Saturday, September 26, 2009

Douglas, Board following playbook used at other universities

There is nothing new about the way Dwight Douglas, Rod Anderson, and other members of the Missouri Southern State University Board of Governors are trying to handle the controversy surrounding President Bruce Speck.

in the latest edition of the campus newspaper, The Chart, an article by Brennan Stebbins, an expert, constitutional law professor Mae Kuykendall, examines those methods and notes they are the same as those used at other universities where the president is under fire:

"Let's not get the cart before the horse," Douglas added. "Let's get procedures. Let's assure everybody in this process has an opportunity to review what's done and to respond to it."

University President Bruce Speck later said he shared the same concerns.

"I think Dwight Douglas raised issues of procedures that do concern me because I don't know there is a clear procedure here," Speck said. "Certainly they've talked about procedure, but I don't know, I've not been given a written procedure. I've not been told you'll have so many days to respond or any of those things, as we would normally have in, say, a faculty handbook for faculty members."

Kuykendall said, however, that no-confidence votes typically have no formal procedures, and a lack of procedures is often used as a defense.

"I began to see it's a standard script, they always attack the procedures by which the vote happens," she said.

"They always attack the motives of whoever's participating and trying to make them petty," she added. "It's always a generic charge."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I cannot imagine why the folks from the Globe, the Press, KOAM, KODE, or the hart have all failed to ask the most revealing questions of Dr. Speck, on camera or at least, on the record:

* Has the board given you clear instructions to mend fences with the faculty? (If so, what are they? May we see them?)

* Have you taken any steps to mend fences with the faculty? (If so, what are they? May we see evidence of them?)

* Is it your contention that if you go, the Med school goes with you? (If so, do you think holding the Med School hostage is in the best interest of the community, or only in the best interest, temprarily, of Bruce Speck?)

* Do you concede any of the issues discussed in the ad hoc committee's report? Is there nothing you feel you did badly, and would do over differently?

* Do you still believe, as you have said to the press, that the faculty hold no special place in a four-year university, and they should have no more role in governance than the lawn crew or book store clerks?

* Do you support the Board's assertion that the Faculty Senate's move to consider a vote of no confidence was a courageous act, in the best interest of the university? Or do you support the assertions made by an "anonymous blogger", that the faculty are nothing more than whiners who are overpaid and under-contributing members of the MSSU community?