Will the Goose Survive?
I attended a faculty and staff town-hall meeting with the senior officers of the University of Louisville that was held on the Belknap campus last September 20. I knew that I would be unable to attend a similar meeting at the Health Sciences Campus (HSC) October 12, but was hoping for an opportunity to take the pulse of the faculty on the matter of the question: “Is the University was going in the right direction.” I can’t say my question was answered, but I gained a few insights relevant to current controversies at the Medical School.
To summarize: Belknap employees expressed neither concern nor interest for what is happening on the HSC and Hospital. Financial concerns about salaries and ability to recruit faculty dominated. No magic bullets were offered. Specific remedies to current financial distress were thin on the ground. Is seems clear that the University is planning on increasing clinical revenue to support non-clinical academic activities. I invite faculty or staff who did attend the companion meeting at the HSC to tell the rest of us what happened, or to contact me confidentially.
Who was there?
President James Ramsey and his three senior administrators attended. The President expressed a convincing desire to listen to questions and comments rather than talk, but the panel did a lot of talking too. Employees were encouraged to speak frankly. It was correctly predicted that the panel would not be able to answer or respond to everything on the spot, but would follow-up on everything. Notes were taken.
My presence was noted and I was politely challenged as to why I was there. I responded that at my retirement, the UofL Board of Trustees awarded me the honorary title of Emeritus. This designation allows me to remain on the executive faculty of the University, an option I have exercised annually. No further comment was made about my eligibility to be present. I did not otherwise speak at the session.
How did it go?
With a single exception, all participating audience members were treated respectfully and panel responses were sincere. However, one officer could not resist what I thought to be an aggressively sarcastic response to one poor soul attempting to get their concern out. Given previous onservation, this was not a surprise. In my opinion this spoiled an otherwise flawless performance by the panel and may have subliminally prompted a subsequent panel statement that some people may be “afraid of retaliation, sometimes understandably.” I trust some feedback was given by President Ramsey.
What did employees worry about?
Judging by the number of questions asked on a particular subject, the area of most concern to employees was the lack of salary increases over the past few years, inequities in salaries, a perception of an unfair appeal process for salaries, and a related area of difficulty in recruiting new faculty. An audience suggestion that UofL Foundation endowment be used to support faculty salaries as is done at other institutions did not find much traction among the panel members. A related comment that drew my attention was that that servicing the University’s debt burden was a drain on available money for academic purposes. (There was no offer to use athletic money to support these functions either.) I suggest this be kept in mind as UofL seeks to take on more debt– It has not yet paid off the debt from its last best fix!
Right behind salary and equity concerns came poignant expressions of a lack of respect and support for staff members by faculty, at least some of whom “are not on campus most of the time.” The third most common cluster of comments related to the fact that the non-smoking policies of the campus were generally and openly ignored. The remaining nine questions and comments related to a variety of topics including computing, parking, the library, gym access for employees, lack of a campus directory, and others.
Why am I concerned?
A number of responses by leadership were of interest to me because they related to things I have been writing about in this column these past months. I believe I heard that clinical faculty received raises that other faculty did not. I was not surprised to hear that there is an expectation that clinical revenues will be used to fund teaching and academics, but nothing was said about where that clinical income would come from. I could not help wondering again in my own head where the $180 Million or more of yearly clinical revenue to the UofL Research Foundation comes from and where it goes, or for that matter, the additional $70 transferred from the Hospital to the University. A comment was made by a panelist that money is “fungible,” that is to say, can be used to pay for other things in other pots. Such an University philosophy magnifies the significance of highly critical comments of recent major external management reviews describing a troublesome lack of transparency and accountability in University affairs. The concept of robbing Peter to pay Paul is one that is familiar to all of us, and such redistributive policies are not always inappropriate. I suggest however, that clinical income should not be diverted to non-clinical uses at a time when the University Hospital and the Medical School are crying poor, and the quality of many standard quality and safety measures is at the bottom of the barrel when evaluated by independent organizations. Additionally, our community should be concerned about what the University’s attempts to flog its clinical operation for more money will do to the cost of medical care for the rest of us. Anyone willing to bet that such costs will go down? I wouldn’t.
All of meeting described above was conducted as a mutually respectful exchange. There were no clashes as in our current 2012 presidential election exchanges and no new scandals were revealed. Some good ideas are likely to come out of it. For my part, I was glad to have attended if only to hear confirmation of my assumption the University plans to continue to use clinical revenues to support general University functions at a time when its clinical operation is at its most vulnerable in the 30 years I have been a faculty member.
What happened at the Medical School Meeting?
I expect that the meeting at the HSC covered very different material and may have even had a different tone. I invite anyone who did attend to report to us all in the comment section below. Use a screen name if you wish and your identity will not be revealed. If you prefer, send your comments to me confidentially at the email address in the sidebar. This will allow me to affirm the legitimacy of such comments for the greater audience.
Peter Hasselbacher. MD
President, KHPI
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
October 21, 2012