University of Iowa sanctioned by national professor group

Nine months after the controversial hire of a new university president, a national group of professors has voted unanimously to sanction the University of Iowa. But some UI faculty leaders say that the sanction should be against the Iowa Board of Regents, not the university.

The Iowa City-based university appears to be the most prestigious institution on the list of schools sanctioned by the century-old American Association of University Professors for governance issues.

Delegates to the AAUP's national meeting in Washington voted Saturday to sanction UI for "substantial non‐compliance with standards of academic government" during the process that led to last year's hiring of Bruce Harreld as president of the university.

A recommendation passed last month by that AAUP governance committee clarified that the sanction is "primarily directed against the Iowa Board of Regents." But the association's policies only allow for the sanctioning of institutions, not regent systems.

"The Board of Regents ran a fair process in the search for president at the University of Iowa, and we are very pleased with the progress that President Harreld is making," Bruce Rastetter, president of the regents, said in an emailed statement.

The committee's recommendation was not made public until Saturday, but the vote was not unexpected. An AAUP investigative report released in December found numerous problems with the search process in which the regents selected the finalist candidate with the least amount of experience in university administration. 

"The investigating committee found that, in contrast to historical practice at the university, which had been to involve faculty fully in presidential searches, the board’s leadership had engineered the search to identify a figure from the business world who was congenial to its image of 'transformative leadership.' Once the regents identified such a person, what followed was at best an illusion of an open, honest search," the committee's recommendation states.

The president of the UI Faculty Senate, Thomas Vaughn, issued a statement Saturday challenging the focus of the AAUP's sanction.

"We believe that the AAUP’s sanction against the University of Iowa is misdirected," Vaughn wrote in an email sent Sunday to members of the UI Faculty Senate. "The national AAUP organization should change its rules to permit sanctions to run against governing boards rather than against the universities that they govern. Leaders of the local AAUP Chapter have issued statements advocating this approach as well."

Vaughn's email also pointed out that the AAUP report found that, although the search was flawed, Harreld was not a knowing participant in that fraud.

"The AAUP’s sanction reminds us of a difficult period in the life of the University, but its report strongly agrees with the Faculty Senate’s approach of working with, rather than against, President Harreld," he wrote. "We believe the Senate has made great progress by working collaboratively with faculty and the administration over the past several months. We are excited to work with you in the coming year to continue this progress and move the University forward."

Delegates from the AAUP's Iowa chapter said the impact of the sanction vote may not be felt immediately on campus, but recent history at other schools suggests that it will begin to make it more difficult to attract and retain high-quality faculty members.

“(Sanctioned institutions) eventually began to find it was impossible to fill positions for high-level administrators — provosts, deans and the like,” said Katherine Tachau, president of the UI AAUP chapter and a professor of history. “Those people didn’t want to go to a place where the regents treated shared governance so poorly. If (the regents) can treat faculty that way, then they can treat deans, provosts and presidents that way."

The UI chapter has asked the national group to update its policies so that sanctions can be issued directly against governing boards.

Tachau said the current search for a University of Northern Iowa president will be a test case for what effect the sanction might have. After three years as UNI president, William Ruud will step down July 2 to become president of Marietta College in Ohio. The regents never extended his three-year contract.

Daniel Power, a delegate from UNI, told the Press-Citizen  last week that the regents need to abide by AAUP policies on openness, transparency and shared governance during the search for Ruud’s replacement.

It’s unclear how quickly UI or regent officials would be willing to take the steps necessary to have the sanction removed.

Removal is possible, but it requires the institution and governing board to work with the AAUP to address the concerns about substandard governance procedures, said Lois Cox, a delegate and UI clinical law professor.

“Sometimes it took a regime change for the institution to be willing to correct its problem,” Cox said. “I don’t know if and when (Regents President) Bruce Rastetter will be willing to work with the AAUP. If not, I assume the AAUP will be willing to work with his successor and with other board members.”

Immediately after Saturday's vote on UI, AAUP members also voted unanimously to remove a 22-year-old sanction against Lindenwood University in Missouri, citing a noted improvement in shared governance on that campus.

There is no single or short-term step that could be taken to correct all the faults identified in the report from the AAUP investigative committee. The regents have not discussed any changes in policy concerning presidential searches in the six months since the report was released.

UI faculty members were involved last year with the 21-member committee that proposed four finalists to succeed Sally Mason as UI president. But the committee was dismissed before the four finalists were brought to campus. 

The regents unanimously selected Harreld on Sept. 3, despite a letter from UI faculty leaders saying that the vast majority of respondents found the former IBM executive to be the least-qualified finalist. Less than a week after Harreld's hiring, the UI Faculty Senate voted "no confidence" in the board. 

The grievance committee's recommendation also found that the problems with the UI search appear to be part of "a broader emerging crisis in U.S. higher education" in which oversight boards of public institutions are being filled by "politically appointed regents who lack any respect for the faculties of the institutions over which they preside.”

In May, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad appointed Mike Richards, a physician and former gaming company executive, to fill a vacancy on Iowa's nine-member Board of Regents. Critics said the appointment seemed based less on Richards' medical experience and more on the $40,000 he had donated in recent years to Branstad's campaign.

The list of institutions sanctioned by AAUP for governance issues also includes Elmira College in New York (1995); Miami Dade College in Florida (2000); Antioch University in Ohio (2010); Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York (2011); Idaho State University (2011); and Union County College in New Jersey (2016).

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.