the outcome of the faculty vote Monday on its confidence in President Bruce Speck’s leadership ability, both sides say the election will be another step toward change at Missouri Southern State University.
Both Speck and faculty senate President Roger Chelf, a physics professor, said last week they see the no-confidence measure as significant, but for different reasons.
Chelf said he believes faculty members want a “culture change” — a phrase Speck has used frequently to describe upheavals in the budget and the fundamental structure of the university as it works to implement a strategic plan and to develop a shared governance policy between faculty and administration. But Chelf said that culture change will probably require a new president.
“(Speck’s) in over his head,” Chelf said. “He’s not presidential material. When he arrived here he was going to give everybody everything. That’s not the way a president acts.”
“I really haven’t put a lot of time into thinking about (the vote),” Speck said. “I’ve tried to put my time and energies into finding out what the issues are that I need to address.
“I have confidence I can lead this institution,” he said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come here. I think the vote is going to determine how much more of an effort I have to engage in the communication aspect (with faculty).”
‘Empowered’
Chelf said he is predicting 70 percent of those who cast ballots will record a lack of confidence in Speck’s leadership. While the no-confidence vote is essentially a symbolic gesture that does not carry the binding weight of law or policy, Chelf said he hopes the university’s Board of Governors will take notice and review the situation.
“If Bruce Speck survives this, I view it as a victory for faculty one way or another,” Chelf said. “We have re-empowered ourselves because before (the vote) we were being trampled on. I believe we will be heard. There will be better communication (between faculty and administration).”
Speck said even if the margin is overwhelming in terms of a lack of confidence, it would not shatter his resolve to move forward.
“What that (margin) would say to me is we have to continue to figure out what the issues are and how we can get a better level of satisfaction (on campus),” he said. “The vote is part of a process we’re engaged in, it’s not the end of the process. It’s a point where we say what do we need to do based on this result.”
Concerns
The culture at Missouri Southern started changing in February 2008, when Speck succeeded Julio Leon as president. Leon’s administration — which lasted for 25 years — was characterized as “autocratic” and “highly centralized” in an accreditation report by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the accrediting body for MSSU. Globe efforts to obtain comment from Leon have been unsuccessful.
The university was also faulted in the report for a lack of a strategic plan to guide its long-term operations and spending, and a lack of shared governance enabling faculty to have a say in the decisions.
“Julio would give you the impression the he never paid attention, but if good ideas were heard, they generally happened,” Chelf said. “Speck will sit there and listen to anybody about anything, but he never follows up with any action.”
The faculty senate voted 21-5 last month that it lacked confidence in Speck’s leadership. The vote was taken following the recommendation of the ad hoc committee assembled by the senate earlier this year. The committee produced a report citing 23 grievances against Speck, including failures of leadership, management, shared governance and judgment, and public embarrassment.
Part of the leadership grievances outlined by that report include the lack of an administrative team solidly in place.
Speck has repeatedly said he feels he made a mistake by publicly announcing his selection of Jack Oakes to be the vice president of academic affairs this summer before a signed contract was in hand. Oakes resigned just 18 days into the job, and later sent an e-mail to the board detailing what he described as problems with Speck’s leadership style.
“People have often gone back to that and his accusations are echoing through all of this,” Speck said. “And it raised questions about my leadership and keeping the administrative team together.”
About a month after Oakes resigned from the post and returned to teaching, longtime Business Affairs Vice President Terri Agee also announced she would be doing the same thing in January. Agee has publicly stated her decision is based on a desire to return to teaching. Three finalists from outside of Missouri Southern are being interviewed for the academic affairs post. A search has not begun for Agee’s replacement.
Board’s role
The chairman of Southern’s Board of Governors said he speaks for the board when he says it has confidence in Speck’s leadership.
“He’s under contract,” Rod Anderson said in a phone interview with the Globe on Friday night. “So right now, the board has confidence in where we’re going right now.”
Anderson acknowledged that the board began hearing rumblings of discontent among faculty members at some point last spring, but said that he as a board member doesn’t “base a lot of my judgments on rumors.”
“I’m not a board member that will try and search out a bunch of rumors,” he said. “There might have been a few rumblings of some issues that were needing to be looked at, but until they had some kind of organizational thrust, I didn’t really understand what their criteria was all about.”
To a question, he said the board may have played a role in the unrest by directing Speck to cut at least $500,000 from the fiscal year 2009 budget.
“We instructed Dr. Speck to do some pretty serious things with cuts and no raises (for faculty) for two years,” he said. “ Those are issues that didn’t produce a real happy environment, I don’t think. We were trying to bring our (cash) reserves up to a reasonable level. The cuts were pretty draconian. They were pretty tough. But we can always take a step back and look to see where we need to arrange the revenue.”
Background
The board also spent more than two hours behind closed doors during its Aug. 22 meeting evaluating Speck, who waited for more than 90 minutes outside before he was called back into the room. The board later approved a two-year extension of Speck’s contract — at the same annual salary of $180,000 — during its September meeting, and after the faculty senate had formed its ad hoc committee to determine whether and how to call for the no-confidence vote. The board also directed Speck at that time to “improve relations” with faculty, which led to Speck conducting a series of “listening” meetings with faculty this past week.
“I think in the short time he’s been given to make changes, he’s really trying to do that, and that’s what we’re wanting,” Anderson said. “There’s probably other things down the pike that he’ll need to do.”
Despite those events, Chelf said that he plans to make an appeal to the board following Monday’s vote, in hopes that it will “review the situation.”
“There’s talk of a no-confidence vote in the board if they do nothing,” he said. “But I damn sure I don’t want to go down that road. We’re not there yet.”
Anderson’s reaction: “Every one of those faculty members can have my salary if they want it.” He noted all board members serve on a voluntary basis and are unpaid.
He also said he is not concerned about a potential rift between the board and faculty.
“The quality of education at Missouri Southern is all I am concerned about,” he said. “Once Dr. Chelf presents such arguments to the board, then I’ll entertain comment on something like that.”
Student impact
Students have also weighed in on the controversy during the months leading up to Monday’s vote. A group of students from the Asian Studies Club organized an independent petition calling for the board to remove Speck because of budget cuts that impacted the university’s international mission. That group delivered 150 signatures to the board at its October meeting. An organizer of that effort complained that many students were unaware of the issue.
The student senate also organized its own ad hoc committee on presidential review. That group was charged with obtaining information from faculty, administrators and students to assess the situation.
That committee has not issued a final report, but student senate President Will Lynch said the discussion Wednesday indicated the student senate would not pursue its own vote of no confidence in Speck.
Lynch, a senior in political science, said he believes the campus is suffering some fatigue over the length of time the situation has played out.
“I’m pretty sure I’m with everybody on both sides of this and with the students when I say that we’re all ready for this to be over,” he said. “A clear decision needs to be made either way by the Board of Governors (following Monday’s vote). I know (Speck’s) contract has been signed until 2011. But something needs to be said so everybody can move forward with the healing process or get ready for a transition. As soon as we find out, I think the university will be at a little bit more peace than it is right now.”
Despite the fact that unrest between the faculty and Speck has been publicly playing out for more than two months, Lynch said he doesn’t believe the issue is adversely affecting students in the classrooms at this point, but it may impact future enrollment if it drags out.
“I worry about what sort of reputation Missouri Southern will have in having all this attention in this manner,” he said. “I’ve always been under the impression that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I see this situation really challenging that dogma. If I was a senior in high school right now, and I was choosing a university to go to, it would seem to me that Missouri Southern is lacking a little bit in terms of direction. Having to do another search for a president, to me, that would probably impact my decision (to enroll at MSSU).”
Chelf said the faculty senate has tried to move the no-confidence procedure along “as quickly as possible” so that it would not affect classroom operations.
“Our job is to see that the kids here become whatever they want to become,” he said. “That’s not something you can sell. Our ultimate goal is to provide the best education for our students. And we simply see an administration that is trying to put us on a business model that detracts from that.”
Looking for answers
In the week leading up to the vote, Speck engaged the campus community during the series of “listening meetings” where faculty members were encouraged to discuss issues in an informal manner. About 60 instructors attended those meetings, which regularly focused on concerns including the fate of the international mission, the hiring of tenure-track rather than adjunct faculty, the budget, and soliciting faculty participation in decisions.
The faculty members attending those meetings also frequently pressed Speck to articulate his vision for the future of Missouri Southern.
Speck and Chelf agree that the meetings have been positive, but differ on how much of an impact the forums will have in addressing concerns brought forth by the ad hoc committee’s report.
“I think they should continue,” Chelf said. “It’s unfortunate they didn’t happen sooner than a week before the no-confidence vote.”
Speck said he got a sense from the meetings that faculty have a desire for “direct communication with the president.”
“I think these meetings are helping to address concerns people have had,” he said. “And I think that kind of communication needs to continue to occur.”
Anderson said he believes the board acted in an appropriate and timely manner when directing Speck to mend fences.
“Sometimes it takes time for our board to analyze everything and see where things are situated,” he said. “It’s not like the board can snap it’s fingers and make a 180-degree turn. This process has brought a lot of information out, and I’m looking more to the future than the past and what we can learn from this.”
Public interest
Chelf said the public should be taking an interest in the outcome of the vote because “we are a public university heavily funded by the citizens.”
“They should care,” he said. “But they aren’t the ones living in a bad environment, so maybe they don’t understand what’s been happening.”
For Anderson and the board, Monday’s vote is “new ground.”
“I don’t know what to expect,” he said. “I think the only thing it does is to continue the work we’ve instructed and continue the positive nature we’ve hopefully begun to observe. Hopefully anything that needs to be corrected will be corrected, and we’ll go from there.”
Procedure
Chelf said the vote will be carried out from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday in room 341 of the Billingsly Student Center. He said the list of eligible voters was expanded to 237 people from only full-time faculty with senate representation to include coaches, department heads, and administrators who are designated as full-time faculty by human resources, but who do not necessarily teach a full-time course load of 12 hours. The vote will not be open to part-time adjunct instructors or to support staff.
