Posted on Fri, Nov. 19, 2004

Faculty groups rebuke Gilliland

Chancellor loses in four votes

By LYNN FRANEY

The Kansas City Star

In a highly unusual move, four faculty groups at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Thursday publicly chastised Chancellor Martha Gilliland, saying they lack confidence in her leadership.

The votes of "no confidence" - from professors in arts and sciences; business; and law; as well as part-time instructors - were meant to send a message to her boss, University of Missouri system President Elson Floyd, that they want a new campus leader, faculty group leaders said.

Floyd said through a spokesman that he was monitoring the situation. On Thursday, he and Gilliland were in Rolla, Mo., for a meeting of the system's governing Board of Curators.

Jim Durig, who leads the College of Arts and Sciences faculty group, said, "A no-confidence vote like this is very detrimental" to Gilliland's ability to lead.

Gilliland responded to the votes by sending an e-mail to faculty that read in part: "I had hoped for a different outcome, but as always, I look forward to opportunities to dialogue with faculty, those who are satisfied and those who are not. The debate is healthy."

The latest issue generating unrest on campus is a paper, distributed by Gilliland's second-in-command, that suggests ways to radically restructure UMKC. Professors are upset they weren't consulted on the details first.

The votes of "no confidence" were 97-29 in Arts and Sciences, 18-0 in the School of Law and 18-3 in the Bloch School of Business and Public Administration. The vote of the part-time faculty was not released.

"This is a historic vote for us. Nothing like this has ever happened," said Ed Hood, a law school professor who said law professors have not taken a similar stance in his 35 years at the school. "Clearly, I hope she is removed."

Hood said he had spoken to two curators about the faculty opposition to Gilliland and intended to contact others on the nine-member, governor-appointed board, as well as UMKC alumni, to tell them "how important we think it is that she be removed as the leader of this institution."

Gilliland has her supporters, including professor Ray Coveney in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Gilliland has improved UMKC's image in the community, he said, doing as well or better than her predecessors.

"I hope we can hold on to her," Coveney said.

With their votes Thursday, the faculty groups joined professors in the School of Biological Sciences, who earlier this week reaffirmed an earlier vote of no confidence in Gilliland. Last week, the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors said it did not support Gilliland.

UMKC also has schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, education, music, graduate studies and computing and engineering, as well as a group of faculty librarians.

The anger that some professors expressed with Gilliland this week has been building since soon after she arrived at UMKC from Tulane University in April 2000 to lead the 12,000-student university southeast of the Country Club Plaza.

She promised big changes, and soon began paying a California consultant who was a friend of hers more than half a million dollars in privately raised money. The consultant led numerous three-day workshops in which UMKC employees were asked to imagine what a new UMKC would look like.

Many employees liked the sessions, saying they could dream big for a university that too often suffers in the shadow of the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Kansas.

But many professors chafed at the exercises, dubbing them anti-intellectual and even somewhat authoritarian; the consultant said his and Gilliland's efforts to "transform" UMKC would weed out cynics and doubters.

Other battles between Gilliland and professors have erupted over high levels of dean turnover and failed searches, in some cases, for their replacements, and her pursuit of new budget criteria that would financially penalize a school if 80 percent of its professors and staff members didn't say they enjoyed working at UMKC.

Professors who backed this week's "no confidence" resolutions also said they have repeatedly felt pushed out of decision-making.

Professor Pat Brodsky, who teaches in Arts and Sciences and heads UMKC's chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the lopsided vote in Arts and Sciences "sends a clear message" of the depth of dissatisfaction on campus.

Durig, head of the Arts and Sciences faculty group, said Gilliland has taken many actions that have hurt UMKC's schools, including the recent use of 5 percent of each school's budget to support building projects that did not attract sufficient private money.

Gilliland has said changes are needed to give Kansas City the top-notch public university it deserves, and to allow UMKC to serve all its constituencies, including area businesses and civic leaders, along with students.

Her accomplishments on campus have included a new 550-bed dormitory, breaking ground for a new health sciences building on Hospital Hill and more student involvement in the community.

In her statement at 5 p.m. Thursday, Gilliland said: "While some faculty may disagree with me and my leadership team on how to get there, we all want what is best for the education of our students."

To reach Lynn Franey, call

(816) 234-4927 or send e-mail to lfraney@kcstar.com