Bruce Harreld still seeking 'path forward' at the University of Iowa

Soon after Bruce Harreld was selected as president of the University of Iowa in September 2015, there was some talk of him being akin to Professor Harold Hill — the con-man hero in Meredith Willson’s famous musical, “The Music Man.”

A former IBM executive whose experience was in strategic planning rather than in university administration, Harreld was dismissed readily by many on campus as, in Willson’s words, “a flim-flam man” who “doesn’t know the territory.”

The negative reaction to Harreld was inflamed further by the failures of the Iowa Board of Regents to keep its search process open and transparent. Harreld’s unanimous selection by the board was thought to be the result of behind-the-scenes manipulations of Bruce Rastetter, the agribusinessman who served as regent president until earlier this year.

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The comparisons between real-life Harreld and the musical character didn’t last long, however, because anyone who has seen the end of the musical knows the analogy breaks down quickly.

Yes, Willson’s Harold Hill came to a small Iowa town with plans to dupe the citizens — to fill them with dreams of a big, brass band, then skip town with the money they cough up for instruments and uniforms.

But the larger plot is about how, for the first time, Harold Hill got his “foot caught in the door” and started believing in what he was selling.

The musical also is about how the town itself discovers that River City is actually better off for welcoming him.

Dissent, criticism continues

As he approaches two years since his hiring, the real-life Harreld is far from being so embraced by the UI community:

• A national professor group has sanctioned the university because of the search.
• A lawsuit calling for his hiring to be overturned is scheduled to go to trial in November.
• Several members of his cabinet are either retiring or leaving for other universities.
• And many of his critics have not lessened in their skepticism toward his goals and motives,

“This is the horrible gift that keeps on giving,” said Judith Pascoe, a professor of English who has been at UI since 1993. "Every time something happens in which you need a leader, he can’t be it because the hiring process was so tainted.”

Pascoe, who has been vocal in her criticism of the regents, cites Harreld's presidency as one of the key factors in her decision last year to go on back on the academic job market. She will leave UI in August after nearly a quarter-century in Iowa City.

UI saw a record level of faculty resignations

during the 2015-16 academic year, and Harreld has spoken repeatedly about how other universities are "raiding" UI's senior faculty members.

“It wasn’t that raiders were coming in; it was me,” Pascoe said. "I decided to look at other places, and then I had to really pursue those opportunities. ... I've been demoralized by the lack of support for higher education values that the Harreld hire by the regents represents."

Seeking a 'path forward'

While an untold number of faculty and staff members have been updating their resumes, others have resigned themselves to work with Harreld — if only out of the pragmatic reality that he is the president and his contract lasts until 2020.

After some disastrous early attempts at a townhall and other large-scale open forums, Harreld generally has focused his attention on working directly with smaller teams of faculty, staff and students.

He has the most contact with the members of the so-called “Path Forward” teams that he established to address the university's short- and long-term needs. The 24-member Strategy Implementation Team focuses on setting the vision, and the 25-member Operations Team focused on how to make those plans reality.

Because those discussions so far have largely been focused on strategy, many of the team members contacted for this story declined to comment.

They said they still were waiting to see what actions are considered — and how those action plans are carried out — before they could weigh in publicly on Harreld’s job performance.

Previous: Harreld's critics take center stage during town hall

Harreld's recent call for a civil rights review of the university's employment practices has received a similarly mixed response. The review comes in the wake of $6.5 million settlements in the discrimination and wrongful termination cases filed by Jane Meyer, the former No. 2 official in the UI Department of Athletics, and Tracey Griesbaum, UI's former field hockey coach.

UI officials have named a 14-member committee to oversee the review, but the committee has yet to hire a consulting firm to assist with the process.

Some members of the UI community express cautious optimism that, by starting with the Department of Athletics, the review will lead to positive changes on campus. Others denounce the review as more bureaucratic smoke and mirrors.

Exceeding expectations

One member of the Operations Team, Steve McGuire, has been outspoken about how highly he thinks Harreld has exceeded expectation on campus.

“I don’t know if the word is necessarily ‘surprised,’” said McGuire, the interim director of the UI School of Art and Art History. "I think some people might be surprised at how effective he is around issues of collaboration and transparency.”

McGuire, who came to UI in 1990, said the decision-making structures that Harreld has put into place are more transparent — and allow for a broader range of campus input — than he has seen from previous presidents.

“In the past, when somebody has had an issue and sought funding for that issue, it would end up in an office in Jessup Hall, and depending upon the interest and the available time and the resources at that moment, it would be considered, reviewed and potentially funded,” McGuire said.

Previous: Higher education is more than an 'expense to be minimized'

Harreld’s team model, in contrast, “disperses decision-making to a much larger group,” and then has the group members seek out and identify campus expertise around the various issues. As a result, McGuire said, the decision-makers are in much closer contact with the people who know what’s going on, but who might not otherwise get asked about what they think.

“The things that matter to me are happening. That is: He communicates what’s being done, he reaches out to people to get input, he makes decisions based on the information that he gathers and not simply on an idea that he has,” McGuire said.

Taking on tuition

McGuire also praises Harreld’s recent efforts to explain to Iowans why, as state funding levels have dropped, tuition at UI will need to increase — and increase a lot.

“We’ve always done a great job of not saying anything or doing whatever it takes to make a budget decision happen,” McGuire said. “But I don’t know that we were ever as effective as we were this round in communicating why those resources are critical to the success of students and important to the state.”

McGuire continues to support one of Harreld’s most controversial decisions: to revoke $4.3 million’ worth of legacy scholarships that already had been promised to more than 3,000 students. The scholarships were awarded, not because of economic need, but because at least one of the students’ parents attended UI.

Harreld has said the scholarships were revoked in reaction to the Iowa Legislature cutting the university’s budget by more than $9 million in the middle of the 2017-18 academic year. It was a preemptive move, anticipating that lawmakers would not restore any of that money in next year’s budget.

Previous: Students say UI never told them scholarships could be canceled

"Personally I thought that his decision to withhold scholarships was consistent with reality,” McGuire said. “For the first time, he laid at the doorsteps of the regents and the Legislature exactly what the stakes were in terms of resources for the university.”

Backlash from parents, alumni and lawmakers — along with at least two lawsuits being filed against the university — eventually forced Harreld to reinstate the scholarships. And all three of Iowa’s universities saw further cuts in the budgets for the 2018-19 academic year.

But McGuire credits Harreld with sparking an uncomfortable but needed and overdue conversation about tuition and university funding.

“In the past, I don’t know if we’ve ever really linked in as dramatic a way how a reduction to the university base funding impacts the future of the institution,” McGuire said. “We’ve always let people know that it hurts, and that the cuts impact students and the university. But we’ve never seen as dramatic a response from folks outside the university itself to a legislature’s calling back funds.”

The regents have created a Tuition Task Force this summer to discuss five-year plans for tuition levels at the three universities. The task force is scheduled to report back to the regents in September.

Harreld told the regents earlier this month that, as UI's tuition increases, so will the amount of financial aid offered to new and returning students.

UI's resident undergraduate tuition would need to increase by about $3,000 to reach the average, rather than the bottom, of its official peer group. A recently approved tuition increase for the 2017-18 academic year further widened the gap between instate and out-of-state undergraduate tuition by nearly $900.

Mixed reception from alumni, community

Over the past 18 months, Harreld generally has received a warmer reception from the local business and development community outside the university than inside, but the scholarship issue placed a strain on his relations with some alumni.

And his most recent restructuring proposal — to merge the 150-year-old UI Alumni Association and the 61-year-old UI Foundation into a single organization focused on university advancement — has received a mixed response.

The alumni board recently voted to move forward with a merger, but that vote took place without the board's former chairwoman, Clare Kelly, who resigned last month, and without the association's former president, Jeff Kueter, who received a new job assignment within the university two months ago.

Previous: UI alumni board chair resigns before merger with UI Foundation

Other alumni board members said robust discussions of the possible merger have been going on for months with staff and board members from both organizations.

Carl Stuart, who chairs the alumni board’s Finance Committee, said he didn't view himself as "a cheerleader” for the proposed merger, but he agreed that UI needed “a more holistic approach” toward engagement with its alumni.

Campus reorganizations

McGuire said he can understand why so many of his friends and colleagues remain skeptical about the reorganizations underway on campus.

A group of university officials, for example, currently are in the process of reimagining the academic landscape of the campus — a process that could lead to relocating programs, merging some departments or changing the number of faculty among the dozen colleges.

The process was initiated under former Provost Barry Butler, who left UI in March. It is continuing under Sue Curry, the interim provost. No final decisions have been made, but restructurings of this magnitude make people worry about how they will fare when the dust clears.

“I will say that, had I not have the experience that I’ve had on the Operations Team, I would have more questions about whether or not there is going to be enough faculty input,” said McGuire, who is not a member of the decision-making group.

Based on that past experience, however, McGuire said he is confident Harreld "will necessarily dig deep to find what the units believe about any potential restructuring proposal.”

McGuire said he thinks Harreld is on his way toward winning over larger sections of the university community — in a manner similar to the fictional Professor Harold Hill or to the real-life case studies Harreld taught while on faculty at the Harvard Business School.

“A businessman, despised coming in, unfamiliar with the language and culture around him, uses his skill and expertise as a businessman to open collaboration and transparency,” McGuire said. “That would make an interesting story.”

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