University of Missouri needs improvement, interim chancellor says in speech

This academic year at the University of Missouri began with political controversy and a series of student-led protests that put the state’s flagship institution under a national spotlight.

As news unraveled Wednesday afternoon of a scathing and a blame-shifting letter sent by former University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe to undisclosed friends, the interim chancellor of the Columbia campus addressed administrators, faculty, staff, students and alumni and said the state of the university is strong, but needs improvement.

Hank Foley did not mention Wolfe’s letter but wasted no time addressing the student-led, race-based protests that led to the former president’s resignation and the reassignment of former chancellor R. Bowen Loftin in November.

Charges of systemic racism on campus compounded by issues, such a politically directed decision making, a lack of affordable housing, health insurance and a living wage for teaching graduate students gripped the Columbia campus at the very onset of the school year.

In August MU graduate students threatened to walk out of classrooms, and lecture halls unless the university agreed to subsidized their health insurance, provide more affordable housing, child care and better pay. The university quickly met the insurance needs while graduate students have continued campus protests over some of the other issues and have taken steps to unionize.

In September the university came under fire from Republican lawmakers for connections its medical school had to Planned Parenthood. The university stripped the hospital privileges of the only doctor who was providing abortion services at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia. And the university halted a decades-old program that allowed students to train at Planned Parenthood facilities.

Democrats accused the university of caving to political pressures.

In November protests erupted on campus led by a predominately black student group Concerned Student 1950 accusing the university of systemic oppression of minority students including women, and LGBTQ groups. The protest led to a student hunger strike, a boycott by the Mizzou football team, and the ouster of two of the university’s top leaders.

The university immediately named Foley to lead the institution until a new chancellor could be found and put long-time administrator Mike Middleton in as system president while the university Board of Curators conduct a national search for a permanent replacement.

In introducing Foley to the campus podium on Wednesday Interim president of the four-campus system, Mike Middleton (who replaced Wolfe) was the first to acknowledge that this academic year has been “ challenging.”

Foley too, in his two-hour-long speech dove into the problems that unseated the university’s top administrators. He said he’d received emails from thousands of alums “shaken deeply” by the campus upheaval.

“It is stunning to see a president, an alumnus himself, and someone many of you really liked, resign suddenly and under duress. For the new chancellor to be disposed on the same day was nothing short of astonishing.”

Just as Wolfe had done the day he stepped away for the presidency, Foley acknowledge racial inequity on the campus. “The tension around race relations and the campus climate shows that we need to do more to be fully inclusive,” he said.

He said that, “one way to regard student unrest is as a sign that the institution has not kept pace with the change, especially with students’ and the public’s expectations.”

Foley said the university is “taking steps to make matters of diversity, inclusion and social justice a priority... because it is the right thing to do.”

He called on the entire university to work toward a more accepting and kinder campus culture and said diversity training for staff, administration and students already is underway.

“Behave more respectfully to one another. Listen before you speak. Don’t prejudge anyone or any situation.”

He acknowledged that Missouri lawmakers have become “exasperated,” with the campus turmoil and called for the university to “regain their trust and respect. In fact repair this breach not just with the General Assembly but with the people of Missouri, who pay our salaries...”

Foley did not fail to praise the work of university leadership, faculty and staff, particularly mentioning strides made in research, scholarship and advancements in technology.

But the biggest applause came when he announced the university would increase the minimum graduate teaching stipend from $12,000 by $3,000 immediately and again in July 2017 to $18,000.

And he announced the university would shoot for increasing its endowment to a billion dollars.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 12:26 PM with the headline "University of Missouri needs improvement, interim chancellor says in speech."