Jonathan Pavloff, the chairman of the University of Akron board of trustees, famously gave Scott Scarborough his task as the new university president: Move UA into the category of Ohio public universities with the highest profiles, joining Ohio State, Miami and Cincinnati.
To get there, Scarborough needed to bring stability to the university finances. Which he has done, albeit with stumbles and now new challenges. The president and his team launched a re-branding plan, “Ohio’s polytechnic university.” The idea has more promise than critics suggest. Yet, this, too, has been bungled in the communication and execution.
Most of all, the expectation was that heightening the profile would involve a commitment to higher quality. That has been hard to see.
Faculties and administrations often clash. At the same time, it matters when the Faculty Senate so emphatically expresses its lack of confidence in the president. That statement gained authority when department chairs and school directors called for “an immediate change in direction and leadership,” citing, among other things, “the loss of our best scholars.” This isn’t mere resistance to change. It reflects how troubled the most important relationships on campus have become, even in view of the recent collective bargaining agreement.
More, all of this unfolded as the university began exploring an arrangement with ITT, the for-profit, online higher education entity. The concept may address the UA problem of a weak satellite campus system. A deal involving ITT could mean adding nearly 140 campuses in 38 states. It would generate revenue, no small factor, clearly.
Yet, if the idea has not had the high profile of other contentious episodes, it serves to highlight concerns about the leadership of Scarborough. When critics rightly have asked the president to listen and slow down, he plunges ahead, exploring something that amounts to doubling down on his vision of schools the size of UA needing to make dramatic shifts to survive.
The demographics are tough. So are the finances. Yet ITT carries so much soiled baggage.
For starters, there is the miserable reputation of the for-profit education industry, the federal government cracking down because of false promises leaving students with little more than big debts. Add that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed suit, charging that ITT coerced students into taking loans they did not want or understand.
Even if such legal troubles were resolved as part of the arrangement, UA would risk a blow to its academic reputation, one difficult to overcome. This hardly fits into the mission of elevating quality to reach the status of Ohio State, Miami and Cincinnati.
That all of this has been hatched in close quarters may be understandable. Most telling, it echoes the shortcomings of Scarborough as a leader. He sees the big picture. He grasps the numbers. Missing is the capacity to bring people along, to engage, explain and persuade. These are essential to effective leadership, especially when seeking to achieve so much change.
Have critics been unfair, misinformed and small-minded at times? Yes. Still, a president facing the troubles that Scott Scarborough has should have recognized quickly the pitfalls in the ITT deal. Perhaps the larger dynamic among the trustees now will change with the addition of Joe Gingo and William Scala, two veteran business leaders. As it is, this ITT matter reinforces why better leadership is necessary before more harm is done.