Iowa Faculty, Resigned to Harreld’s Leadership, Still Waiting for Results

Tim Schoon, U. of Iowa

A few months after J. Bruce Harreld began his duties as president of the University of Iowa, Kembrew McLeod sent an email asking to interview him for a local, independent newspaper. Mr. Harreld responded that his staff would help set up such an interview, but nothing was scheduled.

Mr. McLeod, a professor of communication studies, sent similar requests monthly. After a year with no response, Mr. McLeod wrote to Mr. Harreld: “If you never had any intention of doing an interview, please just have the decency to be honest about it, and let me know.”

Within a few minutes, Mr. Harreld responded: “Be patient. I will do the interview when I’m ready.”

Mr. Harreld still has not done the interview. And 18 months into Mr. Harreld’s tenure, many on the campus in Iowa City say they are trying to be patient with his leadership. The former IBM executive made big promises to help the institution improve from “great to greater,” to increase faculty salaries and retention, and to help form a culture of innovation and efficiency. An overarching goal was to improve the university’s relationships with the Board of Regents and state lawmakers.

Many of the issues that Mr. Harreld had promised to help fix — such as state budget cuts and a record number of faculty leaving — were present long before he began his job at Iowa. And while he has made inroads, notably in the relationship with the regents, many of the problems remain, and some have worsened. A record number of faculty left the university last year; average salaries, which are some of the lowest among Iowa’s peer institutions, have continued to stagnate; and state lawmakers have continued to cut appropriations for the university, leading to the president’s calls for tuition increases and cuts to student aid.

Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Harreld declined to be interviewed for this article and has yet to accept any interview request from The Chronicle. “He discourages focusing solely on the ideas of a single leader and believes others on campus can provide a better evaluation of his 17 months on the job,” a spokeswoman wrote.

Rod Lehnertz, senior vice president for finance and operations at Iowa, said Mr. Harreld has tried to engage the whole university community in seeking solutions to the institution’s challenges. “From my perspective, there’s a feeling of sea change on this campus,” Mr. Lehnertz said. “The president, from the day he got here, opened up a dialogue from Jessup Hall.”

Some faculty members acknowledge that Mr. Harreld has not fulfilled their worst fears and that he is trying to make the university a better place. Jacki Thompson Rand, an associate professor and scholar of Native American studies, credited Mr. Harreld with reaching out to minority students, for example, by renovating four multicultural houses on campus.

But she and others remain skeptical of his ability to understand the university well enough to make real and positive changes.

“I think he’s out of his depth,” Ms. Rand said.

A Rough Start

Ms. Rand, Mr. McLeod, and others are among the many who think the controversy over Mr. Harreld’s hiring remains a shadow over his tenure.

There was widespread concern and anger in September 2015, when he was named one of four finalists for the position — the only candidate without extensive experience in higher-education leadership or even a doctoral degree. After his career at IBM, Mr. Harreld was a part-time faculty member at Harvard University’s business school, teaching mostly executive-education courses.

The concerns over his qualifications escalated after a public forum in which Mr. Harreld said that he had researched the institution on Wikipedia and acknowledged that he had been sloppy in preparing his résumé for the job.

When the regents announced they had chosen Mr. Harreld, the concerns turned to outrage and protests, with faculty, staff, and students saying the board had ignored their overwhelming opposition.

The fallout over his selection went on for months, punctuated by no-confidence votes in the regents and a censure of the new president over the inaccuracies in his résumé. The American Association of University Professors issued a sanction against the university after investigating Mr. Harreld’s hiring.

In February 2016, Mr. Harreld appeared at just one of the three open forums he had promised to hold annually. No more were scheduled after protesters and hecklers disrupted that first event. Mr. Harreld has also eschewed most interactions with the media, except for a regular interview with the student paper, The Daily Iowan.

Instead, he meets with smaller groups, such as the Faculty Senate, and in settings where the focus is not necessarily on him. In this way, Mr. Harreld has built some connections on campus and found some support.

“I see him around all the time,” said Jacob Simpson, president of the undergraduate student government. For example, Mr. Simpson said, Mr. Harreld and his wife came to an open house for the university’s gardeners’ club.

“Obviously, there were some concerns about his hiring,” said Mr. Simpson, a junior with a major in economics. But since then, he said, Mr. Harreld has “done a fantastic job” working with student leaders on measures such as improving mental-health services on campus and dealing with the impact of President Trump’s travel ban.

At the same time, Mr. Simpson said he retains “a healthy skepticism” about the president. “We don’t always agree, and that’s an expected result of any conversation, but it’s important to have those conversations and understand where each side is coming from.”

Mr. Harreld’s support has grown off-campus as well, and among alumni. Carl Stuart, a financial adviser and Hawkeye alumnus in Austin, Tex., said he has seen Mr. Harreld at alumni gatherings and likes that the president brings a “fresh perspective” to the institution. Any kind of change is bound to upset some people, Mr. Stuart said, but Mr. Harreld has a calm demeanor and is willing to listen to varying points of view before making a decision.

Savior or Status Quo?

What has replaced the outrage over Mr. Harreld’s hiring is resignation, said Judith Pascoe, a professor of English and an outspoken critic of the president.

But he remains, in some ways, a divisive figure. Several current or former faculty members and administrators contacted by The Chronicle declined to comment on the record, explaining that they fear backlash from both colleagues who support the president and those who oppose him.

And while the controversy over his hiring has waned, at least in intensity, many on campus remain wary about Mr. Harreld’s ability to manage other remaining challenges from inside and outside the institution.

One thing that has brought unwanted attention to the university are lawsuits filed by two women who worked in the athletics department, accusing the athletics director, Gary Barta, of sexual discrimination. Earlier this month, a jury awarded $1.45 million to Jane Meyer, Iowa’s former senior associate athletic director. The Associated Press reported on Friday that the university had agreed to pay a total of $6.5 million to resolve all legal claims by Ms. Meyer and her partner, Tracey Griesbaum, who was Iowa’s field hockey coach. The university also plans to engage a consultant to examine its hiring practices. The institution remains under investigation by the federal Education Department for its treatment of female coaches.

Despite the controversy, Mr. Harreld agreed in February 2016 to extend a new five-year, $4.6-million contract to Mr. Barta, calling him “a longtime member of the University of Iowa family.”

Two longer-term problems are cuts to state appropriations and the growing faculty exodus.

The university has lost the most tenured and tenure-track faculty members in at least a decade after both the 2015 and 2016 academic years, largely as a result of more attractive employment offers from rival institutions, according to a report compiled by the Board of Regents.

Mr. Harreld identified faculty pay and retention as a problem early in his tenure and has asked lawmakers for an increase in state appropriations in part to bolster professors’ salaries. Instead, the state has cut the university’s budget by $16 million over the past year, leading Mr. Harreld to recommend tuition increases and threaten the loss of $4.3 million in scholarships. The latter move was blasted by lawmakers and attracted the threat of a lawsuit from parents before Mr. Harreld reversed his position.

While more state money is not on the horizon, Mr. Harreld has pushed ahead with plans for “responsibility centered” budgeting — shifting money to departments and programs that are seen as excelling either financially or academically — and a broad reorganization of the university that could include eliminating or combining departments and some faculty positions.

Mr. Lehnertz, the senior vice president for finance, said the reorganization is long overdue. “It’s often assumed that we are reorganizing because something’s broken,” he said. But the view of the president is that the university should never stop looking at itself and thinking of ways to improve, he added.

The new budget model is meant to add transparency to the process, said Mr. Lehnertz, and also preserve programs that are a core part of the institution but do not necessarily pay for themselves, such as the nationally renowned writers’ workshop. The new budget plan also gives administrators more flexibility to “give larger raises to faculty and staff who are earning below their peer group, and consequently less to those earning above their peer group,” according to a university spokeswoman.

Whatever the outcome of those measures, they will be too late for John D. Peters, who left Iowa this academic year for a professorship at Yale University. Mr. Peters, who spent 30 years at Iowa, said his move was primarily because Yale made a great offer and Iowa didn’t make a counteroffer.

It had also “become a grind working at Bruce Harreld U.,” Mr. Peters said in an email, because of declining morale. “Bruce Harreld seems like a personally decent fellow, but is in completely over his head,” Mr. Peters wrote.

The reorganization efforts have sparked particular concerns that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will bear the brunt of any program or departmental cuts. The dean of that college, the university’s largest, is retiring and is not among the group that is guiding the reorganization process. At the same time, the university’s provost, P. Barry Butler, left Iowa earlier this year to be president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, meaning a new provost will most likely inherit the new structure rather than having a hand in creating it.

Matthew Brown, an associate professor of English, said that he fears that the task force managing the reorganization already has an agenda. The result, he said, will be “continued attrition of our top-flight faculty and cutting of programs and personnel deemed unworthy based on metrics unrelated to learning and research.” Mr. Harreld “repeatedly claims he wants a ‘world-class faculty’ but he seems unable or unwilling to act on behalf of this platitude,” Mr. Brown added.

Mr. McLeod, the professor who is still waiting for the interview, said the declining morale and loss of faculty have long been a problem. And despite the good intentions of the current president and his reputation as a turnaround specialist, Mr. McLeod is skeptical that much will change.

“I have witnessed lots of lip service to growing faculty and grad-student resources, and the opposite has happened,” he said. “Whatever new buzzwords they’re using, I look at that through the lens of someone who has been here for 17 years.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.

Correction (5/24/2017, 11:19 a.m.): This article originally misstated when Mr. Harreld extended Mr. Barta’s contract. It was in February 2016, not this past February. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.