Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Blacks, gays, you name it, MSSU president will discriminate


After the events of the past few days at Missouri Southern State University, I decided to revisit an old Turner Report entry, added some information to it and submitted it today as my Daily Kos post. That post is printed below.)

A uniter not a divider.
That was the slogan George W. Bush used in his first campaign for president and that was how current Missouri Southern State University President Bruce Speck was described when he first strolled onto the campus.
The phrase did not turn out to be accurate for either man, though it comes closer in the case of Speck. Speck is succeeding in doing something that has never happened in the seven decades Missouri Southern has existed, going back to its days as Missouri Southern State College and Joplin Junior College.
For the first time, the MSSU faculty is united…in opposition to Speck. Furtive attempts to unionize the faculty have occurred from time to time during the quarter of a century that Dr. Julio Leon was in charge of the campus, but nothing ever came of it.
Recently, a chapter of the American Association of University Professors was organized on campus and late last year, the faculty overwhelmingly issued Speck a vote of no-confidence. Still, the Board of Governors has stood by its man and told him he needs to be nicer to the faculty.
And now the students have joined the battle. Last week, students organized to protest the exclusion of gays from campus non-discrimination policy.

A sit-in was held outside Speck’s office Thursday, less than a week after a member of the Board of Governors resigned after making a comment about the university’s mascot changing from a “fag lion” to a “ferocious lion.”

Speck, as usual, did not offer any illuminating comments to the media about the situation, preferring to engage in doublespeak. He told the Joplin Globe, “If we have issues that we need to deal with, then I am committed to dealing with those issues,” he said. “And we have systems in place to deal with them.”
Speck also insisted that adding language concerning non-discrimination against gays to the policy could pose legal problems for the university.

Since Speck’s arrival, the university has been permeated with an atmosphere of fear as programs have been cut without notification, and seemingly without rhyme or reason, at a time when the country is having deep economic difficulties, but when the university itself appears to be in reasonably good shape.

In addition to the programs that have been eliminated, Speck has taken substantial steps toward dismantling the university's international program, the campus’ state-approved mission, and one which has brought students from all over the world, as well as taking MSSU students to numerous foreign countries.

It appears the MSSU Board of Governors either did not look carefully at Speck’s recent background, or it did look carefully, and decided that he was precisely the person it wanted to lead the university.

On April 14, a lawsuit in which Speck was initially a defendant came to a close when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Speck’s former employer, Austin Peay University in Tennessee, did not discriminate against four African American professors. Though the court ruled there was not enough evidence to prove discrimination, the decision noted that the only evidence of racism that had been offered was a quote allegedly made by Speck. I wrote about the lawsuit and other controversial issues surrounding Speck and racial discrimination on my blog, The Turner Report:

“The lawsuit said that Speck, who served as vice president of academic affairs at the university, insulted two of the plaintiffs, Jacqueline Wade, director of the university's African American Cultural Center (AACC) and Nancy Dawson by saying ‘he 'was tired of your arm-twisting and resistance to my decisions.'

“He also made clear that he would not tolerate Dr. Wade’s and Dr. Dawson’s 'pushiness' and 'uppityness.' Dr. Wade was offended by the latter comment as 'covert racial denigration.' "


Though the situations at Austin Peay and Missouri Southern are not the same, both involve a “my way or the highway” attitude that has created friction at the faculty level.

It would be easy to give the Missouri Southern State University Board of Governors a free pass since everyone makes a hiring mistake at one time or another, but the hiring of Bruce Speck was a bit unusual.

Despite his previous record at Austin Peay, which apparently was not investigated closely by the board, Bruce Speck was the only person the board interviewed for the most important job on campus.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:15 -- You are the idiot. The point is, a university administrator should never treat subordinates with a lack of respect, and must be on guard with comments that might be construed as sexist, racist, or slanderous. And everyone with any intelligence knows you don't call a black person "uppity."
I don't know whether the Bored of Governors (misspelling intentional) were aware that Speck was a loose cannon or not when he was hired. However, he obviously has a problem controlling both his temper and his language. He is obviously unfit for administration. I imagine that when he taught classes, he was autocratic and inflexible. If he does NOT retire, and get the heck out of Joplin, then we are doomed.
So, Board of Governors, I think the outcome of this is clear. Speck has to go, and the quicker the better. He should not be allowed to do any further damage to this college. Yes, I know, you call it a university. But it functions like a community college. The instruction given is far from that at a University. And that is because you have chased away your good faculty and kept mostly only those who will toe the company line. The rest are either moochers who wouldn't have a job unless it were in Joplin, so they gladly keep their mouths shut and do whatever they are told (including a few administrators), or they are about to clean your clock by organizing, talking the moochers into joining them (except for the sycophantic administrators). You, dear board, will be known as the board who was removed Jay Nixon because the faculty woudn't stay in the classroom otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Randy, you really are filled with hate...hope you find some relief for that before it's too late....somewhere along the line you really turned sour and vicious...bet your mom and dad are really proud...

Anonymous said...

The fact that this is posting on The Daily Kos should tell you all you need to know. the Daily kos is a far left hate site, that I guess fits well for randy and the 4-states.

Anonymous said...

So Turner is against discrimination against gays and blacks or discrimination, period. How does that make him full of hate? It doesn't compute...

Anonymous said...

Way to go Randy - its about time someone reminds us that this guy needs to be gone - faculty , students and I would bet a large portion of the community are tired of all of the negatives at MSSU Hide your heads in the sand board of whatever it is not going to go away

Former Student said...

Anonymous 4:45 and 5:36 - why are you making something political about this? the Daily Kos is a progressive web site, but so what? Not everyone in SW MO has been drinking the GOP Kool-Aid. The fact is, Speck is more than a spot on MSSU --he is a blight. But he was brought here and nurtured by the radical right. (Yes, I know that rhymes.) What we really need in Joplin is less extremist rhetoric and more level heads getting things done. Speck has to go. Now is an optimum time to send the guy packing. If you fail to act, Board, you will find yourself out of a civic duty.
A reasonable group of professionals would see the handwriting on the wall, cut their losses, and move on. If you are concerned about buying out his contract, look to your own deep pockets and bail MSSU out of this mess!

Anonymous said...

Hey I bet they could buy him out with all of the pay raises that no one got the last two years one of them being the year that we received more state money than we had ever received - how about the money that we came in under on the new health building - or the money we didnt spend on the storm shelter/indoor practice field - of course as we all know they keep adding more staff and administrators

Anonymous said...

It's all about faculty...any issue.... the animals want to run the zoo...that's why I quit donating to my old school....

Anonymous said...

9:36 am
The animals want to run the zoo when the zookeeper is incompetent, abusive and vindictive. You should just stop and think (objectively) about what has happened at your beloved old school since Bruce got here:
- Three vice-presidents have resigned to go "back to the classroom". One of them lasted only 18 days on the job. In each case, they gave up salaries in the $120's to go back and teach at about $65,000. Why?...
-- A national search for academic vp was declared failed after the finalists withdrew, one by one...why?
-- To this day the university has no vp for academics. We are functioning with an interim, the current (also) dean of business, another (almost) incompetent, universally disliked.
--Two searches for business dean have failed. Candidates withdrew one by one... Why doesn't anybody want to come here? Mr. Douglas says the zookeeper he hired is very good, it's the animals fault... Fact is, 78% of the animals declared no-confidence on Speck's abilities (and on Douglas and the board, by default)
--Along with the board chair, Bruce floated the notion that the school was near bankruptcy and in serious financial crisis when in fact, after a controversial year, the animals have come to realize there was no financial crisis after all. Just a desire by Douglas to accumulate cash reserves. While we have not had a raise for two years (only administrators like Agee, Yust, Eis,and Gibson got substantial raises) the university has accumulated $12 million in unrestricted cash reserves and $3+ million in restricted cash. Whay? What for?...
--To accumulate all that cash Speck and Douglas drastically cut the international studies budget and when the backlash came, they portrayed the faculty and students as happy, lazy tourists.
--Bruce compounded the problem by agitating the animals when he "composed" a song praising himself as the cost cutter and the faculty as people not getting a raise. He sang it publicly and very proudly to his fellow Rotarians...
--Forced the university foundation to borrow $250000 to hire a Kansas City architect and draft plans for a building which will be rented to a prospective medical school. This in spite of the fact that the medical school has fired its president and the board of the school says they had never heard of the arrangement with Southern. We may never get the medical program in Joplin, but we are spending a quarter of a million anyways...
Need any more reasons 9:36 am? There is a lot more...
Enough for now... yes, the animals are restless and asking for corrections but the board has its head in the sand and refuses to "listen". They just prefer to utter homophobic slurs at board meetings...
If you love your old school, you ought to be a little better informed. I hope this has helped some, 9:36.

Signed: Inmate #345 at the Animal House.

A Student Let down said...

As a student at MSSU, I feel nothing more then sincerely let down by this establishment being ran by such a foolish man. To fork out thousand of dollars and set myself into an early debt and realize that the very president of this school cares nothing of the mission, faculty, and students... is completely disappointing and appalling. This man, excuse me, man is a bit unnecessary in addressing Speck... This foolish figure we like to call a president is about as disappointing as our new piss poor construction mess laying outside of our library. I hope that the University rids of this being before we lose some of our incredible faculty members. Let this be a cry for our sand dwelling board. Perhaps they will come to a brilliant realization and can the "President". Perhaps we could as well change the discrimination policy for the students with homoerotic tendencies, for the protesting doesn't go in vain. Much more so for the sake of the students though... however, blacks and gays... they are not the only victims of Specks foolishness. All of us students have been let down by this one zookeeper.
On a closing note, labeling the sculptors of young minds as animals... well thats just "Speck-like".