Meehan must take control of UMass crises
Reeling from the roundly criticized Mount Ida College deal and the abrupt collapse of the University of Massachusetts Boston chancellor search, UMass President Martin Meehan faces the biggest crisis yet of his three-year tenure, with a faculty in full revolt and his leadership in question.
The UMass Boston faculty union, which blew up Meehan’s search for a new chancellor, is now personally blaming the president for a lack of transparency and his handling of the chancellor search.
All three finalist candidates for the chancellor position withdrew over the weekend in the face of public criticism by the union, embarrassing Meehan on the same day the university’s board of trustees had originally planned to choose a new leader for the Dorchester campus.
He instead was forced to appoint an interim chancellor, Katherine Newman, who will be replacing the current interim chancellor, Barry Mills.
Meehan is used to nasty infighting — he was a member of Congress — but not even then did he face this level of dysfunction.
He needs to quickly reassert control over his academic empire in the coming weeks or he’ll face continued challenges to his leadership.
Meehan attempted to do some damage control, saying he was disappointed at the “unceremonious end” of the search process.
But he let Henry M. Thomas, head of the search committee, deliver the real attack: “It has been deeply disappointing … to see a small but vocal group of members of the UMass Boston community take their criticism of the candidates public, issuing statements directly to the media and airing specific criticisms on social media. It is outrageous to see higher education leaders who were willing to put their careers and reputations on the line for a chance to join the UMass Boston community be subject to this kind of denigration.”
Thomas neglected to mention that the faculty members are well within their rights to publicly voice their disapproval. But it is true that the criticism of the faculty pretty much killed any hopes UMass had of landing one of their candidates. It’s highly unusual for anyone to accept a leadership post in the face of faculty opposition. Meehan had little hopes of salvaging the search after that.
And much of the discord over the chancellor search and the Mount Ida deal seems rooted in something much deeper: a $30 million deficit at UMass Boston, with the likelihood of layoffs and cutbacks. Faculty and staff feel they’ve been unfairly targeted, and until Meehan addresses that, there’s likely more nastiness coming. UMass Boston deserves better than that.