Harreld Hire Mulholland Update

A little over a week ago the Iowa Board of Regents pushed back hard against growing evidence that there was impropriety in the hiring of J. Bruce Harreld to be the next president of the University of Iowa. In doing so the regents summarily demonstrated that the hire was in fact the definition of impropriety.

On the question of shared governance, one quote from Regent Katie Mulholland crystallized the degree to which the board believed it was obligated to take the opinions of the faculty and staff at Iowa into account.

“In my role as a regent, we honor the shared governance of the university faculty and staff,” Mulholland said. “But shared governance is really different from shared decision-making.”

Now, on first reading that may seem coherent, but as we’ll see it’s actually the kind of bureaucratic doublespeak that long-time administrators use to avoid lying to your face. Because of course lying is uncomfortable and messy and leads to hurt feelings, while doublespeak conceals duplicity and thwarts accountability.

Mulholland’s Honor
As regards the actual mechanics of the 2015 UI presidential search, it is inarguable that shared governance was different from shared decision making. The faculty was included in the decision making process at the committee stage — albeit in the minority — and it was that phase of the search which determined the four finalists who were sent to the nine-member Board of Regents for the final vote. Although feedback was solicited from the UI community after the finalists appeared on campus, the regents were constrained only to choose among the final four candidates selected, not the candidate or candidates that the faculty, staff and/or students favored most.

As is often the case when individuals or boards are charged with making decisions that affect others, someone has to call the shots, and it’s entirely possible that the premise of representative governance will become lost in the process. In federal and state government it is not at all uncommon for politicians to pander to interests either divorced from or even antithetical to the will of the vast majority of voters, instead voting to suit their own individual or crony agendas. By state statute, when it comes to hiring a new president at any of the state’s three institutions of higher learning — whether acting in the best interests of all involved, or as craven politically appointed toadies determined to corrupt and pervert the entire process in their favor — as a factual matter the Iowa Board of Regents has the final say.

But that acknowledgment only addresses the second line in Mulholland’s quote. The implication from the quote is that the second line follows from the first, but is that true?

Here’s the first line again:

“In my role as a regent, we honor the shared governance of the university faculty and staff,” Mulholland said.

There is no reading of that sentence that does not devolve to what Katie Mulholland means by ‘honor’. While we might parse her definition from the context of the quote, or perhaps from other statements she has made as a regent, we previously noted with regard to businesspeople and politicians — and by extension their underlings — that we can’t trust what they say. The only way we can ever know what they’re up to is to watch what they do.

So while we know what Mulholland said — that the regents “honor the shared governance of the university faculty and staff” — the only way we can know what that means is to compare those words with what the regents did to demonstrate shared governance during the hiring of J. Bruce Harreld.

Here are the key events:

• The regents impaneled a search committee, which included three regents and nine faculty members from the University of Iowa.
• The search committee considered, met with and interviewed candidates while whittling the search to four finalists.
• Each of the four finalists appeared, individually, in an open forum before faculty and staff, with former executive and current freelance consultant J. Bruce Harreld going fourth and last after three academic candidates.
• After each presentation and question-and-answer session, the University of Iowa community was canvassed for feedback about the four finalists.
• The final tally from faculty, staff and other stakeholders was as follows:
  

  In a survey conducted by the UI chapter of the American Association of University Professors, only 1.8 percent of faculty and 2.6 percent of other respondents answered “yes” to the question of whether Harreld was qualified for the position. The other candidates — Oberlin President Marvin Krislov, Tulane University Provost Michael Bernstein and Ohio State University Provost Joseph Steinmetz — all had more than 90 percent of respondents view them as qualified, with Steinmetz being the highest.

• The results of the feedback from faculty and staff were known by the regents prior to the regents’ final vote.
• The regents voted unanimously to hire J. Bruce Harreld.

So. Where’s the honor? Can you see it? Because no matter how I look at that result, and no matter how often I read Regent Katie Muholland’s words, I can’t get the two to match up. Nothing about the election of J. Bruce Harreld honored any possible conception of shared governance, but then again I’m not an administrative functionary, so maybe I’m the one who’s confused about the concept of honor.

The Couch Committee
Imagine that you and I are partners. Business partners, life partners, it doesn’t matter. We have a preexisting relationship, and in that relationship we have shared responsibility for taking care of several young adults.

One day the couch our young adults favor suddenly disintegrates into a pile of lint and loose change. In setting out to replace the couch you know I have budgetary authority and can pick whichever couch I want, but I make it clear to you — in word and deed — that I want your input in choosing a replacement.

As a result you devote time to looking at couches, vetting manufacturers and double-checking warranties, and in the end come up with three couches you like. At that point I show you a couch that I like, too, and ask you to include it on the list of finalists. Your first impression of the couch that I like is that it’s not a good couch, and not a good fit for young adults and their couch habits, but because you’re fair-minded you make a few calls and find a showroom that sells that couch.

As the final step in our couch-buying process we head off to look at the four couches, and the first three couches are just what you expected — well-built, comfortable, formaldehyde-free, perfectly upholstered, verging on flawless. Working through detailed checklists you show me the totals, and each of your couches gets a 90+ score out of a possible 100 using a mix of rigorous personal and industry-standard criteria.

The fourth couch, however — the one I suggested — is not what you expected, but only because it’s much worse. The materials are cheap, the legs are wobbly, the cushions are lumpy and the upholstery doesn’t match. It’s as if someone set out to make the worst couch ever, and looking at it you can’t imagine how it could be worse. Until you finally you sit on the thing, at which point you are prodded by something in the cushions, then deposited on the floor by the slick, chemically treated fabric.

On your checklist you give the fourth couch one point for not being infested with bed bugs, one point for not smelling like urine, and one point for not drawing blood when you sat on it. When you show me the score I can clearly see that the fourth couch scored a 3 out of 100. You tell me you’re perfectly satisfied with any of the other three couches, but that the fourth couch is not simply an abomination, it’s unfit for young adults, and should be considered a health hazard if not a legal liability.

After I thank you effusively for all of your hard work, and I tell you that I’m going to think about it overnight, pick a couch in the morning, and have that couch delivered in the afternoon, how are you going to feel when you see the fourth couch being delivered? Better yet, what are you going to say if you suddenly realize, late at night or early in the morning, that I’m actually considering buying the couch that got a 3 out of 100 on your checklist?

Do you think you might react something like this?

And before Harreld was unveiled as the new president, Faculty Senate President Bohannan wrote to the Board of Regents on behalf of the Faculty Senate to express concerns with the presidential search and lack of support for Harreld.

“I fear that choosing Mr. Harreld would destroy the goodwill that the Faculty Senate and the regents have worked so hard to establish,” according to the email obtained by The Gazette. “There is no doubt that, if Mr. Harreld is chosen, some members of the Faculty Senate would demand a no-confidence vote in the regents.”

Bohannan, in the email, said it’s “hard to see how the regents’ relationship with faculty could thrive under such circumstances.”

What about after the couch was delivered? Do you think you might feel this way?

The University of Iowa Faculty Senate and its leaders, including two members who served on the search committee for a new UI president, “feel betrayed and angry” about the Board of Regents decision to “hire a president who had virtually no faculty, staff, or student support,” according to an email obtained by The Gazette.

The board’s decision to hire J. Bruce Harreld, who has a largely business background at IBM and Boston Market Company and no academic administrative experience, “was a shocking and extraordinary step,” according to the internal email sent to faculty senators from Senate President Christina Bohannan, Vice President Thomas Vaughn, Secretary Peter Snyder, and past President Alexandra Thomas.

“This is a very painful time for our faculty and the university community,” according to the email. “Having worked so hard, for so long, to make faculty voices heard in this process, no one feels this more than the Faculty Senate.”

If that sounds like how you might feel about our new couch, why do you think you would react that way? What about my decision to buy the fourth couch would make you feel betrayed? We both knew I had the right to make the final call, so why would you be upset? If you felt that I ignored your input I couldn’t argue against that impression on your part, but what proof would you have of such an ugly accusation? Four couches were considered, I had the only vote that mattered, and I made my choice. Why would you see that as a betrayal?

The answer, of course, is that you would feel that way because your input was entirely meaningless. None of the research you put in, the phone calls, none of your time and effort had any effect on the outcome, which means the whole process was a sham. The couch I wanted is the couch I chose, meaning everything else was just a show — but for what? Why did I even involve you in the process if I didn’t intend to pay attention to your input? Why did I put you through that?

Well, as it turns out, you’re not alone in being disappointed with the new couch. Other interested stakeholders who also care for the young adults are aghast at the purchase. In fact, the pushback is considerable, to the point that — for a moment — you feel vindicated. Which is when I drop the other shoe and announce that you were involved in the couch buying process every step of the way.

Bohannan told The Gazette she doesn’t know whether other members of the search committee knew of Harreld’s visit in July. She reported telling some of them after she returned from a trip overseas.

And Bohannan said she can’t comment about whether Harreld’s visit was explicitly addressed during the committee’s discussion around who to recommend as finalists.

But Gardial and Bohannan said they do not view Harreld’s campus visit and lunch as preferential treatment.

“This was our duty as members of the search committee,” they said in a statement provided to The Gazette. “The search committee was told to be aggressive in identifying, recruiting and vetting as many candidates as we could to get the biggest and best possible pool.

“When the chair of the search committee invited us to come and hear someone talk, we made it a point to be there.”

Now, objectively, the couch-buying process that I put you through reveals me to be manipulative scum. Sure, in some circles — meaning those inhabited by molds, fungi and corrupt politicians — my conduct might engender respect and admiration, but my duplicity is obviously going to hurt our relationship. A relationship in which I went out of my way to make you look bad, if not complicit, in front of others. Which, you belatedly realize, was a critical part of my plan all along.

The Regents’ Honor
We now return to the question of what Regent Katie Mulholland meant by the word ‘honor’ in the following quote:

“In my role as a regent, we honor the shared governance of the university faculty and staff,” Mulholland said.

Looking at what the regents did during the presidential search that resulted in J. Bruce Harreld’s hire, it’s now clear that the regents didn’t just perpetrate one fraud, they perpetrated two frauds — one inside the other. The first fraud was the rigging of the appointment of J. Bruce Harreld, the candidate they wanted all along. That was accomplished by giving Harreld special access to the regents themselves, special opportunities to present himself to the university community, and by ignoring his impossibly derelict resume, which should have disqualified him on the spot.

The second fraud was the entire search process, which was initiated by Regents President Bruce Rastetter, and headed by acting University of Iowa President Jean Robillard. That fraud was perpetrated not to help find the best candidate, but to legitimize the fraud perpetrated in hiring Harreld.

Despite the open nature of the search and the fact that members of the community got to meet with and weigh in on the finalists, Robillard said the decision always remained with the regents.

Again, note the words. The “open nature” of the search process. Like “honor[ing] the shared governance of the university faculty and staff” that sounds like something dependable, meaningful and trustworthy, but when you look at the result of all that openness and communal participation all you see is a decrepit couch.

Again, where’s the honor? What could Regent Katie Mulholland have conceivably meant when she used that word, when by the admission of the regents themselves there was never any intention of respecting the input of faculty and staff?

Well, after rooting around in a dictionary and thesaurus I came up with forty versions of Katie Mulholland’s quote in which her words jibe with what she and the other regents did to the faculty and staff at the University of Iowa:

• “In my role as a regent, we abate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we abolish the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we abrogate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we adulterate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we annihilate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we annul the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we attenuate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we cheapen the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we concoct the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we corrupt the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we cripple the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we debase the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we deny the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we dilute the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we distort the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we enfeeble the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we exploit the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we fabricate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we falsify the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we feign the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we fudge the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we ignore the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we invalidate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we lie about the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we manipulate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we misrepresent the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we misstate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we mitigate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we negate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we nullify the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we overstate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we pervert the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we prevaricate the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we quash the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we recant the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we revoke the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we twist the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we undermine the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we undo the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”
• “In my role as a regent, we weaken the shared governance of the university faculty and staff.”

This may come as a shock, but even though each sentence above now makes sense in the context of the regents’ actions during the hiring of J. Bruce Harreld, not a single one of those bold words is a synonym for honor. Not one! (I know!)

Which means Regent Katie Mulhooland not only does not understand impropriety in the context of a hiring process, even as proof of impropriety is spilling from her own lips, she either has no conception of what the word honor means, or she’s a liar. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to figure out which of those two glories Regent Mulholland has covered herself in. All we have to do is look at what the regents did, and what the regents did was hire the candidate they wanted all along, while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a fraudulent hiring process in order to make the faculty and staff appear complicit in that improper hire.

The regents did have the right to pick the candidate they wanted from among the four finalists. That assertion is entirely different, however, from claiming that any objection to the Harreld hire is moot at best and childish at worst. And you know that to be true because if anyone bought that fourth couch after you ruled it out you would never let them hear the end of it, and appropriately so. Which is why there is never going to be a moment in the next five years when the University of Iowa faculty and staff think of the regents as anything other than liars, and appropriately so. And there is never going to be a moment in the next five years when the University of Iowa faculty and staff think of J. Bruce Harreld as anything other than a front for the liars at the Iowa Board of Regents, and appropriately so.

— Mark Barrett