Monday, October 26, 2009

Speck to faculty: Don't blame me; I'm just doing what the board tells me

Missouri Southern State University President Bruce Speck's first meeting with faculty reminds me of Groucho Mark's description of a fight in the movie "Monkey Business"- "Bobbing and weaving, nice work if you can get it."

For $180,000 a year and more fringe benefits than you can shake a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time (another Groucho line), Speck tells faculty he is simply an expensive megaphone for Dwight Douglas and the Board of Governors:

In response to a majority of the questions, Speck said the Board of Governors has made the decisions or will be making them. He said his role has been to provide guidance on the pros and cons of an issue so that board members have a reasonable foundation on which to act. He also said he is making recommendations to the board.

He was asked whether he would ever take an adversarial position with the board if he disagreed with something it did.

“I will give them my best judgment of a situation,” he said. “It’s not a question of whether I can live with it or can’t live with it.”


The lines are all reminiscent of Groucho, but it would be far preferable if Speck would emulate Harpo.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wally Kennedy reports that only eight faculty attended...
Chelf and Dale Simpson reportedly asked questions.
Who were the other six? A good bet:

Teri Agee, vp; Brad Kleindl, dean, Doug Carnahan, dean of students, Yust, Treasurer; Linda Eis, Asst. treasurer; Jeff Gibson, budgets (Debbie Dutch Kelly, inhuman resources)

Lame answers. Pretty sad, Bruce...

Anonymous said...

What an enlightening public statement by Dr. Bruce Speck. He is simply the mouthpiece for the decisions of the Board.
We should, then, be able to go back to the Board meeting minutes and see exactly which Board Member suggested the cut in the International Mission and which members voted for that. Of course, it could be that once again Dr. Speck is attempting to hide behind public statements that are untrue. Budgets are usually proposed by the Administration and approved by the Board. The Board is to blame, that's for sure, but their failing is in approving Speck's ideas, not suggesting them to him.

Anonymous said...

Round 1 goes to Speck.

Anonymous said...

"Round 1 to Speck". Wrong, Carnahan, or Bruce, or Dwight, or Debbie Dutch, or whomever you are...
How can Round 1 go to Speck when almost nobody attends. That shows the respect Bruce has attained on our campus. He claims the depreciation issue is a "complex problem" and he will have the financial team explain it to the faculty (translation: "I don't understand it myself. I just do what I am told. The financial team can explain it in accounting jargon to where it will be clear as mud"). The Chart already established that no state university in Missouri uses depreciation as an expense in the budgeting process. They work on a cash budget basis. Depreciation was used at Southern just to claim financial deficit spending and to build back up the reserves. Bruce, tell us how much, and in what specific projects, capital spending has been done each year since you have been here. And tell us also how much school money will go into building Nodler's boondaggle by the football stadium.

You should give the money back to the state, Nodler be damned!

Anonymous said...

So first it was all Leon fault. Now it is the Board's fault. When is he going to man up and be responsible. This is just another show of Speck trying to save himself.

Anonymous said...

Someone in the Globe comments said that a bunch of faculty were tied up in another meeting.

Anonymous said...

At the same time as Speck's listening session there was an Academic Affairs meeting - where course proposals and changes are discussed and recommended or not for approval by the Senate and ultimately the Board. Nice of Speck to schedule at that time so fewer people had the chance to attend.
He has also scheduled at four different locations around campus so that faculty can attend the meeting closest to their offices. Nice gesture, but obviously keeps the attendance at any one meeting to a minimum - no matter what he can cite low attendance, claim he made an effort and it is the fault of those 'uppity' faculty.

Anonymous said...

Did I miss the important part of the meeting? Didn't Speck call the 'storm shelter' an indoor practice field? I thought the State gave money for a storm shelter? Aren't there any requirements to use State funds for what they were actually intended? First the international mission money goes to sports and now a storm shelter.
Maybe faculty would be better off asking the Board to fire Speck and give his salary to Sports. They'd do it in a heartbeat.

Anonymous said...

The Chart reports the indoor practice facility will be now the size of a full football field and will cost upwards of $7 million and will be done in stages. The first stage will cost the $2 million of state money... The other stages will be done later as the money is raised. We will have to watch the expenditures in future years and make sure Dwight does not pay the rest sneakingly out of our "reserves". I say ours because they have been built on our backs.
Also, read Nodler's cya statement about "using the money for its intended purposes", hee, hee. Laughable.
How come there is not an uproar about this waste of taxpayers' money in these times of economic depression?
Where is the outrage of the good citizens of Joplin over this??