As Missouri Southern prepares for a full faculty vote on confidence in the presidency of Bruce Speck, the issues that have led to unrest on campus don’t appear to be unique.

Humboldt State University in California levied an overwhelming vote of no confidence on president Rollin Richmond five months ago, and the similarities between the controversy at Humboldt and Southern are striking.

The General Faculty Association at Humboldt voted no confidence during a May 12 meeting with a 128-4 tally. The resolution cited a “pattern of failed leadership on issues core to the creation of a positive communicative and working environment,” and said Richmond was hurting both the integrity and success of the school. Southern’s Faculty Senate conducted a 21-5 no confidence vote on Oct. 5, based on findings of an ad hoc committee report that listed examples of Speck’s failures of leadership, failures of management, failures of shared governance and failures of judgment and public embarrassment. A full faculty vote will be held Nov. 2.

The schools are similar in size. Humboldt has an enrollment of 7,000, and Southern’s has climbed to 5,700. Richmond took over as president seven years ago, while Speck arrived at Southern in early 2008.

Documents released by both faculty groups outline reasons why faculty members have lost confidence in their presidents.

One of the strongest similarities between the institutions involves problems with shared governance.

Southern’s Faculty Senate report listed seven instances in which Speck had exhibited failures of shared governance. Those points included Speck unilaterally appointing Jack Oakes as academic vice president after the resignation of John Messick, without a search for the position or input from members of the faculty, and the way Speck handled the aftermath of Brad Kleindl’s resignation as dean of the school of business administration.

Oakes decided against taking the vice president position 18 days after it was announced he would replace Messick. It was then, the report said, Speck finally decided to form a search committee, but Speck currently chairs the committee and it initially had only faculty member with no administrative duties, “contrary to shared governance and the benchmarking standards that he himself endorses.”

After Kleindl’s announcement last January, four department heads together requested the appointment of an interim dean, believing a search for the position during the academic year and with budget problems facing the school “would not be optimal.” The report said faculty in the school of business overwhelmingly supported the request, but the President’s Council rejected the proposal and initiated a search for an outside hire. That search was unsuccessful.

Tensions at Humboldt reached a boiling point last spring when Richmond appointed an interim provost to the position of permanent provost without conducting a national search.

Numerous faculty bodies, including the full senate, the senate executive committee and chairs of the college of arts, humanities, and social sciences provided “strong, clear, often unanimous,” opinions that a national search for the position was necessary, according to a memo from the General Faculty Association. The president convened a committee last October to evaluate a report by an outside consultant that recommended appointing the provost permanently. The committee provided arguments against that action, citing the need to build trust on campus, and Richmond agreed not to appoint the interim provost.

Last spring, however, Richmond brought back his proposal to make the provost permanent, without a search, and the senate executive committee voted unanimously against the plan. The president attended the last faculty senate meeting of the spring semester, but didn’t mention whether or not he was implementing his proposal. The next morning, he announced the appointment by email.

A Higher Learning Commission reaccreditation visit to Southern in April 2008 resulted in criticisms of shared governance and strategic planning at the school, and the agency said it would return in three years for a focus visit. In response to that upcoming visit, Speck formed a Shared Governance Taskforce that was charged with beginning discussion on campus about shared governance.

“I hope this doesn’t jeopardize our accreditation, I really do,” Faculty Senate President Roger Chelf said. “I think we’ll be all right, even if Bruce stays I believe this process is going to make us a stronger place and it’s going to make the faculty voice more heard.”

Richmond wrote three drafts of a statement regarding shared governance at Humboldt, but the faculty senate found each statement unsatisfactory, according to General Faculty President John W. Powell.

Humboldt is also in the midst of the reaccreditation process, and a visit by the WASC last year resulted in the agency recommending delaying a scheduled visit for Educational Effectiveness Review for one year to allow the school time to revamp the decision-making process and reach a shared vision.

Powell said some faculty members of suggested writing to the agency and asking to be put on probation, because they don’t believe the school can meet those goals.

“(They’ve told me) that maybe then people would actually bear down and start addressing some of these issues,” he said.

Another report, issued last fall by an outside consultant, offered a harsher review of the state of the school, saying Humboldt was just avoiding making the tough decisions made necessary by budget cuts, instead of reacting to the cuts in a strategic way.

“The accumulation of these decisions has resulted in a dysfunctional campus culture that is characterized by ineffective presidential leadership, a lack of shared institutional vision and governance, ineffective decision making, and a fatigued if not demoralized administration, staff, and student body,” the report said.

Vision

Both Speck and Richmond have failed to successfully articulate visions for the university to the faculty.

Southern’s ad hoc report said Speck has explained the dire situation the school is in and the likelihood of additional hardship, instead of proclaiming his vision for Southern. The report cited Speck’s first “Occasional Thoughts” memo, in which Speck said he had been hesitant to proclaim his vision because he did not want to “subvert the strategic planning process.” The report said it is Speck’s vision for the University which drives that process, and if effective strategic planning is not demonstrated during the HLC focus visit, reaccreditation could be jeopardized.

In his response to the senate report, Speck said he had “articulated components of a vision,” especially regarding Southern as being entrepreneurial with fundraising.

“In my efforts to make that vision a reality, I have found a learned helplessness across campus that has caused me to revise that vision to include significant training in how departments can reach out to the community,” Speck wrote.

At Humboldt, Richmond’s failure to articulate a vision was one of four main problems cited by the senate executive committee.

“He has acknowledged to a couple of people that he’s not real good on vision, which is an understatement,” Powell said.

During a meeting with the executive committee, Richmond was asked what his vision for the future was. He couldn’t answer, and asked Powell the same question.

“This university is actually dominated by a kind of vision, I think, that we are fanatical about teaching quality, that we are ambitious to educate people who can solve environmental and social problems and influence social structures, not just fit into a cubicle someplace,” Powell said.

International Programs

Speck’s cuts to Southern’s international programs and Richmond’s cutting of a popular German program both led to criticism from the campus communities.

Southern’s faculty report said Speck has dismantled the state-mandated international mission, and listed it as an example of failures of leadership. Speck cut funding for the Institute of International Studies by 40 percent a year ago.

“The decimation of the mission has produced an outpouring of concern from students, faculty, alumni, and the community,” the report said. “He has failed to respond to these concerns.”

In Speck’s response, he called Southern’s international programs a component of the school’s mission, and said that component has not changed. He said international travel can be transformative, and also mentioned a committee he created last fall to evaluate the international mission. The International Taskforce Committee issued its findings in September, but Speck has not responded.

Richmond proposed eliminating Humboldt’s German Program in early 2008. The senate responded with a 22-2 vote against the proposal, but the program was cut anyway.

Powell said the program consisted of service courses in language, exposure to German literature and films, advanced language courses, trips abroad and a German major.

“I claimed that the move to cut the German Program was a move endorsed by a very small group of administrators and that everybody else was against it,” Powell said.

“I think they wanted to do it in order to have a token gesture to give to the people at Long Beach to show them we’re really hurting,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story is the first part of a two-part investigation into similarities between the causes of faculty unrest and process of a no confidence vote at Missouri Southern and Humboldt State University.