The Deans and their role in Loftin's removal
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Missouri-s-Deans-Plotted/234283
The resignation of R. Bowen Loftin as chancellor of the U. of Missouri’s flagship campus, in Columbia, followed weeks of efforts by nine deans to force out a leader in whom they had lost confidence.
When R. Bowen Loftin announced his intention to resign as chancellor of the University of Missouri at Columbia this month, the decision was widely regarded as a surrender to student-led protests over race relations on the flagship campus. But Mr. Loftin’s downfall was also, if not exclusively, the culmination of a well-orchestrated coup led by nine deans who had worked for weeks to secure the ouster of a chancellor in whom they had lost confidence.
It was soon after Mr. Loftin’s appointment, in 2014, that Missouri’s deans say they felt the first pangs of buyers’ remorse.
At first, there were the little things, like the fact that the chancellor sometimes seemed more interested in his phone than in his colleagues.
There was Mr. Loftin’s habit of calling the deans "essential middle management," a title that, while technically accurate, sounded like a disparaging dig.
The deans cringed when the chancellor told them, "I can fire you," which he once said to the entire group and occasionally told the deans individually, according to their account.
"Those who worked with him on campus were told, in no uncertain terms, that they worked for him, not with him," the deans said.
The deans’ concerns, however, were less about the chancellor’s words and more about his approach to governing, which they called secretive and scattershot. They were blindsided, for example, by a controversial proposal to cut health-care subsidies for graduate students.
That decision was later reversed, but not before considerable turmoil on the campus. On this point, Mr. Loftin said, the failure was one of communication. He said he did not realize that the decision would be announced before deans and others had been informed. "I was absolutely stunned by that," he said.
'Irrevocably Broken'
The tipping point for the deans came when one of their own seemed to have been forced out. In September, Mr. Loftin announced that Patrice (Patrick) Delafontaine, who had been dean of the School of Medicine for less than a year, would resign. The chancellor told faculty members that Dr. Delafontaine had decided to resign on his own, but the dean’s colleagues did not find that credible.
"All of the deans felt that Dean Patrick Delafontaine was doing a good job," the deans said. "To see his efforts dismissed and undermined, when added to our other concerns, led us to conclude that our relationship with the chancellor was irrevocably broken."
Thomas L. Payne, the senior dean and spokesman for the group, said that during his phone call with the chancellor Mr. Loftin apologized for having publicly stated that he could have the dean fired.
Mr. Payne, who is vice chancellor and dean of the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, said that Mr. Loftin also had a habit of publicly saying, "CAFNR has all the money," using an abbreviation for the college. For the dean, this was often awkward, undermining his efforts to raise money for the college, whose donors were left with the impression that it was exceedingly well-off. The chancellor apologized for this, too.
By that point, however, Mr. Payne and his colleagues had already decided that apologies were not enough. The chancellor had to go.
"Since we’re being candid," Mr. Payne recalls saying, "I feel I must tell you that I don’t think your leadership of this university is appropriate. I don’t think your approach, in many cases of fear and intimidation, is the way we operate in the Midwest or anywhere. I think you should resign."
Until a few days before those phone calls, Mr. Loftin said, he had no indication that the deans were so displeased with him. By the time the conversations began, there seemed little room for recovery.
"It was very surprising to me how strongly held their opinions were, and how much they kept it to themselves for a very long time," Mr. Loftin said. "Why did they stew on it for so long? Why did it take so much time?"
Two weeks later, on October 9, the deans gathered in a boardroom at the university-system offices for a meeting with Timothy M. Wolfe, who was then president.
"We indicated to President Wolfe that we believed our relationship with the chancellor could not be repaired and that he should be dismissed," the deans said.
By that time, racial unrest was starting to bubble up on the flagship campus, where the student-body president, who is black, reported that a group of young white men in a pickup truck had screamed racial epithets at him. Mr. Loftin had called the incident and others like it "totally unacceptable," but students criticized him as being insufficiently responsive.
The chancellor said that he worked tirelessly on race-related issues, but that he was also realistic about how challenging it would be to change things. "This is where I got criticism," Mr. Loftin said. "I said, ‘Look guys, this requires changing hearts. We can fix a lot of things here, but we can’t change hearts overnight.’"
In the deans’ view, the chancellor’s response was anemic, and it gave students and the public a glimpse of Mr. Loftin’s ineffectiveness. Racism is indeed a problem at Mizzou, the deans said, but the chancellor’s decisions on graduate-student benefits, including health-care coverage and reduced tuition stipends, had fomented the very resentment and distrust on which the protest movement fed.
The day after the deans’ meeting with Mr. Wolfe, student protests started to ratchet up. A group called ConcernedStudent1950, which took its name from the year Missouri admitted its first black student, organized a demonstration at a homecoming parade, where protesters surrounded Mr. Wolfe’s car. The president did not engage with the students but moved along the parade route, making himself a potent symbol of administrative apathy.
As the student-protest movement gathered steam and attracted national attention, the deans’ parallel effort to oust the chancellor continued quietly in the background.
On October 13, three days after the parade, Mr. Wolfe summoned the deans, Mr. Loftin, and Garnett S. Stokes, the provost, to the system office. What followed was a re-airing of grievances by six deans who were in the room, along with three more who joined the meeting by teleconference.
Mr. Loftin, hearing calls for his resignation, scribbled notes and remained silent.
The chancellor described the meeting as a "star chamber" where he was dressed down for more than two hours. "With a raised voice, one dean said right to me, ‘I don’t want you in my house,’" Mr. Loftin recalls.
The deans interpreted the chancellor’s silence as another sign of his disengagement. Mr. Loftin, conversely, saw no opening to do anything other than to take his licks. "How do you respond to that?" he said. "That was the wrong place to engage."
Mr. Loftin said he followed up with the president days later, hashing out a plan to deal with the deans individually. But all the deans heard was silence. There was no follow-up, and the campus was growing ever more consumed with the crisis over race.
In the fervor of the protest movement, scrutiny of Mr. Wolfe began to eclipse any student misgivings about Mr. Loftin. It was the president, protesters said, who had to go.
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Missouri-s-Deans-Plotted/234283
The resignation of R. Bowen Loftin as chancellor of the U. of Missouri’s flagship campus, in Columbia, followed weeks of efforts by nine deans to force out a leader in whom they had lost confidence.
When R. Bowen Loftin announced his intention to resign as chancellor of the University of Missouri at Columbia this month, the decision was widely regarded as a surrender to student-led protests over race relations on the flagship campus. But Mr. Loftin’s downfall was also, if not exclusively, the culmination of a well-orchestrated coup led by nine deans who had worked for weeks to secure the ouster of a chancellor in whom they had lost confidence.
It was soon after Mr. Loftin’s appointment, in 2014, that Missouri’s deans say they felt the first pangs of buyers’ remorse.
At first, there were the little things, like the fact that the chancellor sometimes seemed more interested in his phone than in his colleagues.
There was Mr. Loftin’s habit of calling the deans "essential middle management," a title that, while technically accurate, sounded like a disparaging dig.
The deans cringed when the chancellor told them, "I can fire you," which he once said to the entire group and occasionally told the deans individually, according to their account.
"Those who worked with him on campus were told, in no uncertain terms, that they worked for him, not with him," the deans said.
The deans’ concerns, however, were less about the chancellor’s words and more about his approach to governing, which they called secretive and scattershot. They were blindsided, for example, by a controversial proposal to cut health-care subsidies for graduate students.
That decision was later reversed, but not before considerable turmoil on the campus. On this point, Mr. Loftin said, the failure was one of communication. He said he did not realize that the decision would be announced before deans and others had been informed. "I was absolutely stunned by that," he said.
'Irrevocably Broken'
The tipping point for the deans came when one of their own seemed to have been forced out. In September, Mr. Loftin announced that Patrice (Patrick) Delafontaine, who had been dean of the School of Medicine for less than a year, would resign. The chancellor told faculty members that Dr. Delafontaine had decided to resign on his own, but the dean’s colleagues did not find that credible.
"All of the deans felt that Dean Patrick Delafontaine was doing a good job," the deans said. "To see his efforts dismissed and undermined, when added to our other concerns, led us to conclude that our relationship with the chancellor was irrevocably broken."
Thomas L. Payne, the senior dean and spokesman for the group, said that during his phone call with the chancellor Mr. Loftin apologized for having publicly stated that he could have the dean fired.
Mr. Payne, who is vice chancellor and dean of the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, said that Mr. Loftin also had a habit of publicly saying, "CAFNR has all the money," using an abbreviation for the college. For the dean, this was often awkward, undermining his efforts to raise money for the college, whose donors were left with the impression that it was exceedingly well-off. The chancellor apologized for this, too.
By that point, however, Mr. Payne and his colleagues had already decided that apologies were not enough. The chancellor had to go.
"Since we’re being candid," Mr. Payne recalls saying, "I feel I must tell you that I don’t think your leadership of this university is appropriate. I don’t think your approach, in many cases of fear and intimidation, is the way we operate in the Midwest or anywhere. I think you should resign."
Until a few days before those phone calls, Mr. Loftin said, he had no indication that the deans were so displeased with him. By the time the conversations began, there seemed little room for recovery.
"It was very surprising to me how strongly held their opinions were, and how much they kept it to themselves for a very long time," Mr. Loftin said. "Why did they stew on it for so long? Why did it take so much time?"
Two weeks later, on October 9, the deans gathered in a boardroom at the university-system offices for a meeting with Timothy M. Wolfe, who was then president.
"We indicated to President Wolfe that we believed our relationship with the chancellor could not be repaired and that he should be dismissed," the deans said.
By that time, racial unrest was starting to bubble up on the flagship campus, where the student-body president, who is black, reported that a group of young white men in a pickup truck had screamed racial epithets at him. Mr. Loftin had called the incident and others like it "totally unacceptable," but students criticized him as being insufficiently responsive.
The chancellor said that he worked tirelessly on race-related issues, but that he was also realistic about how challenging it would be to change things. "This is where I got criticism," Mr. Loftin said. "I said, ‘Look guys, this requires changing hearts. We can fix a lot of things here, but we can’t change hearts overnight.’"
In the deans’ view, the chancellor’s response was anemic, and it gave students and the public a glimpse of Mr. Loftin’s ineffectiveness. Racism is indeed a problem at Mizzou, the deans said, but the chancellor’s decisions on graduate-student benefits, including health-care coverage and reduced tuition stipends, had fomented the very resentment and distrust on which the protest movement fed.
The day after the deans’ meeting with Mr. Wolfe, student protests started to ratchet up. A group called ConcernedStudent1950, which took its name from the year Missouri admitted its first black student, organized a demonstration at a homecoming parade, where protesters surrounded Mr. Wolfe’s car. The president did not engage with the students but moved along the parade route, making himself a potent symbol of administrative apathy.
As the student-protest movement gathered steam and attracted national attention, the deans’ parallel effort to oust the chancellor continued quietly in the background.
On October 13, three days after the parade, Mr. Wolfe summoned the deans, Mr. Loftin, and Garnett S. Stokes, the provost, to the system office. What followed was a re-airing of grievances by six deans who were in the room, along with three more who joined the meeting by teleconference.
Mr. Loftin, hearing calls for his resignation, scribbled notes and remained silent.
The chancellor described the meeting as a "star chamber" where he was dressed down for more than two hours. "With a raised voice, one dean said right to me, ‘I don’t want you in my house,’" Mr. Loftin recalls.
The deans interpreted the chancellor’s silence as another sign of his disengagement. Mr. Loftin, conversely, saw no opening to do anything other than to take his licks. "How do you respond to that?" he said. "That was the wrong place to engage."
Mr. Loftin said he followed up with the president days later, hashing out a plan to deal with the deans individually. But all the deans heard was silence. There was no follow-up, and the campus was growing ever more consumed with the crisis over race.
In the fervor of the protest movement, scrutiny of Mr. Wolfe began to eclipse any student misgivings about Mr. Loftin. It was the president, protesters said, who had to go.
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