The Intimidation Game: Bullying and Retaliation at the University of Tulsa

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | October 23, 2019 | Jacob Howland

[karpov]

Since April, I’ve witnessed the ongoing destruction of the University of Tulsa (TU) by a cadre of wealthy and powerful people affiliated with the billionaire George Kaiser.

Kaiser is the controlling shareholder of the Bank of Oklahoma Financial (BOKF), which handles much of TU’s business and is the corporate trustee of its $1.2 billion endowment. Frederic Dorwart, the chairman of TU’s board of trustees, is BOKF’s general counsel and president of the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF). TU President Gerard Clancy sits on BOKF’s board; Steven Bradshaw, BOKF’s CEO, sits on TU’s board of trustees. TU trustee Chester Cadieux III sits on the boards of both BOKF and GKFF. TU provost Janet Levit is the wife of Ken Levit, the CEO of GKFF, which will eventually be the primary shareholder of BOKF. (I tried to make sense of these ethically bewildering entanglements in an article I wrote for The Nation.)

After Dorwart and Levit took office in the spring of 2018, the administration pushed through True Commitment, a restructuring plan that eliminated 40 percent of the university’s academic programs, dissolved all academic departments, and raised teaching loads. They did so in secret, using seriously flawed data fed to a handpicked committee whose members were required to sign blanket non-disclosure agreements. (I reported on these matters in City Journal.) Since then, the administration has engaged in a pattern of bullying and intimidation that has recently reached a crisis point.

Scott Holmstrom, the president of the faculty senate, and Jennifer Airey, the vice president, have spoken on multiple occasions to Concerned Faculty of TU (CFTU) about having to endure ill-tempered rants by Clancy and members of the board.

[sport]

Where are the facts and examples?

[glorgau]

The horror! Academics being treated as if they had actual jobs!

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

All I can say is all the TU people I've worked with aren't fit to empty trash cans or fetch coffee. But I haven't worked with them all, just the IT crowd.

[immadashell]

This looks like an attempt to prove the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

FYI TU is a private university

Here is the web site that is against the reorganization.

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2019/10/the-intimidation-game-bullying-and-retaliation-at-the-university-of-tulsa/

From what I see the biggest group against it is the Liberal Arts folks, so this must be a good thing, right? /s

But seriously, very few universities are worth a crap any more, and if this is what it takes to fix one go for it.

[marktwain]

Sounds as if the University management is attempting to take it back from the leftist faculty...

[Jim Noble]

Don't ever forget the golden rule:

He that has the gold makes the rules.

[Tax-chick]

When we lived in Broken Arrow, I had a friend who taught Chemistry at T.U.

[sport]

It has my vote.

[Bookshelf]

This is a poorly written article. It would have helped to learn just which departments were being positioned to get the axe.