The Chart, Missouri Southern State University's newspaper, has provided a public service, printing the copies of letters supporting embatteld University President Bruce Speck. (It should be noted that the Joplin Globe had access to the same letters and did not print them.)
From reading the letters, it is obvious that Board of Governors member and former president Dwight Douglas, who launched the petition drive supporting Speck, also supplied much of the information cited in the letters as reasons to support Speck.
Read the letters. You will not have trouble finding the ones that are parroting Douglas.
15 comments:
Randy,
Thanks for the plug, but could you link to The Chart? We like the pub, but a link to our content helps, too.
Check into this:
The Kappa Alpha connection that runs through the letters.
My apologies to the Chart. I thought I had linked to the article, but obviously, I did not.
I just checked. The post already links to the letters from The Chart. You can click on the words "the letters" and it takes you directly to them.
Perhaps the most appalling letter is from MSSU Assistant VP for Student Services and Dean of Students Doug Carnahan. Carnahan takes several shots at former President Leon and the faculty, even managing to get in a couple of digs about Dr. Speck in the process. (In short, only Doug Carnahan is perfect; everyone else is flawed.) Carnahan certainly won't make many friends with this letter.
No Chamber letter? No Phelps, No Corley, No Beimdiek? Oh MY! But the 55+ Lunch Bunch has spoken --- so what else is there to say?
Really? They couldn't get a single faculty member to go on record. They could not get a major donor. I noticed two letters from Commerce Back. Do they sponsor anything on campus? SMB and MidMO do and I did notice letters from them. I didn't notice a letter from the Rotary, either. Good thing we have the 55+ lunch bunch to help us out.
Carnahan is acknowledged as the laziest person on campus. Ever see him in his office? His actions and attacks on the faculty are no surprise either. Since he is the advisor to the Student Senate we already know what to expect from the students.
As for Douglas and Speck's campaign, it is clearly the work of Douglas. Paula Baker is the director of the Ozark Center, a Freeman Hospital branch and Phil Wilcoxon of Joplin School Board is the director of the Neosho Freeman Hospital. Any more Freeman connections? How about MSSU's health insurance contract. Ask St. Johns... When is this contract going to be let out for bid again, Dwight? It's been seven years without bid...
There is a lot of KA, GOP and Freeman voices. No surprise. A lot of Joplin chamber types too. When did the chamber, big friends of Julio, change allegiance to Bruce? Guess they just want to support whatever administration is in power regardless if MSSU could do better.
There are several letters from MSSU graduates but a lot of those people did not attend Southern.
Randy:
Would please repeat in this thread Linda Hand's comments from the Student Senate thread? Well done by Dr. Hand!
Her response to students would apply well to those who have written letters from the "community".
Can someone please inform Doug Carnahan that MSSU employees do not write personal letters on university letterhead!
When Carnahan says it is all about money, for him, it might be. He could be ticked off that the Dean of Students (Carnahan) makes 20 grand less a year ($83,076)than the academic deans ($103,764). DC is the guy that has to deal with the messy side of academic institutions, some of which (plagiarism and academic dishonesty issues) are turned in by faculty. See, when faculty identify the cheaters, they create work for him. When students are disruptive or make threats to secretaries or faculty, he has work to do. Perhaps, after all these years (too many perhaps) people get tired of cleaning up the messy backside of anything. Perhaps one might feel a bit slighted, I don't know! It could be that this is an opportunity to get on the good side of the one guy who can say, "Why does the DEAN of students make so much less than the other DEANS?" and then do something about it? I think someone's bucking for a raise by playing the loyalty card! So perhaps Carnahan spoke up because he wants a raise, the very thing he accuses faculty of doing. Perhaps it isn't about a raise, rather, maybe all he needs is a fresh box of wet wipes so that he can continue to clean the messy backside of the institution.
I agree with the previous post that Doug Carnahan does not have a pleasant job. His work has definitely been appreciated but also definitely been taken for granted by the campus. However, in this case, the issue is not DC. The issue is BS, as in Bruce Speck. If Bruce Speck were a true leader, he would take this controversy to heart, take responsibility for his part of it (i.e. occasional mis-thoughts, violating to comply with his own 'open door' policy by refusing to meet with faculty committees) and recognize that while he is the president, he has to lead, not hide behind Dwight Douglas' temper tantrums. The sooner that he realizes that Dwight Douglas has led him astray, the sooner he will get his own career and MSSU on the right track.
These letters of support for Dr. Speck speak of his ability to speak well in direct contact with people at such activities as Chamber, Convention Bureau, etc... They say nothing about his ability to manage. Speck does the same to faculty: he says one thing in public and then does another with his actions.
The dissatisfaction comes from the way he makes singular decisions without the input of interested groups. He'd actually be successful and have a greater chance for continued success if he had simply gotten faculty involved from the beginning instead of creating a questioned economic crisis and making curriculum budget cuts without input.
IMO, Carnahan's letter is very sad. On the one hand, for him to wonder privately about faculty motivation is fine. We all do things in private that shouldn't be made public. But when he wrote this letter, he was writing it in the official capacity of the Dean of Students. To put such a questioning of faculty motivation in a public on the record letter is very, very bad and massively unprofessional (to say that least).
Somehow I doubt he put it in, by the way, before asking Bruce "do you mind if I say X? Or Y? And how about Z?" I mean really, he works for him. So for Bruce to say "sure, go ahead" speaks a few volumes right there.
But in any case I think right here, with this letter, you get a clear glimpse of what the institutional problems are at MSSU. These are your faculty, you idiot. The people who actually help create, foster and develop educational programs for your students. The people who did not go into education for money. If you want to defend the president, go ahead. But call the motives of the faculty into question in the worst way?
Shameful, despicable, and clearly unprofessional.
In reality, writing the letter is the most work Doug Carnahan has done in a long time. On campus, he is referred to as the "Do Nothing Dean." He delegates everything to his assistants, except for handling a few cases of plagiarism and disciplinary issues. You would think a Dean of Students would occasionally develop some new initiatives or programs, but Carnahan hasn't done anything such thing.
Longtime Douglas ally, Terri Agee, has been named in-house counsel according to the Globe.
It costs MSSU a lot of money to keep Speck on the job...
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