December 9, 2008

New School Faculty Members May Hold No-Confidence Vote in Bob Kerrey

Senior faculty members at the New School, extremely disturbed by the abrupt departure of the New York institution’s provost, will meet on Wednesday afternoon in a hastily called session of the Faculty Senate, and may hold a vote of no confidence in the president, Bob Kerrey, the former U.S. senator.

A call for such a vote on the leadership of Mr. Kerrey — under whom a string of provosts have served since he became president, in 2001 — is “certainly a possibility,” said Arjun Appadurai, an anthropologist at the New School. “There will be serious discussion about what action to take among the recent developments.”

In an e-mail message to the university on Monday, Mr. Kerrey announced that the provost, Joseph W. Westphal, would be leaving his post immediately to serve on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team for the Department of Defense. Mr. Westphal, a former chancellor of the University of Maine system, agreed that he could not both handle “this historic mission and devote the time necessary to the provost’s office,” Mr. Kerrey’s message said.

Mr. Westphal, who was to serve a two-year term, was provost for barely three months.

“We still don’t know all the facts, but clearly there was nothing routine about this,” Mr. Appadurai said. “Five provosts in the time that he’s been president — that’s remarkable.”

Mr. Kerrey, a former Democratic governor and U.S. senator from Nebraska, wrote that he planned to serve as the New School’s provost until a new one was hired — a move that professors see as a way to diminish their role in governing the institution.

“To my knowledge, that is completely unprecedented,” said Mr. Appadurai, who served as provost at the New School for about two years before resigning, in 2006. Mr. Kerrey’s contract at the New School runs until June 2011. —Audrey Williams June

Comments

1. There are always two sides to every story and I suspect no less in this case.

   It has been my experience as an academic vice president since 2001, that there are some in the faculty who see the provost as the lesser evil. There are also those who generally judge their past provost to be better than their present one. No matter what the perspective, not having stability, standing and direction from the provost weakens academic institutions.

   Presidents are asked to focus on a great deal of issues. I think they do an amazing job at keeping things moving forward. I have heard however that they too often do not fully utilize or direct the talents and energy of their chief academic officers as partners or key leaders of the institution.

   Turnover in academic leadership is not desirable, has a significant impact on our institutions and creates a vacuum that others may occupy. Academic institutions that have revolving doors at any leadership level are suspect and especially when that occurs with the chief academic officer.

   — Jeff Senese    Dec 9, 04:17 PM    #

2. And exactly why is a war criminal running an American university again? and a supposedly liberal one at that?

   — Sat Churmit-Dazhy    Dec 9, 05:22 PM    #

3. By what recognized judicial body was Mr. Kerrey convicted of war crimes?

   — publius 12    Dec 9, 05:38 PM    #

4. Lovely specious comment, publius 12. By your standard, Hitler was innocent of everything too.

   — Sat Churmit-Dazhy    Dec 9, 06:10 PM    #

5. Cute, Sat Churmit-Dazhy, but it fails to answer the question. Pity.

   — publius 12    Dec 9, 06:19 PM    #

6. As a Newschool student who has some understanding of the politics of the university let me say this: Mr. Westphal was a great provost. He also did not resign as Mr. Kerrey claims. Westphal had spoken with a student group the day before ‘resigning’ about how excited he was the next semester. Mr. Westphal would have been gone three weeks, during winter break, and I would think a former Secretary of the Army is capable of doing a few tasks at once.

   — Newschool Student    Dec 9, 06:22 PM    #

7. publius 12, there are no right answers to wrong questions. Your question was wrong.

   Thank you for playing. We have lovely parting gifts.

   — Sat Churmit-Dazhy    Dec 9, 06:22 PM    #

8. #5, ‘Academics’ did not choose to have Kerrey lead The New School, the trustees did. And he has shown himself to be singularly incapable of understanding what universities do and how they ought best do it. Joe Westphal was the most qualified provost in the history of The New School. His competence heightened the contradictions between the excellent divisions of this university and its shoddy top-heavy corporate governance; this is why he was forced to leave. I don’t really care what Kerrey did or didn’t do in Vietnam. The problem is what he’s doing now to The New School: he should resign.

   — anonymous    Dec 9, 06:23 PM    #

9. Sat, So you’re a game show host! Now it makes sense.

   — publius 12    Dec 9, 06:35 PM    #

10. One of the structural problems at the New School, especially evident in the past seven years, has been that despite its excellent academic programs, there has been a serious imbalance of power at the top. The business and operations areas of the institution have sought to have greater control over academic decision-making at the school. Unfortunately this has been a great influence on the school’s president, as the ‘resignation’ of five provosts attests to. It would be in the school’s best interest to restore a balance of power, which might mean the resignation not only of its president but of the people who advise him.

    — Lara Thomas Dunn    Dec 10, 06:37 AM    #

11. Jim Murtha, COO of The New School = Dick Cheney

    — langbang    Dec 10, 08:39 AM    #

12. I was shocked when I heard that Mr. Kerrey was a university president. I had the misfortune to be teaching in the Nebraska state sytem when he was our governor. He almost single handedly dismantled a fine institution. His lack of committment to higher education was damaging. It doesn’t surprise me that the faculty do not support him.

    — nebraskan    Dec 10, 09:30 AM    #

13. Mr. Appadurai admits, “We don’t know all the facts …” but then goes on to draw conclusions and pass judgment.

    What hutzpah!

    If you “don’t know all the facts,” why don’t you wait until you do know all the facts and THEN decide whether President Kerrey deserves your ire?

    Oh yeah…you don’t need to operate that way…you’re FACULTY after all. I forgot. Faculty know all, all the time, in all circumstances. And what they always know, in all cases, is that all administrators are always bad. Always. And Forever. Amen.

    Jeesh!

    — SpeedyMom    Dec 10, 09:53 AM    #

14. Langbang – what did your comment mean?

    — Interested person    Dec 10, 10:03 AM    #

15. SpeedyMom: Well said.

    I don’t intend this to be an ad hominem, but there is a tendency for faculty to teach care in research but shoot off their mouths when their perceived lairs are threatened.

    — SB    Dec 10, 10:11 AM    #

16. SpeedyMom and SB: While Dr. Appadurai may have an axe to grind, he also has had first-hand knowledge of the politics of The New School. He’s a highly respected scholar and while this doesn’t keep him from stooping to the level of rumor mongering, I sense he has other channels of information that would lead to these comments.

    — anon    Dec 10, 10:46 AM    #

17. Calling Kerry a war criminal is just a continuation of the despicable Karl Rove school of smear and dishonor tactics. That is beneath contempt, which didn’t prevent it from being the operational norm for eight years of the worst presidency in US history.

    — ap    Dec 10, 10:53 AM    #

18. I am a former employee of New School, and kleft for many of the reasons that have been discussed. All universities struggle to find a balance between “academics” and “business.” However, in the end, the balance works. Not so for NS. Murtha runs this organization, and runs it poorly. Kerrey supports him, though, and allows him to continue doing so, partly because he is in so far over his head. Come on…you don;t need all the details to know there is a problem. NS has had 6 provosts in 7 years. By any measure, that indicates a huge problem.

    — Anon    Dec 10, 12:48 PM    #

19. Before you get all riled up with Mr. Kerrey, you might want to check with your colleagues in Maine. Many of them might say the amazing thing was not Westphal’s abrupt departure, but the fact that he was ever named provost in the first place. His (brief but much too long) tenure in Maine was entirely Kerreyesque. It is most ironic to see him now regarded as a “faculty hero” at New School, standing against a “corrupt and non-academic administration.” If this event reveals anything, it is the pack of Washington scoundrels (Westphal;, Kerrey, and many many cronies) who have obtained university leadership roles from naive governing boards. In this case the infighting just happened outside the beltway.

    — Kennebec Kate    Dec 10, 02:13 PM    #

20. In a NYTimes magazine story some years ago, Bob Kerrey was revealed to have participated in the killings of Vietnamese civilians. Whether this makes him a war criminal, or merely a participant in a criminal war, is a matter one could debate, but I won’t. If I recall the article correctly, Kerrey admitted to the killings in the article and acknowledged that he had not previously done so, but found ways to excuse them due to the context.

    — Mark    Dec 10, 04:33 PM    #

21. Interesting that they quote Arjun Appadurai but don’t mention that he’s one of the former provosts

    — Anon    Dec 10, 04:46 PM    #

22. for the record, #22, it is mentioned…read the last paragraph.

    — anon    Dec 10, 05:06 PM    #

23. Check out the NY Times story…..the plot thickens. Whether any of the above is true, and whether he has done anything bad, you have to admit he hasn’t done much good…..the university hasn’t improved under his watch. he was brought in primarily to raise money, which he hasn’t done too much…..

    — Anon    Dec 10, 06:22 PM    #

24. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/nyregion/11kerrey.html?emc=eta1

    — anon    Dec 10, 06:35 PM    #

25. See this link for a thorough analysis of Kerrey’s role in the Thanh Phong massacre.
    http://brillwebsite.com/brill_family_writings/KerreyArticle.html

    — EAB    Dec 10, 06:42 PM    #

26. Check the unpublished article at http://brillwebsite.com/brill_family_writings/KerreyArticle.html for what I (its author) believe is, without question, the most thorough analysis of Kerrey’s actions at Thanh Phong, including a review of material that appeared substantially after the initial coverage had died down. It includes Kerrey’s comments to the author, not previously published.

    — EAB    Dec 10, 07:15 PM    #

27. Dear SpeedyMom and SB: Don’t be so quick to rush to generalizations and cliches. The faculty voted no-confidence in Kerrey because of bone-headed academic moves that have hurt students. That’s what this is about — not about turf protection. When the Provost Westphal called him on it and urged him to consult with deans and faculty, he fired him.

    — anonymous    Dec 10, 08:02 PM    #

28. What you talked about — the deep dissatisfaction with his leadership — existed since he arrived at the New School. It was amazing to see how he so quickly eroded institutional trust and stability at that school. Having served as a Chair at the Actors Studio Drama School, which, for ten years, was a division of the New School, and as author of the by-laws of that division, I can assure you that Bob Kerrey is one of the biggest mistakes the Board of the university ever made. Every time I had to deal with him, I honestly couldn’t help thinking — what is he doing here? He is so wrong in so many ways.

    There is talk, among Kerrey’s own squad, that he committed a war crime in Vietnam, despite his reputation as a maverick liberal with a Congressional Medal of Honor. I say this with great deliberation and thought, but after dealing with him at the New School, I suspect there might be some real truth to that allegation. The media truly seems to have created a kind of false (bizarrely false) narrative for this man — he is closer to Ted Stevens than some kind of philosophical war hero. I’ve never understood why this happened. Bob Kerrey, in my experience, is neither bright nor deeply curious or all that interested in the academic world. He IS interested in creating drama, acting out his narcissistic and autocratic impulses. And he is, frankly, treacherous — if only because he is often so impulsive, deeply out of control, out of control with a mad vengeance and for often all the wrong reasons (which does feed into my suspicion that he did something very wrong in Vietnam).

    What concerns me the most about your article is giving Arjun Appadurai so much focus. Arjun, frankly, is the doppelganger of Kerrey in many ways. Charming, soft spoken, self-effacing, certainly not compulsive, Appadurai is fiercely strategic, equally autocratic and narcissistic. He has a big axe to grind, and you need to really look into that to do a good job of reporting.

    I no longer work at the New School, so I have no axe to grind myself, except for some lingering anger over how Kerrey destroyed the division I worked for. I’ve been in the room with Kerrey many times. One thing you always understood was he was the one to have the spotlight, and if you took it from him for a second, he would make you pay — with your livelihood, career, job.

    I just hope the press doesn’t now fall into Appadurai’s manipulative efforts to consolidate his power at the New School. While he is certainly much more qualified as an academic, Appadurai is speaking from a very treacherous place himself — he is furious with Kerrey for firing him when he was Provost. Appadurai is a man who does not get angry, he gets even.

    In any case, I truly loved the New School, at least as it existed when I first arrived there in 1996 (I left in 2004 and now work at Rutgers). It was so unique. There was really no other school like it. Then it started to change under Kerrey into a more corporate and bottom-line institution. I hope it sees better times. It deserves it.

    — James Ryan    Dec 10, 08:13 PM    #

29. Previous commentator Ryan is right to say that Appadurai has an axe to grind himself. Appadurai is brilliant, but he is no saint when he was Provost— he was at the center of faculty labor disputes just a few years ago —just to name one of his ‘crimes’ against the academic community. Unless he changed his mind, Appadurai is scheduled to take up a new appointment at NYU starting January 2009, which makes his public comment lace with self-serving vengeance.

    The trouble with the university is that it does not have a large endowment despite its legacy. It’s enrollment-driven, resulting in the corporatization of its administration, an explosion of part-time faculty members. With so many small fiefdoms driving to meet enrollment numbers, the university has never found a balance between income generation and academic excellence.

    — TNS grad    Dec 10, 09:08 PM    #

30. I agree with TNS grad. Problem is Bob Kerrey is absolutely not the right person to find that balance between “income generation and academic excellence.” TNS needs to find that balance because if they increase enrollments, but academics and student happiness fall to an all time low, how can TNS keep it’s student enrollment high? This is exactly the situation right now at Lang. Let’s make Lang bigger, but not make it better… Lets look at our students as money symbols, not students seeking great academic life. As a Lang student paying the entire outrageous tuition, I wish Bob and his sidekicks would focus more on current students expecting excellence, instead of focusing on getting as many incoming Freshman as possible, despite the lack of space and money TNS has to provide for them.

    — Lang Student    Dec 11, 12:22 AM    #

31. It is too bad that things have gone as far as they have at The New School. I loved working there, but there are so many incompetent executive administrators there, making very high salaries, not really giving a good gulldern about the staff, faculty or students, whom without, there wouldn’t be a university. For example, the Senior VP for HR and Labor Relations is a joke. She’s a cold fish who surfs the net all day and is a spy for Bob Kerrey and Jim Murtha. This is a person who hires friends and family and pays them very very well. How come Bob Kerrey is making almost a half million dollars in this ecomomy; how come Jim Murtha is making $400,000 and has an apartment in Manhattan that the school foots the bill for? How is it that people who barely have BA degrees are making $300,000 +? This is why the NS is failing! Sound familiar? Seems like politics as usual….sad.

    — Another Former Employee    Dec 11, 01:37 AM    #

32. I’d like to add, that I found my time studying at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music a very rewarding experience.

    When I began in September 2002, I came into an organization that lacked a centralized administration.

    Over the years of my studies, I saw a direct corelation between improved academic/student life and an administration focused on creating a cohesive university out of many seperate schools.

    Yes, Bob Kerrey is controversial, but the history of The New School is ripe with discontent. The New School is a community that proudly deals with its adversity in a democratic matter. Utlimately, this all leads to creating an environment where students are challenged to form and defend their own opinions.

    K. Pagenkopf
    The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, ’07

    — K. Pagenkopf    Dec 12, 04:12 PM    #

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