Posted on Wed, Dec. 01, 2004

Cohen

Don't fight changes at UMKC

By Steve M. Cohen

Special to The Star

Gilliland is a leader with vision and passion.

My son is a senior at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

I have a doctorate in education, I have been an adjunct faculty member of UMKC, and for 14 months, I was a consultant for UMKC working directly for the former provost, Steve Ballard.

On occasion I have worked directly with Martha Gilliland, UMKC's chancellor.

I know UMKC.

I know all of the deans and most of the department chairpersons. They are, as a group and individually, very fine educators and administrators as is Gilliland. UMKC is one of the most important assets of Kansas City and it often does not get a fair hearing in The Kansas City Star, and its leaders do not get a break from some on the faculty.

The position taken by the faculty against Gilliland in this instance is unfair and mean-spirited. Gilliland and the leadership within the various schools are trying to reform an entrenched and self-perpetuating organism. The sense of rigid entitlement and righteous indignation that emanates from the faculty is formidable. They fight any attempt at reform or change. They resent accountability. They have a “cushy” job and they want to keep it that way.

The faculty is a community of thinkers. These thinkers examine ideas well, but they don't make decisions well. I used to tease them: If one of them died and was on the way to heaven and came to a fork in the road, with the way to the left labeled “this way to heaven” and the road to the right labeled “this way to talk about heaven,” each of them would go to the right!

Gilliland is a leader with vision and passion and is a decision-maker. Her style can be abrasive, I'll grant you that, but her mandate is to innovate. UMKC has been a “sleepy” institution in the past. Its lethargy under past chancellors rendered it benign and mundane — not a disgrace to Kansas City but nothing to get excited about.

Gilliland is a mover and a shaker and her impression on the faculty who would rather have it the old way is, of course, negative. UMKC can be, and in fact needs to be, a great institution. Kansas City demands more than mediocrity. It can become excellent only through a tough and painful journey of self-examination and commitment to change. The faculty needs to get on board with the changes or get out of the way.

Steve M. Cohen is president of the Labor Management Advisory Group, a management consultancy specializing in human resources. He lives in Lee's Summit.