Some have criticized Holub for not letting people in on what he was thinking – including commissioning a study exploring the possibility of creating a medical school in partnership with Baystate Health in Springfield.
Robert Holub has been the UMass Chancellor since 2008.AMHERST – University of Massachusetts at Amherst Chancellor Robert C. Holub met with top university officials Monday to discuss his three-year performance evaluation, but nothing has been resolved.
According to a report published in the Boston Globe Sunday, the committee evaluating Holub has recommended that he not be reappointed.
Holub met with President Jack M. Wilson, incoming President Robert L. Caret, Philip W. Johnston, chairman of the evaluation committee trustee and Board of Trustee chairman James J. Karam, said Robert P. Connolly, spokesman for Wilson’s office. Wilson is stepping down as president at the end of June.
“They talked about the review that has been underway, the progress of the review to date,” Connolly said. He said the plan is for the discussion to continue and for “us to have something to say about this,” at the next board meeting June 8.
In an email to the Board of Trustees following the Globe story, Wilson wrote that the review “has yet to reach its conclusion. ... this is a personnel matter and thus significant procedural and privacy issues pertain. Discussions with the committee and with Chancellor Holub will continue and we have strong hopes that this situation will be resolved in an appropriate fashion.”
According to the Globe, some are critical of Holub’s leadership style as well as his ability to communicate. While that report has not been released, a review has been posted on the Massachusetts Society of Professors website.
Massachusetts Society of Professors: Chancellor Holub Performance Review Survey
UMass Chancellors, 1993-Present
Robert C. Holub
May 2008-Present
Previous post: Provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville
Early aims: Sought to build stronger ties between the campus and the city of Springfield. "I look forward to a long period of cooperation and to partnerships with Springfield and with the entire region of Western Massachusetts," he said in 2008.
2008 salary: $375,000
2010 salary: $372,411
John V. Lombardi
April 2002-Aug. 2007
Previous post: President, University of Florida
Early aims: "We will choose the culture of achievement over the culture of complaint. Complaint is easy. It is self-indulgent and it earns few friends," Lombardi said at his inauguration. "Achievement is hard, but it attracts support and earns respect."
Reason for leaving: In May, 2007, UMass President Jack M. Wilson announced a high level restructuring plan for UMass that would result in Lombardi's removal as chancellor. Lombardi subsequently applied for the position of president at Louisiana State University. LSU's board of supervisors approved his hiring on July 13, 2007, and he began his tenure there on Sep. 1, 2007.
2002 salary: $250,000
2007 salary: $347,500
David K. Scott
May 1993-June 2001
Previous post: Physicist and Hannah distinguished professor of learning, science and society at Michigan State University
Early aims: Scott initially promised to foster a sense of openness and "cut across traditional hierarchical lines of communication." He also expressed a hope to foster openness about diversity issues on campus.
Reason for leaving: In announcing his resignation, Scott said only that he felt it was "the appropriate time to go."
1993 salary: $150,000
2001 salary: $220,000
More than 200 UMass union members responded to 15 questions posed by the chancellor’s evaluation committee and many were critical of his work. To the question of effectiveness in choosing and working with his executive team, maintaining good employee relations and encouraging good morale and promoting affirmative action, 12 gave him a grade of excellent, 17 good, 32 average, 50 poor and 68 unacceptable.
When asked to comment about Holub’s leadership, Randall W. Phillis, president of the union, said he preferred to have the results speak for themselves.
Some said that Holub did not necessarily let people in on what he was thinking – including commissioning a study exploring the possibility of creating a medical school in partnership with Baystate Health in Springfield, something that few knew about.
W. Brian O’Connor, who has been on campus for more than four decades, knew about it because he and his wife advise pre-med students. But he said most on campus did not know about it at all.
“I think it would have been great for Springfield, great for Baystate. I think he did jump on the bandwagon too soon. I think 95 percent of the faculty here had no idea. He put the cart before the horse,” O'Connor said.
“This study would have provided an assessment of the long-term possibilities and resources needed to develop new models of medical education in Springfield,” said Mark R. Tolosky, president and chief executive officer of Baystate Health.
But UMass has a medical school in Worcester.
Connolly said Wilson learned of the study after it was commissioned, not before.
When the law school was created on the Dartmouth campus, Jean F. MacCormack, chancellor of the university’s Dartmouth campus, made the request to Wilson and the Board of Trustees and followed channels.
Gov. Deval L. Patrick deflected a question about whether he knew about the proposal to establish the medical school. Patrick has said it is incredibly important for the Amherst campus to continue to expand its presence in Springfield. Since his arrival on campus, Holub has sought to strengthen the ties between that city and the Amherst campus.
Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno appreciated that outreach. Sarno, who was asked to participate in the evaluation of Holub, said in a letter dated April 21, that “it is indeed a pleasure to provide an exceedingly favorable response and evaluation.”
In a letter to Wilson, he wrote that said he has appreciated “a great working relationship” with Holub.
State Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, doesn’t think there is any one thing that has led to this criticism and Holub’s likely ouster. “It’s bigger than any one thing, it’s every Amherst chancellor is found to be wanting.”
They come in highly praised and then forced out a few years later.
Holub, one of four finalists for the position just three years ago, replaced John V. Lombardi, who left amid controversy Sept. 1, 2007 to become president of the Louisiana State University System.
Replacing the affable Lombardi, who would greet people with a friendly slap on the back, was a difficult transition for some on campus.
“That was not Bob’s style,” O’Connor said. “That shocked a lot of people. He’s different.” He said there was nothing wrong with that but it was different.
“One-on-one he was fine,” but Holub seems to be uncomfortable with more people around, he said.
Speaking at the annual faculty convocation last October, Holub said he believes that at times he has been misunderstood. He said what he has wanted since he became chancellor is for the campus “to be counted among the best public research institutions in the country.”
He has wanted the university to be invited to join the Association of American Universities. This past spring UMass joined the Mid-American Football Conference, entering the Football Bowl Subdivision with bowl eligibility by 2013 that’s the top college football level. At the time Holub said it “only fitting” that a world-class university play the highest level of NCAA football.
In a statement this weekend, Holub said, “I am proud of all that the UMass Amherst community has achieved together during my years as Chancellor. UMass Amherst is clearly a university on the rise."
O’Connor said that Holub “is on the right track, he has many ideas, many have come to fruition.”
Patrick said Holub “has been a partner of ours,” Patrick said. “He’s moved on a couple of initiatives that have been important to me. But I know the list of needs at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst campus is long. I’ll have to defer to whatever decision the board makes.”
“This stuff is entirely in the hands of the trustees and the president,” Rosenberg said. For him the question is “how are we going to break this cycle. The guy came in during a fiscal crisis. He did what he could do. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. This is the second chancellor that came in and was basically drummed out. This is extremely worrisome.”
O’Connor received an email from a former student he advised years go who said “here we go again. We take steps forward and go one step back. Why can’t we keep a chancellor.” Holub was the fourth this decade. Marcellette G. Williams was interim before Lombardi became chancellor in 2002.
Phillis said there have be five chancellors in 18 years. “That’s pretty standard,” he said, noting what counts is the quality of the faculty and staff.
O’Connor doesn’t think that Holub can stay now that the story of evaluation was leaked to the Globe this weekend.
“It would be awkward for all people involved.”
Phillis said the story first published in the Boston Globe came from somewhere but it was not the UMass campus. “It was not the union; it wasn’t a bunch of rabble rousers.”
Staff reporters Peter Goonan and Dan Ring contributed to this story.