This week we wanted to get a reaction from this school’s president on a unanimous decision by a Kansas City medical school not to partner with Southern to bring a branch school to Joplin. Speck has pushed this partnership for a year, and when things were looking up, he always had something to say about the proposal. But Tuesday, when the 14-0 vote came down from Kansas City, Speck was nowhere to be seen, and unavailable for comment. We asked Surber for an interview with Speck, to get his thoughts on the vote, and how he planned to lead this institution forward as alternatives are considered. Instead we were told Speck would be unavailable, and that Surber didn’t know why.
That’s not leadership, that’s juvenile.
It’s time for the Board of Governors to decide whether Bruce Speck — or Rod Surber — will speak for this University.
This blog features observations from Randy Turner, a former teacher, newspaper reporter and editor. Send news items or comments to rturner229@hotmail.com
Friday, April 23, 2010
Chart editorial: Speck refusal to talk to media not leadership, just juvenile
In the latest of a series of hard-hitting editorials, Missouri Southern State University's newspaper, The Chart, ripped into President Bruce Speck's policy of refusing to talk to the media:
It is time for Speck to go! The board must be embarrassed by his every utterance, if not my his actions and, more so, buy his inaction.
ReplyDeleteNo more excuses. No more delay. No more B.S.!
is the faculty embarrassed by the ex art instructor?
ReplyDeletethis poor horse is just about beaten to death...randy, let it go...what will be, will be....
The former art professor quietly retired, never to set foot at MSSU again. Why can't Speck also leave?
ReplyDeletethat cheap shot is comparing apples and eggplants
ReplyDeleteSpeck's media policy may be the best approach for him since any questions from the press would either be about failures (like the med school) or controversies (numerous protests on campus), and answering such questions would put his name on yet another unflattering story that would appear in any Google search done by any institution he may be interviewing at for his next job. (And, yes, he is on the job market - remember, The Chart found he interviewed for a job at Spalding University earlier this year.) However, this policy is hurting Southern in many ways and what Speck has never really understood is that good leaders put the institution's needs before their own. Rod Surber should get a medal for the impossible shield-like position Speck has put him in. I sincerely hope Surber's reputation doesn't suffer because of the cowardly actions of his boss.
ReplyDeleteI challenge anyone to list three or four positive achievements of Speck's in his two-plus years at MSSU. Someone will say he has increased the university's cash reserves, but that was mainly an accounting trick involving depreciation. It's also because faculty haven't gotten raises for three years in a row.
ReplyDeleteSo, what are his accomplishments? How many times has he been on the front page of the Joplin Globe in a negative light? Thirty or forty?
Maybe the Board has taken some action and told Speck to keep his mouth shut. This might actually be the first indication that he is on the way out.
ReplyDeleteI think you may have hit on something, Adam. The man hasn't looked happy for quite a while, and his disappearing act is the very mark of a person who is leaving soon. Pray to God that it is so!!!! And we need to get rid of DD and GN, too. And Please, God, don't let GN win any more elections.
ReplyDelete