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MU graduation gap between black, white students rooted in money, academics and climate

Columbia Missourian | 12 May 2016

COLUMBIA — Of the 5,702 full-time MU freshman who stepped onto Columbia’s campus in August 2008, fewer than half — 46 percent, according to a database from MU — graduated within four years.

Nationally, this is not unusual. Students transfer or drop out. They change majors once, twice or three times. They have double majors that take more time.

The six-year graduation rate is a better indicator of how many undergraduates complete their bachelor’s degrees: 69 percent graduate within six years, as reported by Common Data Set released by MU.

But when that number is broken down by race, it gets complicated. The six-year graduation rate for white students is 71 percent. For black students, that number drops to 57 percent — a difference of 14 points, according to numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics for the entering class of 2008.

This graduation gap is evident not only at MU. It’s a national issue, one with complex causes including not having enough money to pay for college, not enough peer and faculty support and a sense that they don’t belong.

First-generation students

One of the main reasons for the gap at MU is lack of financial resources, according to Donell Young, director of Academic Retention Services.

It’s true that nationally, African Americans are disproportionately affected by poverty. The 2014 poverty rate for black Americans was 26.2 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Only 10.1 percent of white Americans lived under the poverty line that year, or an income of $24,230 for a family of four.

Not only that, but 49 percent of black students were first-generation college students in 2007-08, according to a report from the Institute of Higher Education Policy.

Loans and scholarships are available, but navigating the related paperwork — especially when the student is the first person in the family to go to college — can be a roadblock.

Ronecia Duke came to MU from her hometown of Springfield as a freshman in August 2009. After a yearlong break to be with her family when her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease then switching to online classes when she learned she was pregnant, Duke graduated in December with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and communications.

Duke was also a first-generation college student.

“If you don’t have any prior knowledge of the whole adventure of going to college and what it entails, you can kind of get overwhelmed, I guess,” she said. “You don’t have anyone in your immediate family going to your orientation, dealing with a course schedule, meeting with academic advisers, taking out loans.”

Beyond academics

Another contributor to the graduation gap between black and white undergraduates is lack of adequate academic preparation for college, Young and others said. Research published last year from the Center for Law and Social Policy found that high-minority schools often don’t have access to the rigorous coursework that equips students for college.

That’s part of the reason Jaylen Johnson, who came to MU to study business in 2014, decided to transfer to a community college in his home city of Chicago in January.

“I don’t think that my high school prepared me for a college as large as MU,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t as successful or focused as I should have been.”

But Darnell Cole, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California who studies race and ethnicity in higher education, said it’s more complicated than assigning responsibility to the school districts from which students come.

“If you think about it, a lot of your white students don’t come from very good high schools, but they’re able to persist,” Cole said. “And one of the reasons they are able to do that is because they find enough peer support, faculty support and support among their campus services.”

Johnson’s reasons for leaving MU went beyond his feeling that he wasn’t sufficiently prepared. A first-generation college student, he said his family didn’t always know how to handle the paperwork and pressures related to his attending a big university. He found large classes tough because of their size, he said. Speaking to professors during office hours was intimidating.

Duke, who spent just over six years working to earn her degree, also noticed an atmosphere of separation when she came to MU.

At the MU Student Center, she saw “pockets of black people” sitting together rather than being integrated with the rest of the student body. She said that once, when she went with a large group to a fraternity party, the party hosts let the black women in — but not the black men.

And then there was the day in 2010 that cotton balls were strewn in front of the Gaines-Oldham Black Culture Center, a reminder of black slavery.

“I remember getting up that day and I was walking past the plaza, and I remember seeing those cotton balls,” Duke said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Hiring black faculty

It’s hard to see yourself successful when you don’t see anyone else who looks like you reaching success, Cole said. “So what we call representational diversity or structural diversity or demographic diversity is critical,” he said.

In other words, black faculty help black students prosper. “In many cases, institutions have become more diverse, but faculty haven’t,” Estela Bensimon, professor and co-director of the University of Southern California Center for Urban Education, said.

This is true at MU. From the fall of 2006 to the fall of 2015, the undergraduate black student population rose  to 8 percent from 6 percent ; the number of black faculty stayed virtually stagnant in the same time period, at 2.8 percent.

White students made up 84 percent of the student body in 2005; now, that’s dropped to 78 percent. Although the number of white faculty has dropped, it hasn’t been by the same margin. Ten years ago, MU faculty was 78.8 percent white; now, it’s 74.8 percent white.

One widely cited reason for the lack of black faculty on U.S. college campuses is what’s called the pipeline problem. If not many black students attend college, and even fewer graduate, and even fewer earn master’s or doctoral degrees, it becomes a circular problem. There simply aren’t as many black Ph.D.s to be hired as faculty members.
Cole pushes back against this thinking. There are enough black doctoral degree   candidates looking for jobs who could significantly increase minority faculty at colleges, Cole said, except in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.
Universities should “look at hiring practices, where they advertise for faculty positions, who’s on faculty search committees, who’s deciding what research is important, and what fits within university structure,” Cole said. “These are all decision points that reduce the opportunities that African Americans have (to) join the faculty.”
Recently, MU’s Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity required training for people involved in faculty hiring. Another one of of MU’s challenges, though, is its inability to retain black faculty members.

Non-black faculty have a responsibility to black students, too, Cole said. Just because there are low numbers of black faculty on campus, “it doesn’t exclude people who are not African American from providing those support networks for students for being mentors or providing environments that are supportive.”

Exploring data

It’s not enough to hire more black faculty, though, Bensimon said. Institutions of higher education must look at their practices and procedures, too.

One way to do that: Scrutinize the data.

Data can help administrators identify barriers that hold back black and other marginalized students — which they can do, for example, by spotting which courses might have disproportionately high rates of failure for these students.

“We have to really investigate right now what is causing the gap,” Bensimon said. “Do students drop out after the first year? Is it that they get to their junior year and run out of financial aid?”

At MU, the retention rate in 2015 for first-year African-American students was 82.9 percent; for white students, it was 87.8 percent, according to MU’s Office of Enrollment Management and Office of Institutional Research.

The offices collect and publish spreadsheets filled with data about students and faculty.

The office of undergraduate studies also tracks data for students who are not graduating from MU but who do not enroll in the next semester, said Jim Spain, vice provost for undergraduate studies.

This office found the reasons MU students leave are in line with national trends: finances, difficulty in academics and no sense of belonging.

Closing the gap

Given the complexity of the problem, the large and looming question is: What is MU going to do about it?

MU has established several race initiatives over the past half year, but quite a bit of that responsibility to keep students at MU — and black students, in particular — falls to the Academic Retention Services office.

“Ideally, I’d love to eliminate the gap,” said Young, who also has an appointment as assistant vice chancellor with the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity. “But it’s going to take a lot of hard work.”

Young took over in July 2015, and since then he’s formed anadvisory board with five subcommittees to evaluate programs to help students. They are:

  • Peer mentoring, meant to empower older students to guide newer ones.
  • An academic faculty involvement subcommittee, tasked with encouraging faculty to help students find success.
  • A financial awareness subcommittee to help students with financial literacy, especially those who may not have families who can help out.
  • A committee to evaluate the Summer Transition program, which invites 35 minority students to campus before their freshman year to take classes and learn how to navigate college before the fall semester hits. This fall, Academic Retention Services has created a Freshman Interest Group for Summer Transition participants.
  • And finally, student success committee, which focuses on what Young calls the “holistic experience” — looking outside the classroom to make MU a more welcoming environment to minority students.

Young plans to establish changes suggested by the advisory board by spring semester of 2017. But Academic Retention Services has already begun working with the fellowships office and the Honors College to put initiatives in place, including pairing junior and senior mentors with freshmen and sophomore mentees and hosting workshops for students who are close to meeting — but don’t quite reach — Honors College requirements.

“We’ve had conversations with students who said that if it wasn’t for their relationship with their mentor, that they would’ve transferred,” Young said, though since the program is so new, Academic Retention Services doesn’t have enough data to make any definitive conclusions.

Challenges aside, students do succeed. Johnson hopes to get back on track academically at his community college and return to MU in spring 2017. Duke, bouncing her 6-month-old baby, Naysa, on her lap, said she will take the LSAT this June with the hope of going to law school in the near future.

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Real-World Experience and the Liberal Arts

 Inside Higher Ed | 5 Oct 2016

Last month, faculty members at Furman University voted unanimously to scrap their university’s mission and install a new one.

Today the liberal arts university, which is located in South Carolina, announced the Furman Advantage, which will guarantee students access to “real-world experiences” alongside their academics. Those experiences could include internships, externships, community service, research opportunities or study abroad.

“We’re being purposeful about every student who walks through the door,” said Ken Peterson, dean of faculty at the university and co-chair of a committee to oversee the initiative. “From the time they arrive to the time they leave, we’re trying to leverage our programs to produce an excellent experience for every student.”

The university wants to send a strong message to students and their parents: Furman is working hard to prepare students for jobs and postgraduate lives.

The promise of a four-year pathway from college to career will be funded by a $47 million gift from the Duke endowment. It will be bolstered by mentors who not only guide students, but also encourage them to critically engage in and reflect on their experiences. That information will be gathered and analyzed by Furman in a Gallup-style data system.

“What is the right combination of experiences that help put our students on the path for their success in life, success in careers and deep commitment to improving the quality of life in the communities where they live and work?” said Furman President Elizabeth Davis.

Those are not only questions that Furman will try to answer through the data, but also challenges the university is trying to tackle through Furman Advantage — challenges affecting both students and the institution.

Origin of the Furman Advantage

The university’s real-world experience guarantee germinated from a report Furman commissioned from the research firm Art & Science Group. The charge: to dig into data and look at its enrollment numbers. There wasn’t an enormous problem, said Ben Edwards, the researcher who put together the report; both Furman’s yield and conversion rates were “OK but not great,” he said.

Freshman enrollment numbers have fluctuated over the past few years. In 2011, Furman had 794 incoming freshmen, but that dropped by nearly 100 students in 2012, when the university enrolled 697 incoming students. After modifying its admissions strategy — targeting out-of-state students who had less need for financial aid — the number of matriculating freshmen rose to 759 students in 2013. Those numbers are still low and reflect a competitive environment, said Fitch Ratings, a credit rating agency.

In addition, students Furman accepted but who decided not to attend opted to enroll at universities that weren’t comparable, such as large public institutions. This is pretty common among liberal arts admissions, Edwards said. Students across the nation increasingly are choosing larger, metropolitan-based institutions.

Furman was left with a question: How could the university set itself apart and attract more students?

“The key factor at play here is one of perceived value,” Edwards said. “You have an institution that’s charging more than competitors, which have honors programs to try and attract top students. You can’t offer SEC football, and you’re a smaller city. You have to prove your value in a way that the market could understand.”

At Furman, that meant using its assets — balancing preprofessional experiences with academics and engaging students in the community — to create a structured campuswide system that would set itself apart.

Outlook for the Liberal Arts

In several respects, the Furman Advantage is unique. And it represents the direction in which many liberal arts institutions may be headed.

“Years ago at conferences, you used to see a discussion about liberal arts or careerism,” said Brandon Busteed of Gallup. “Now I’m no longer seeing ‘or.’ It’s ‘and’ — how to better integrate meaningful work experiences with liberal arts colleges.”

A handful of colleges have established similar systems, such as Northeastern University in Boston. Northeastern’s successful co-op program was established over 100 years ago. The system’s goal is to intertwine academics with real-world experience.

The University of Cincinnati uses a similar approach. And several other institutions have created smaller programs or additions to the curriculum, though these are rarely at the institutionwide scale of Furman’s experiment.

When it comes to liberal arts institutions, a larger leap is better than smaller steps, according to Edwards.

“It takes something concerted and comprehensive to give people a reason to enroll,” Edwards said. “The nature of what we found — study after study — was that schools can’t simply be a little bit more global, or offer a little more career counseling. They have to stand out.”

The first part of Furman’s gift from the Duke endowment, which is worth $22 million, was awarded last fall for scholarships. The remaining $25 million is meant to jump-start the Furman Advantage. It has several specific purposes:

  • Student funding for unpaid internships or research projects;
  • An entirely new IT infrastructure in order to track student data and link mentors to students;
  • Professional development for faculty and staff, who will be trained in mentoring; and
  • Unallocated funds, for expenses that have not yet been identified.

“If we’re going to make this promise for every student, we’re going to need more dollars. We need to be able to increase the stipends and give students more access to that money,” Davis said, adding that the initial gift isn’t “enough to execute the whole thing, but it will get us started.”

Formalizing the Mentor Role

Furman already has a rich culture of faculty members offering guidance to students, Peterson said. But one essential piece of the new vision is institutionalizing a system of mentoring.

“We need to figure out how to build the mentor teams — I’m mindful that simply having an algorithm to match Mentor A with Person B is probably not the way to go,” Peterson said. “So what we really need to do is foster a culture of relationships.”

Faculty members will not be the only ones to serve as mentors. Students will have mentor teams during their time at Furman, and those teams may consist of staff members, administrators, internship advisers and alumni — people outside academia — along with faculty.

One danger of this requirement is the possibility that mentoring will take away from employees’ other requirements, such as research and teaching, said Lynn Pasquerella, the new president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the primary liberal education membership group in higher education.

That’s why Furman is investing money in professional development: faculty and staff will be trained on a new approach to mentorship.

“One thing we don’t want to do is burden the faculty with more tasks,” Davis said. “We want to change the conversation … so that students are really guided along individual pathways much more robustly than they are right now.”

Building the Plane While Flying

Exactly how the mentoring system will work has yet to be determined. Although the faculty voted to endorse the Furman Advantage last month, many particulars of the program still are not set in stone.

When Davis announced her vision to the faculty in December, ambiguity around specifics caused some skepticism.

“Faculty members are not used to endorsing a vision without all the details of the plan,” Peterson said. “It took them a while to get used to that idea that the initiatives are going to come from the faculty and staff, but that they will be coming from the boundaries of the vision.”

Over the course of the next semester, Davis and a council that is overseeing the work — which has representatives from every department and staff members from student life — hosted forums where professors could voice concerns and questions. Faculty members also were welcome to contribute feedback through an online portal.

By Sept. 20, the day of the vote, faculty members were assured that the vision had two main components: every student would be guaranteed a real-world experience that related to their academic work, and every student would have a team of mentors that would encourage self-reflection.

Going forward, some aspects of the Furman Advantage may take three years to fully integrate into the university, such as building a new IT system.

Other aspects, such as how students will complete their real-world experience, will vary from program to program. Some departments may research programs for certain majors; others may require students to reach out to alumni to talk about careers. Those details will be decided within the next year.

“The vision is not going to change, but how we choose to execute the vision based on the data will allow us to adapt our programs,” Davis said.

But, ultimately, administrators at Furman hope all students will graduate with a comprehensive college experience that connects their studies with their careers.

The main goal, said Peterson, is that “whether you’re an English major, a psychology major or a chemistry major, you can articulate the skills that you’ve developed in your course work or in the experiences that you’ve had in ways that the external world can understand its value.”

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Berkeley Suspends Palestine Course

Inside Higher Ed | 14 Sept 2016

The University of California, Berkeley, suspended a student-run course called Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis Tuesday after members of Jewish and pro-Israel groups complained that the course had an “anti-Israel bias.”

The one-credit course was part of Berkeley’s DeCal program, which allows students to propose and lead classes for their peers. According to the syllabus, the purpose of the course was to “examine key historical events that have taken place in Palestine … through the lens of settler colonialism.”

A statement from Berkeley said, “It has been determined that the facilitator for the course in question did not comply with policies and procedures that govern the review and approval of proposed courses for the DeCal program. As a result, the proposed course did not receive a sufficient degree of scrutiny to ensure that the syllabus met Berkeley’s academic standards. For that reason, approval for the course has been suspended pending completion of the mandated review and approval process. It should also be noted that the dean of the College of Letters and Sciences was very concerned about a course, even a student-run course, that espoused a single political viewpoint and appeared to offer a forum for political organizing rather than the sort of open inquiry and investigation that Berkeley is known for.”

An undergraduate, Paul Hadweh, was planning to run the course; neither Hadweh nor the course’s faculty sponsor, Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in ethnic studies, responded to request for comment.

The university suspended the course because its proposal was never submitted to Dean Carla Hesse of the College of Letters and Sciences, said Dan Mogulof, executive director for communications and public affairs at Berkeley.

Although the dean is not required to approve the course, students must still send her a copy of the proposal. That way, she can review the course and speak to colleagues or the department chair — who is required to sign off on the course — before it is taught.

“When the dean was made aware of the course, she had serious concerns,” Mogulof said. “And she was surprised because she had not previously heard about it.”

Tuesday morning, a group of 43 Jewish, pro-Israel and other advocacy organizations sent an email to Berkeley administrators conveying their unhappiness about the course. They specifically pointed to theRegents Policy on Course Content and asserted that the course is a vehicle for political indoctrination, therefore violating the policy.

However, the public clamor was not the tipping point for Hesse’s decision, Mogulof said. She began her inquiries into the course last week, after a colleague raised concerns about the course to the dean internally. This occurred before public criticism began.

The dean will now work with the Berkeley Academic Senate to review the course and examine whether it meets the university’s academic standards. The review process will also determine whether it complies with Berkeley’s intolerance policy, which was revised in March to condemn anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Even though the dean never gave the course her stamp of approval, students were enrolled for the fall semester. Instruction at Berkeley began three weeks before the course was suspended, and according to the DeCal website, the course had started.

It’s unclear to administrators exactly how the course was running even though it hadn’t fully followed the application procedure, according to Mogulof.

Wolfe criticizes UM System curators, Loftin in confidential email to university supporters

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Columbia Missourian | Jan. 27, 2016

COLUMBIA — In a letter to prominent supporters, former University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe lashed out at curators who tried to “dig up dirt,” at a chancellor who made a mess of MU and then manipulated blame on Wolfe, and at an athletics director and football coach who “threw gasoline on a small fire.”

Wolfe resigned in November without conditions. In the letter, he makes clear he wants money as part of the separation.

He wrote that he’d made proposals to the UM System Board of Curators and attempted to hash out differences through mediation, to no avail.

“All negotiations with the board have stopped and I’m left with the options of either accepting a small fraction of the total compensation that I could have made if I had stayed through the end of my contract, or to litigate which would involve going public with the reasons as to why I was the target of Concerned Student 1950,” Wolfe wrote.

Concerned Student 1950 is a student activist group formed in the fall to raise awareness of racial tensions on campus and protest a perceived lack of response from the administration to racially charged incidents and discrimination.

Wolfe’s contract for the first three years of his presidency called for $450,000 in annual compensation and up to $100,000 in performance-based incentives each year. In August 2014, the Board of Curators extended Wolfe’s contract through June 2018, and Wolfe’s base salary reached $459,000 in the 2014-15 school year. Wolfe would have made $477,544 for the 2015-16 school year.

In his letter, Wolfe wrote that the Board of Curators has offered to pay him only what he would have received if he’d been fired without cause.

In that circumstance, Wolfe could receive all deferred compensation accumulated in previous years and an additional sum not more than half of his annual base salary, according to his original contract.

In the letter, he contrasted his situation with those of former MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin and Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel.

Loftin’s resignation agreement with the Board of Curators granted him 75 percent of his former salary in a new role coordinating university research as a tenured physics professor and allowed him to keep the $135,000 bonus he received when he was hired.

The initial terms of the deal that the curators approved for Pinkel‘s new position in the athletics department would pay Pinkel $350,000 in 2016 and 2017 and $250,000 in 2018.

Wolfe’s letter was emailed Jan. 19 to all the members of the “Missouri 100,” a group of prominent UM System supporters, and other supporters. On Jan. 21, it was forwarded to administration officials in the four campus system. Interim Chancellor Hank Foley distributed it to his staff; it has been circulated among legislators in the General Assembly. The Missourian received the letter Wednesday.

Wolfe blamed Loftin for the majority of unrest at MU last year and accused him of working with state Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, to shape Loftin’s testimony to the Sanctity of Life Committee concerning the university’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

“That is inaccurate,” Loftin said Wednesday morning at his residence on Francis Quadrangle. Loftin said he provided Schaefer with information and letters when requested and appeared to testify before the committee when requested, but he did not work with Schaefer to cater his testimony.

Wolfe also alleged that the reason student protesters’ criticism focused on Wolfe was Loftin’s doing — once the former chancellor felt that his job was in danger in late September, Loftin began shifting the focus of student protest group Concerned Student 1950 to Wolfe.

“That is completely false,” said Ayanna Poole, a Concerned Student 1950 organizer. “Loftin didn’t in any way influence our motivation behind things. We had already shifted to Wolfe on our own because Wolfe had more power to make that systemic change happen on the university’s campus.”

Loftin also denied Wolfe’s claim. “Our students are highly intelligent, and I have a deep respect for them. To think that I could manipulate them in any way is unbelievable,” he said.

The former president’s motivation to resign was largely because of safety concerns, Wolfe said. The UM System called upon diversity and inclusion consulting experts after officials learned about a “pending event” on Nov. 9, the day Wolfe resigned.

According to Wolfe, the consulting experts “along with the FBI, Missouri Highway Patrol, Columbia Police Department and MU Campus police were aware of a significant Ferguson protester” and a threat that more protesters were arriving at campus that day.

Wolfe’s letter “reinforced his fear of black people or this idea that people that come from Ferguson are angry without reasoning,” Poole said.

MU Police Chief Doug Schwandt was not immediately available for comment about security concerns around the time of Wolfe’s resignation.

Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton said on Wednesday his department “was made aware via intelligence sources that people who were significantly involved in the Ferguson, Missouri, protests” as well as protesters from outside Boone County might be coming to join the MU protests. He said the information was shared with Columbia Police in case MU Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol needed support in providing security on campus.

DeRay McKesson, a civil rights activist and a member of the Black Lives Matter movement, said in a text conversation that he tweeted in solidarity with the MU protesters on Nov. 9 but didn’t arrive on campus until Nov. 10 — after Wolfe resigned. He said he knew of a few protesters from St. Louis on campus before Nov. 9 and said he knew that other protesters were headed to campus.

John Fougere, a UM System spokesman, said in an email that employees at University Hall and the Old Alumni Center were given “permission to work from home, if they felt that there was potential that their work would be distracted” on the day Wolfe resigned.

Wolfe also criticized Missouri athletics director Mack Rhoades, Pinkel and Loftin for failing to communicate with system officials as football players announced a boycott Nov. 7 until graduate student Jonathan Butler ended his hunger strike.

On Nov. 9, Pinkel tweeted a photo of the team, including white players and coaches, saying “The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players. #ConcernedStudent1950 GP.”

Wolfe announced his resignation hours later amid national attention. In his letter, he wrote, “The football team’s actions were the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a small fire. Coach Pinkel missed an important opportunity to teach his players a valuable life lesson.”

Wolfe suggested that the university might lose $25 million in tuition and fees in the upcoming academic year, as well as up to $500 million in state funding. This is a much worse consequence than the $1 million penalty that the university would have been required to pay for missing a game against Brigham Young University, Wolfe wrote.

The $25 million figure Wolfe cites is in line with current UM System officials’ estimates of lost tuition and fees for next year. MU Chief Operations Officer Gary Ward told Regional Economic Development Inc. board members earlier this month that the university expects enrollment to drop by as many as 900 students next year, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune. Interim UM System President Michael Middleton told the Tribune that the university could lose between $20 million to $25 million in tuition and fees as a result.

The letter accused a few members of the Board of Curators, which makes up the governing body of the UM System, of calling on “subordinate staff and faculty members to dig up dirt and use their Curator role to further personal agendas.”

Wolfe criticized the hiring of current Interim President Michael Middleton, who he said “failed miserable (sic) in his capacity as the long time leader on diversity issues on the MU campus.”

Wolfe also accused Schaefer of pressuring him to take away MU Law School associate professor Josh Hawley’s right to an unpaid leave of absence while running for attorney general. Schaefer also is running for attorney general.

“I think it’s indicative of the culture of corruption in Jefferson City,” said Daniel Hartman, Hawley’s campaign manager. “It is unethical for any state senator such as Kurt Schaefer to ask the president of the university for a personal political favor, and that’s what it was.”

State Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said Wednesday that these actions are not representative of the state legislature as a whole.

“I don’t think you can make broad generalizations based on the actions and attitudes of a few,” Rowden said. “I think there certainly has been some tension, some frustration. … A lot of the frustration stems from what members of the General Assembly have heard from their constituents. It’s about moving forward, looking ahead, finding the best way to have a forward-facing dialogue.”

Schaefer, however, denied many of Wolfe’s allegations, calling the letter “bizarre.”

“It attacks Mike Middleton, me, Bowen Loftin, the Curators — and it’s a disjointed collection of accusations,” he said Wednesday. “The ‘call to action’ is that he wants more money out of the university. It’s more of an extortion letter.”

Schaefer said he did speak to Wolfe about Hawley’s request for a leave of absence.

“They needed to follow their own rules, which they still haven’t done. That was my statement to him,” he said.

Schaefer denied the accusation that he influenced Loftin’s testimony before the Sanctity of Life committee.

“I didn’t, just because there was no need to,” Schaefer said. “The only thing I told him right before he walked in is that he should tell the truth.”

UM System Spokesman John Fougere issued a statement Wednesday morning, stating:

“We are aware that former President Tim Wolfe recently has made public to some university supporters a letter containing his thoughts about the events of last autumn and his desire to reach what he regards as an acceptable financial agreement between himself and the university.

“Since Mr. Wolfe resigned voluntarily last November, discussions have been on-going aimed at reaching an acceptable post-resignation agreement, including the use of a well-regarded and well-known mediator. After discussions which included mediation on December 18 left Mr. Wolfe’s situation unresolved, discussions have been on-going including another mediation recently. Our position has been that any agreement would have to be consistent with the legal constraints within which a public institution such as the university operates.”

Mike Middleton: Quick changes at MU may be ‘asking too much’

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Columbia Missourian | Dec 30, 2015

Written with Alexa Ahern

COLUMBIA — A few months ago, Michael Middleton was preparing to retire as deputy chancellor at MU — to visit his seven grandchildren and spend more time traveling with his wife.

Although he would remain part time, his work at the university he has called home for more than 30 years was drawing to a close.

Until it wasn’t.

As his responsibilities within the university administration were slowing, tensions on campus were building.

During the past semester, the campus erupted in protests, culminating with the Nov. 9 resignations of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.

Three days later, Middleton was named interim president of the four-campus system. With a 30-year tenure as a law professor and administrator whose role included improving equity and diversity at MU, it seemed he was the right person for the job.

Middleton assumes the interim position amid a slew of institutional, academic and social messes. In addition to mending trust with faculty, students and staff, he faces enormous expectations to improve race relations on campus.

But MU and the UM System won’t necessarily see sweeping change in the next six months.

To improve race relations, Middleton said he plans to install task forces on the UM System campuses to investigate the racial climates and search for best practices, not an entirely different approach from Wolfe or Loftin.

Wolfe assembled a systemwide task force in 2014 after MU was criticized for its handling of sexual assault cases, and Loftin created the Graduate Student Insurance Task Force after graduate insurance subsidies were cut last summer.

“I’m a really optimistic guy,” Middleton said, “but if you expect immediate change in the culture on our campuses, that’s probably asking too much.”

Expectations 

When Middleton stepped into the role of interim president, he inherited a university the size of a small city that had just gutted some of the most powerful positions in its leadership.

The students who had spent the fall protesting were not interested in a placeholder president, said Kristofferson Culmer, an MU graduate student and the UM System Intercampus Student Council chairman. They didn’t want a lame duck, someone who would uphold the status quo while the curators were on the search for someone to take over permanently.

“We wanted someone who could begin to address the issues of the campus head on,” Culmer said.

Culmer is also a chair of the Forum for Graduate Rights, one of 14 student groups that formed a coalition called the Collaborative, meant to work with students, faculty and administrators at MU and within the UM System to implement policy changes.

The Collaborative will release a report with the proposed policy changes in the spring, but according to Culmer, priorities include a culture of trust and transparency, shared governance, diversity training and professional development, mentorship and increased funding opportunities for students of color.

Middleton, Culmer said, should lead the charge in these policy changes, starting by confronting challenges at the university with open dialogue.

But Middleton is not only obligated to listen to students. Other stakeholders have expectations, as well.

Faculty and administration members are disgruntled after shake-ups in university leadership. Donors and alumni may be inclined to reconsider their financial gifts after a semester of turmoil.

State legislators are eyeing higher education with bills that might address academic freedom and faculty oversight. And there is always the issue of higher education funding.

State appropriations account for 10 percent of MU’s operating budget, and that figure has been trending downward for the past 15 years. Given recent events at the university, the legislature might be unwilling to pass Gov. Jay Nixon’s initiative to increase higher education funding by 6 percent.

There’s no question that the position of university president is not easy. The question is how Middleton will handle it.

Plans

The campus racial climate is a priority.

The UM System administration has already started to search for an assistant diversity officer and examine how sufficient the established rules for covering race issues are, Middleton said. A systemwide task force established by the UM System Board of Curators will look at programs and practices for race issues on all campuses, as well as identify best practices at other universities.

“We are really trying to build a world-class approach to addressing inclusion, diversity and equity in higher education,” Middleton said.

He also plans to look at the number of faculty and staff of color. One of eight demands by Concerned Student 1950 was to grow the number to 10 percent by academic year 2017-18.

Although he never committed to this time frame, Middleton said he will look at recruitment programs and financial packages to add faculty of color, as well as maximize the diversity of the pools of candidates.

He also hopes to restore trust with campus constituencies, including faculty. Apart from saying he would “get out and try to reassure people that this university has been strong and growing for 175 years,” he shared no specific strategies.

One thing Middleton said the campus can expect to see immediately is a swifter discipline process for those found guilty of discrimination and racism.

“I think we have been pretty effective in finding the offenders and taking them before student conduct committees, so that with civil rights enforcement activity, I think we’ve already gotten it beefed up and in place,” he said.

Middleton said he expects to see recommendations by some task forces by summer. With those recommendations, he hopes to build a catalog of campus programs for students of color and find resources to fund them. Existing programs are underfunded and focus on groups of people too small to address the larger issues of marginalization and exclusion, he said.

“The problem is taking those effective programs and scaling them up to make them available to the huge number of people we have in this system,” he said, though he did not name the programs about which he spoke.

“I suppose it’s only fair that you measure my success by those kinds of measures,” he said.

The next six months will consist of research and planning, Middleton said. The solution lies in a widespread shift in the collective culture of campus, not in quick fixes.

“Culture change is complex,” he said, “and whenever you talk about culture change, you imply that somehow you are going to make people curb their constitutional rights to think the way they want to think and say what they want to say.”

He said that moving forward with culture change is a balancing act of freedom of expression and sensitivity to the experiences of others. Education and training in diversity issues will be paramount in Middleton’s approach to race relations.

“I think the best way to strike that balance is to educate people on the effects of what they do,” he said. “I think most people are good-hearted people who don’t want to offend, intimidate or harass a student. I think it’s mostly inadvertent behavior, and I think learning and conversation can get us to the point where we are going to see some change in behavior.”

Achievements

In November, MU was scrutinized by the national media, which flooded into Columbia during the campus protests and resignations. When he was appointed interim president of the UM System on Nov. 12, Middleton was thrust into the spotlight.

“The value that we bring to the state of Missouri is remarkable, and none of that has stopped. We are still educating 77,000 students in the state,” he said in an interview shortly after he was appointed. It was his third of five interviews scheduled that day, and he answered questions with the careful consideration of a seasoned lawyer.

It’s clear MU means a lot to Middleton. He was a student in the 1960s — only a decade after the first black student was admitted to MU — and a founding member of the Legion of Black Collegians, a governing body for black student organizations on campus. He returned to MU as a law professor in the ’80s and ’90s and became an administrator in 1998.

Middleton taught criminal law and employment discrimination, along with other classes, when he was a member of the Law School faculty. Although he was a tough professor, he was “readily approachable,” said Melvin Smith, a former student who is now an attorney in St. Louis.

“For minority students, Middleton was someone you could confide in about both academics and the inner workings of culture at the university,” Smith said.

As deputy chancellor, Middleton worked closely with the leadership at MU, especially Brady Deaton, who was chancellor from 2004 to 2013.

“Any time we had an issue that had to go to the chancellor for decision, the chancellor relied very strongly on Mike to review all the materials,” said Ken Dean, senior associate provost.

“Mike would listen, he would read all the materials, he would review any materials that were recorded. Then he would provide an evaluation and a synthesis to the chancellor to help him make the final decision. So he was the chancellor’s right-hand man.”

Those qualities, and others, will be assets in Middleton’s role as interim president, Dean said.

“He’s thoughtful, he carefully considers all sides of the issue, he makes fair and reasonable judgments that come out of that consideration,” Dean said. “A very even disposition. He makes everybody feel that he’s listening to them because he is listening to them. Those are all the attributes that will allow him to do a great job in this new position.”

Even though Middleton’s role wasn’t explicitly designed to handle student affairs, he opened his door to students who wanted to speak with him about university matters, not unlike his years as a law professor.

“I saw Mike Middleton from time to time and we’d speak, and he always seemed to be concerned with what was going on with the lives of students,” said Culmer, who has known Middleton since 2011 when he was the Graduate Professional Council president at MU.

But Middleton’s term as MU deputy chancellor wasn’t always smooth sailing.

In 2010, cotton balls were strewn in front of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center, a racial reference to the period in U.S. history when slaves picked cotton. Middleton reacted frankly and firmly.

“The entire Mizzou family has been offended by the acts that occurred the other night,” Middleton said at a forum after the incident. “Administration is totally offended by what happened and totally committed to making sure it does not happen in the future.”

The turbulent environment on campus today also presents opportunities to lead.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t do what was necessary to avoid the explosion that we recently experienced,” Middleton said, “but I’m optimistic and happy that I’m now in a position where I might be able to have more influence on solutions to that issue.”

Quest for justice drives MU hunger striker to grab ‘things by the root’

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Columbia Missourian | Nov 10, 2015

COLUMBIA — When Jonathan Butler announced he would not eat until University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe left office, he included in his letter a quote from author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou:

“I agreed a long time ago, I would not live at any cost. If I am moved or forced away from what I think is the right thing, I will not do it.”

Butler reads a lot. He reads Angelou, Toni Morrison, Stokely Carmichael, Frantz Fanon.

These authors, among others, are why Butler considers himself a radical. This isn’t to say he’s a political extremist, but he thinks about radicalism as “grabbing things by the root.” When Butler is called the n-word while walking through campus, he doesn’t rebuke the heckler. He wonders how and what: How, in 2015, can this occur on campus? What conditions at MU create this environment?

These questions drove Butler to embark on a hunger strike until the top official in the UM System was gone.

Wednesday evening, at the end of day three of consuming only water, his stride was slow and his steps heavy as he walked toward Jesse Hall. But after sitting down and sipping from his water bottle, he spoke quickly, eager to share his favorite books and authors.

“I’m still reading it actually,” he said about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” “Hopefully, crossing my fingers, I get to finish that book.” He said it in a joking way, but the implication then — that he wouldn’t survive his protest — was grim.

Now, after the Missouri football team announced a boycott in solidarity with his hunger strike and Wolfe announced his resignation, Butler, 25, has all the time he needs to finish the book.

This notion of “grabbing things by the root” was a catalyst for his drastic measure to oust Wolfe from his position.

Butler has experienced racism at MU, he said. Days after Missouri Students Association President Payton Head wrote a widely shared Facebook post in September about being called racist slurs , Butler was called the n-word while walking through Greektown. He felt these hecklers considered him less than human, as if they were still abiding by the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” an 18th century clause in the U.S. Constitution that stated slaves were three-fifths of a person.

This feeling of “less than” solidified when Wolfe and other university leaders did not publicly respond to MU’s culture of racism. If the institution was dismissing Butler’s humanity, he thought, fine. He would put his own humanity on the line.

Cafeteria politics

Although Butler didn’t start reading the radical authors until his senior year while studying business at MU, he recalls being surrounded by literature when he stayed with his grandfather in New York City.

His grandfather was a public defense lawyer in the Brooklyn neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant — “Bedstuy … in the heart of what you consider the hood,” Butler said. There, 7-year-old Butler saw his grandfather help the poorest of the poor.

“He comes from a very religious background, and he was very heartfelt on showing compassion for people … and love towards God,” Butler said. “There’s protesting, there’s policy, there’s community engagement. So when you talk about that community engagement piece, I really got that at a young age.”

When Butler wasn’t at his grandfather’s, he grew up with two older sisters in Omaha.

“Tortuous,” he recalled. “They loved picking on me because for the longest time I was the short, chubby brother.”

Two years into his time at Omaha Central High School, where he wrestled, played football and ran track and field, the city’s school district lines were redrawn. Butler observed how money could dictate social and racial dynamics.

“The school needed some money so they did some redistricting, and, with that, it brought in a lot of white students,” he said.

Omaha Central High got repairs and a new football stadium. But along with these resources came a deepening divide between white students and students of color, Butler said. During lunchtime, white students gathered in the octagon-shaped courtyard with a glass ceiling. Black and Latino students ate in the cafeteria. It was the classic high school lunchroom, which had foldout tables and doubled as a gymnasium.

“It was that phenomenon — that’s where we felt safe, that’s where we felt at home,” Butler said. “People would bring their speakers, their CD players. We would play music. It was always this great time.”

Activism

The more Butler read, the more radical he became. For him, that meant making people aware of institutional systems that dole out power to a lucky few while taking it away from others.

“The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” a book by Paulo Freire, made Butler rethink these systems and reach for freedom — “freedom of mind, physical freedom, freedom from systems,” he said.

And freedom of mind leads to consciousness, which comes from education, he said.

Butler arrived at MU in 2008 to study engineering. He switched his major to psychology, then sociology, then graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business. He recalled being on campus in 2010 when cotton balls were scattered in front of MU’s Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center.

Butler took a little time off school and worked for the university before starting a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy analysis last year. As he began graduate school, the eyes of the world turned to Ferguson, Missouri, after black teenager Michael Brown was shot by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.

Butler headed to Ferguson to protest. He saw law enforcement officers approach protesters in what he assumed were SWAT trucks. He saw them toss tear gas cans into the crowd. He felt it, too.

“When they started popping the first tear gas, there was a taste I couldn’t get out of my mouth,” Butler told the Missourian in August 2014. “My nose started running. I just started itching. It was so overpowering that I started to get a headache.”

Fourteen months later, after participating in numerous demonstrations to reform the racial climate at MU, Butler had a peculiar sense of deja vu.

On Oct. 10, he and 10 other student activists, who called themselves Concerned Student 1950 after the year when the first black graduate student was admitted to the university, stopped Wolfe’s convertible during MU’s Homecoming parade.

Their demonstration was meant to educate bystanders about MU’s history of oppression.

“In 1839, the University of Missouri was established as a flagship institution west of the Mississippi River,” began Reuben Faloughi, a member of Concerned Student 1950 and also an MU graduate student. “This institution was for white men only — only white men! And it was built on the backs of black people!”

“Ashé!” the protesters chanted, using the Yoruba word for power. “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”

A number of people in the crowd shouted back MU’s signature chant, “M-I-Z!” and “Z-O-U!” Some bystanders tried to block Wolfe’s car from the activists. Wolfe did not leave his car, and he did not respond to the students. His driver revved the car’s engine, and the car bumped into Butler.

After law enforcement officers came to break up the demonstration, the student activists embraced. Some cried.

This sense of emotional support felt between the original 11 members of Concerned Student 1950 has only intensified since the parade. The group sent Wolfe a list of demands, including a comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum, an increase in black faculty and staff and more funding for MU’s mental health center. When Wolfe met with Concerned Student 1950 members, he did not agree to any of them.

The movement family

Butler was not satisfied. He thought about things he had often thought about: radicalism, humanity and confronting things at the root. He consulted with his physician and his pastor. He updated his will, decided to become an organ donor and signed a “Do Not Resuscitate” order.

He thought about God, too.

Butler spoke passionately, quickly, varying his sentences with repetition and fragments to make his point. But when it came to talking about God, he paused and took a deep breath.

“There’s this faith that if I walk on concrete, I’m not going to sink into a hole and fall through the ground,” Butler said. “So there’s that faith that we already have in everyday life, but it’s just a blind faith in a greater sense. God created me. He created these systems. He created this world. And to trust him through it all — that whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

“Jesus was a radical, too,” he added.

Yet Butler did not tell his friends — his movement family, as he calls them — until the Sunday night before he began his hunger strike. They were shocked that he was willing to give up his life to protest Wolfe. But not 24 hours later, they had set up a few tents on Mel Carnahan Quadrangle and were determined to stay until Wolfe was out of office.

As the week went on, passers-by visited with support in the form of food, tarps, even a dog to pet. Some students stopped by to learn about the movement. More and more supporters brought tents and joined the campout. They formed a community, gossiping about why Missouri quarterback Maty Mauk had been suspended and complaining about seeing drunk parents at bars downtown. They prayed.

A few days in, students dedicated an entire tent to storing food. The camp grew. The movement community swelled.

Butler stopped by from time to time, but he spent the majority of his week in class, working or in meetings.

“Some people want to meet for just 15 minutes to talk and just pray,” Butler said. “Some of them have been hour-long meetings because they’re really trying to clear up what got me to this point.”

Without food, by day four, his friends helped him meet his appointments by acting as human crutches. Standing up required his significant concentration.

His movement family protected him, too. On Monday morning, after Wolfe announced his resignation, they surrounded him by the tents at Carnahan Quad, shielding him from the barrage of reporters and curious onlookers.

Students hugged each other. They danced. They jumped up and down. Butler, in a dark cap and sweatshirt, was in the middle of it all, held up on each side by a friend. They chanted the chorus to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.”

Many strings remain loose, including whether real race relations reform will come to MU or whether the president’s successor will be different than Wolfe in the eyes of the movement community.

From Butler’s perspective, though, he took the important step from reading about radicalism to making it his own. He spun the wheels of change at MU.

MU student embarks on hunger strike, demands Wolfe’s removal from office

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Columbia Missourian | Nov 2, 2015

COLUMBIA — Jonathan Butler, an MU graduate student and campus activist, began a hunger strike at 9 a.m. Monday as a protest against Tim Wolfe remaining president of the University of Missouri System.

“During this hunger strike, I will not consume any food or nutritional sustenance at the expense of my health until either Tim Wolfe is removed from office or my internal organs fail and my life is lost,” Butler wrote in a letter sent to the UM System Board of Curators.

Butler, a master’s student in educational leadership and policy analysis, is protesting “a slew of racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., incidents that have dynamically disrupted the learning experience” at MU. His letter referenced incidents of black students being called racist slurs, the sudden removal of graduate student health insurance subsidies in August, MU’s cancellation of Planned Parenthood contracts and the swastika drawn with human feces found in an MU residence hall on Oct. 24.

“(S)tudents are not able to achieve their full academic potential because of the inequalities and obstacles they face,” Butler wrote. “In each of these scenarios, Mr. Wolfe had ample opportunity to create policies and reform that could shift the culture of Mizzou in a positive direction but in each scenario he failed to do so.”

The letter was sent to curators at 8:29 a.m. Monday. The curators, who are the governing body of the four-campus system, have the power to fire Wolfe. Butler also published the letter on Twitter shortly after 10 a.m.

Curators Phillip Snowden and David Steelman had no comment. The other six curators did not respond to phone calls requesting comment as of 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Wolfe issued a statement by email through UM System spokesman John Fougere shortly after 5 p.m. It read:

“It is extremely concerning when any of our students puts their health and safety in harm’s way. I sincerely hope that Mr. Butler will consider a different method of advocating for this cause. I respect his right to protest and admire the courage it takes to speak up.

“I believe that the best course of action is an ongoing dialogue about the racial climate on our four UM System campuses. Immediately after my initial meeting with the ConcernedStudent1950 group on October 26th, I invited Jonathan to meet again so we can build a deeper relationship and open a frank conversation about the group’s frustrations and experiences. I remain hopeful that they will accept my invitation.

“This meeting with the ConcernedStudent1950 group is one example of our engagement at the UM System level on this complex, societal issue. I have met with our chancellors, campus diversity officers, students and faculty about the scope of the problem, so that collectively we may address these issues that are pervasive and systemic in our society. We must always continue our efforts to affect change at our UM System campuses.”

Butler is part of Concerned Student 1950, the student group that stopped Wolfe’s car during the Homecoming Parade on Oct. 10. After Wolfe did not respond to students’ concerns while he was in the car, the group published a list of demands, including asking for a handwritten apology from Wolfe and his removal from office.

Wolfe met privately with members of Concerned Student 1950 on Oct. 26, but he did not agree to any of the group’s demands. Butler confirmed that he did receive an email from Wolfe the next day, but because he asked Wolfe that all correspondence go through the Concerned Student 1950 group email address, he was waiting for Wolfe to email the group before he would respond.

Butler said he is demanding Wolfe’s removal from office because he’s failed to respond to marginalized students’ concerns with sincerity or concrete action.

“I’m critical of Chancellor Loftin because he does play a crucial role in what happens on campus, but in the meetings I’ve seen with him, he’s actually more willing to understand how systems of oppression, how racism and all these things work,” Butler said in an interview. “Being in a meeting with Tim Wolfe … he doesn’t acknowledge our humanity, he doesn’t acknowledge that we exist; we’re nothing to him.”

In his letter, Butler wrote that he has “no ill will or thoughts of harm towards Mr. Wolfe.” Instead, he thinks it’s urgent to make MU “a more safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all identities and backgrounds.”

MU also released a statement through MU spokesman Christian Basi: “Chancellor Loftin continues to be willing to meet with representatives from student groups, including ConcernedStudent1950.

Additionally, Chancellor Loftin and his staff will continue to meet with student leaders, faculty and staff, as we take steps to acknowledge our past, create a more inclusive campus and build a better future at Mizzou.

“Chancellor Loftin and his administrative staff are concerned about the health and well-being of Mr. Butler, as we are with all of our students. We respect Mr. Butler’s right to protest in this manner, but sincerely hope he will not suffer from his actions. We offer many resources to support students’ health and wellbeing, all of which are available to Mr. Butler.

“Chancellor Loftin and all of his staff sincerely want to work with Mr. Butler toward a better understanding of our differences and hope he will reconsider his actions, which could have damaging repercussions to his health. We stand ready to continue an open dialogue.”

During his hunger strike, Butler will continue to attend class and work at his job as a co-facilitator for a Peace Corps prep program. He will also host study halls about systems of oppression such as racism and sexism on MU’s central campus beginning Tuesday, but the final details of those study halls have not yet been announced.

Butler has been a vocal student protester, condemning racism at MU since last year’s post-Ferguson demonstrations. Butler is also a member of the MU Faculty Council’s race relations committee, which has the “purpose of addressing widespread unawareness of racial insensitivity on campus,” according to a Faculty Council report from March.

Butler made the decision to go on a hunger strike a couple of days after the Homecoming Parade.

“A hunger strike specifically speaks to the nature of the beast that we’re dealing with when we talk about systemic issues, because it deals with humanity,” Butler said. “I think what I want people to come away with, if nothing else, (is) to understand that I’m so committed to making things better here at the university … that I’m literally willing to give up my humanity to see some injustices stop.”

Over the past few weeks, he’s been preparing for the strike: Butler updated his will and spoke to his physician.

After researching how the human body reacts to hunger strike, Butler gradually lessened his food intake in the past two weeks. He will still drink water during his strike.

Butler said he has also prepared himself spiritually. Before making the decision, he spoke to his pastor and prayed.

“[A]s the collective body of UM curators considers my request and decides on what your next steps will be do not consider that my life is in your hands because my life is in God’s hands,” Butler wrote in his letter.

Hunger strikes are a form of non-violent protest used by activists such as labor movement leader Cesar Chavez, who did not eat for 24 days in 1972. More recently, a few students at Tufts University in Boston participated in a five-day hunger strike to protest the university’s decision to lay off 20 janitors.

When a human body doesn’t receive calories from food, after a few days it begins breaking down fat to produce energy,according to an article published in the scholarly journal Nutrition and Clinical Practice.

During prolonged periods of time without food, the human body breaks down muscles and vital organs for energy and protein, consuming itself in order to survive. People of normal weight can last two to three months without food, according to the journal article.

At about 7:30 a.m. Monday, Butler met with a group of friends — he calls them his movement family — at Waffle House. He ordered two waffles with maple syrup and eggs. He only ate half a waffle before his strike began. After breakfast, he and his friends prayed.

“There is a more than 90 percent chance that I won’t survive this, and that’s why I’ve taken such precautions that I have,” Butler said. “If I do lose my life through this process, I think it only promotes the message stronger … that this is worth fighting for.”

 

The short, controversial life (so far) of MU’s leader

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Columbia Missourian | Oct 26, 2015

COLUMBIA — Twenty months into his tenure, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin isn’t winning any popularity contests.

Students have protested on campus and through social media. Since the semester began, the hashtag #LoftinCantExplain has been both tweeted and written on signs. Student activists and some faculty have said:

  • Loftin can’t explain why the administration has been lagging in its response to racism on campus.
  • Loftin can’t explain why the university bowed to political pressure to cancel contracts with Planned Parenthood.
  • Loftin can’t explain why graduate students have lost benefits, one by one, including full tuition waivers for those with 10-hour assistantships and then health insurance subsidies.
  • Loftin hasn’t explained the sudden resignation of medical school Dean Patrice Delafontaine after less than a year on the job.

Since then, Loftin and the university administration have backed up a few steps.

Graduate students would get health insurance subsidies back, Loftin said at a general faculty meeting. He also announced mandatory diversity and inclusion training for students, faculty and staff. The nursing school has established three new agreements with Planned Parenthood.

But backtracking simply isn’t enough, activists say, criticizing these moves as mere PR stunts to re-establish favor with donors.

“All the action that’s been had has been a response to something. Rather than pro-action, it’s been reaction,” said Kenneth Bryant Jr., president of the Graduate Student Association. “Many students don’t see the chancellor as visible on these issues as he ought to be. And when he has the opportunity to respond to things that do happen, people are not satisfied with the response.”

Many are calling for greater transparency and a shift in the way MU’s administration operates.

“The status quo moving forward can’t continue,” said Kristofferson Culmer, Steering Committee chairperson for the Forum on Graduate Rights. “There has to be more open dialogue with student stakeholders and the faculty and staff.”

Faculty members in the English Department are considering holding a vote of no confidence — a declaration that a person in a leadership position is no longer deemed fit — on the chancellor in November. Some faculty members are encouraging other MU departments to do the same.

University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe, who hired Loftin, met with MU deans and UM System Chief of Staff Zora Mulligan on Oct. 9. Wolfe met with them again on Oct. 13, this time joined by Loftin and Provost Garnett Stokes. The topics of their meetings were not disclosed.

“The morale in the university among the faculty is fairly low,” said Bill Kerwin, an associate professor in the English Department. “I think we’re inspired by the graduate students and their response to the health care issue. … And I think we need to step up and stand up as well.”

Speculation and legislation

Talk about Loftin’s job security has become noisier. Even legislators in Jefferson City are taking note.

When speculation circled around a closed UM Board of Curators meeting Wednesday — the second non-regularly scheduled curators meeting in a month — about whether Loftin would be let go, state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, drove from St. Louis to Columbia to speak to the curators in defense of the chancellor.

Nasheed ultimately squashed those rumors — Curator Chairman Donald Cupps told her that Loftin’s job status was not on the meeting’s agenda — so she spoke to reporters instead.

“At the end of the day, he’s doing the right thing,” Nasheed said. “He’s a man of good character. He’s moving this campus forward in the most productive way and the most progressive way.”

Nasheed later tweeted, “WOW!!! MU Board of Curators wouldn’t let me speak today? #nolegislativecourtesy.”

But in many ways, legislators want more than courtesy. They provide funding to MU — that is, $224.1 million in fiscal year 2016, or 9.8 percent of MU’s budget. The push-and-pull of university power isn’t confined to Columbia’s campus. It’s being fought in Jefferson City, too.

Indeed, MU’s decision to cancel contracts with Planned Parenthood and cut hospital privileges for the only doctor providing abortions in Columbia came when Loftin was in communication with state Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia.

Schaefer is leading the state legislature’s Senate Interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, which has been examining the legality of Planned Parenthood operations in Missouri. Loftin attended a committee hearing on MU’s relationship with Planned Parenthood on Aug. 25; the university cut its contracts with Planned Parenthood between Aug. 21 and Sept. 3.

The last time an MU chancellor was dismissed from his office, the Board of Curators voted 5-4 to fire Chancellor Charles Kiesler on July 18, 1996. Then-Curator President Fred Hall said Kiesler was not carrying out policies while increasing administrative expenses.

#IStandWithLoftin

Nasheed isn’t the only one speaking on behalf of Loftin.

A Twitter account with the handle @standwithLoftin emerged hours before Wednesday’s curators meeting, sharing tweets with the hashtag #IStandWithLoftin.

“Hey @UMPrez (Wolfe) — worry about things like keeping tuition low and college affordable, instead of playing political games. #IStandWithLoftin,” tweeted the Mizzou College Republicans.

Ted Ayres, who will take over as president of the Missouri Alumni Association next year, praised the chancellor.

“What really impresses me, what I’ve seen so far, is a sense of sincerity. I think he’s come to care about the university like many of us do,” Ayres said. “There have been some blips. … He’s had some difficult issues to deal with. I think he’s dealt with those with candor and dignity.”

Some argue that evaluating the chancellor’s work before his second-year work anniversary is, at its core, a futile task.

“I think it’s impossible to be a success in your first two years as chancellor,” said Ben Trachtenberg, Faculty Council chairman and professor of law. “It’s certainly possible to fail. It’s like steering a battleship — it takes time to steer it in a certain direction.”

The buck stops … where?

Loftin has made a number of large, multi-million dollar decisions at MU, including shaking up the faculty and administration.

For one, the chancellor instituted a faculty buyout program last year, allowing tenured faculty who were eligible for retirement to leave. In all, 110 eligible faculty opted for the buyout.

Loftin also created new positions in the administration.

After dissolving the graduate school, which had a dean, he created the Office of Graduate Studies. He appointed Leona Rubin associate vice chancellor for graduate studies and Hank Foley to be the senior vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at MU.

Loftin hired Stokes as provost in February of this year, and he installed Elizabeth Loboa as the new dean for the College of Engineering. He also hired a few other deans and added a full-time administrator and investigator to the Title IX office.

Part of the reason for creating new positions is to delegate certain responsibilities to administrators he can trust, Ayres said. After all, Loftin can’t realistically take on all of MU by himself.

“Those changes that were made, they were difficult,” said Craig Roberts, professor of plant sciences and former Faculty Council chairman. “When those administrators were removed, they needed to be removed. This was long overdue. And there are others who need to go.

“He cleaned out some of the previous leadership and built a team around him of capable people,” Roberts said. “Gary Ward (MU vice chancellor for operations and chief operating officer) is exceptional. … Rhonda Gibler (MU vice chancellor for finance and chief financial officer) is another name that comes to mind. A big one is Garnett Stokes, who is capable, honest, forthright and transparent.”

Not everyone agrees.

Stokes and Rubin have come under scrutiny for the contentious decisions involving cutting graduate student health insurance subsidies and cutting tuition waivers in half for graduate students with 10-hour assistantships while increasing stipends.

Although health insurance subsidies have since been reinstated, Rubin was harshly criticized for mishandling communication regarding the original decision to cancel the subsidies. Graduate students were notified one day before the policy was effective. When Loftin was interviewed about the decision in August, he pushed the blame onto Rubin instead of accepting it himself.

Loftin should take responsibility for these decisions, particularly since he was the one who did away with the graduate school and hired Rubin, said Angela Speck, a Faculty Council member and professor of astrophysics.

“Not everything was his fault, but some things were,” Speck said. “It was a big mistake to dissolve the graduate school.”

“Loftin is a symbol”

“I don’t give a shit about my perception,” Loftin said in an interview with Missourian columnist George Kennedy in September.

Many other people do, and they care a lot.

On one hand, the chancellor’s reputation is tied to MU. If Loftin is swept up in not-so-favorable PR, that could mean fewer donor gifts and fewer students enrolling and paying tuition money.

On the other hand, “Loftin is a symbol” to students and faculty already on campus, said Jonathan Butler, a graduate student and activist.

Part of Loftin’s job is to create a safe and appropriate learning environment for students and, Butler said, Loftin is failing to effectively do so.

MU releases year-long Title IX data on student sex discrimination, assault

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Columbia Missourian | Sept 17, 2015

COLUMBIA — More than 300 reports of sex discrimination were made to MU’s Title IX Office from August 2014 to July of this year, and eight students were disciplined for violating campus sex discrimination policies, according to a report released Thursday by MU.

It is the first review of sex discrimination data — including sexual assault and harassment — compiled by the Title IX Office. It will act as a baseline to measure the frequency and types of sex discrimination involving students on and off campus. The Title IX Office will use this information in future prevention of sex discrimination and protection of university students.

“We have an opportunity and an obligation to use the information the Title IX Office collects to improve campus culture and reduce sex discrimination at MU,” said Ellen Eardley, MU Title IX administrator,in a news release that accompanies the 30-page report.

The office received 332 reports between Aug. 1, 2014, and July 31. However, some reports made during this annual reporting period were of incidents that occurred before Aug. 1, 2014.

“Sometimes we’re getting reports of incidents that occurred five or six years ago,” Eardley said in an interview.

The report comes in a national climate of growing concern about the prevalence of sex discrimination at colleges and universities. One in five women is sexually assaulted during her college years, according to a National Institute of Justice report, which is used by the Office for Civil Rights.

Among other changes in how sexual misconduct is addressed, the University of Missouri System recently announced a preventive training, Not Anymore, which students are required to complete before applying for classes this spring. The training is video-based and reviews topics such as sexual assault, consent, dating and domestic violence, stalking and bystander intervention.

By the numbers

Reports involving 328 students who said they experienced sex discrimination in some form were made to the office. Four involved more than one incident, for a total of 332 incidents. In its report, the Title IX Office states there were 374 alleged policy violations because sometimes one incident reported by a student violated multiple MU discrimination policies.

Complainants is the term used for alleged victims of the university’s anti-discrimination policies. Respondents are those accused of violating those policies.

The office regards sex discrimination as that based on sex, gender, pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. Incidents such as sexual assault, harassment and stalking are subcategories of these.

Sexual misconduct — including rape and other sexual assault, exposing one’s genitals and sexual exploitation — was the most highly reported type of incident, at 33.2 percent.

Of the 124 counts of sexual misconduct reported to the office, 50 percent were incidents of rape (identified in the report as nonconsensual sexual intercourse) and 20.2 percent were other types of sexual assault, such as touching someone’s genitals without permission.

Students also reported 85 incidents of sexual harassment, 49 incidents of dating and intimate partner violence and 31 incidents of stalking.

Reports and incidents were not divided by gender in the report. The omission was not intentional, Eardley said.

“I could say that predominantly respondents were male and complainants were female,” she said.

Investigations

Just over 9 percent of incidents were followed up with an investigation.

The Title IX Office pursues an investigation when a student files a formal request with the office. Out of the 332 reports, students filed formal complaints 31 times.

Seven students were suspended as the result of Title IX investigations, and one student was given “discretionary sanctions,” which is not defined in the report. Four students were found not responsible for violating the nondiscrimination policies.

Other cases were settled through conflict resolution or were still open at the end of the reporting period.

A student can be disciplined for an incident of sex discrimination by the university if what the report called a reasonable person could, based on the evidence, find the accused person responsible for violating MU’s discrimination policy.

The number of students disciplined for sex discrimination is low in comparison to the number of reports made but is not low when compared to the number of investigations conducted. About one in four investigations led to disciplinary action.

A number of factors could have influenced why only 31 students decided to make formal complaints, said Salama Gallimore, lead Title IX investigator for MU. Students often pursue accommodations — such as help with classes or mental health treatment — instead of an investigation because they want to move forward rather than take action against someone, Gallimore said.

The student is not required to make a formal complaint, but the university can pursue action without the complainant’s permission when it’s in the interest of safety for all students, the report stated. In these cases, the student does not have to participate in the investigation.

“It’s their choice how they participate in that process,” Eardley said, “so they could say, ‘We’re done talking.’”

The university took independent action twice in the latest annual reporting period, so the Title IX Office conducted 33 investigations over that time.

Who reports incidents

The Title IX Office received most of its reports from university employees about MU students, according to the report. They were predominantly made by the Department of Residential Life, faculty members, course instructors, academic advisers and the MU Police Department.

“(Faculty and staff) don’t need to feel like they have to provide the support themselves — they may not have the expertise to provide the support themselves,” Eardley said. “So they can feel assured that they’re getting students to a place on campus that can help provide those options to them.”

The Title IX Office received the highest number of reports during October, and most of the incidents reported in October were alleged to have occurred that month. Gallimore said this was probably because a lot of drinking occurs around then for Homecoming, football games, Halloween parties and other events.

“We know that alcohol is a tool that’s used by predators so it becomes a lot easier to separate people from their friends, and people are obviously more uninhibited or may feel comfortable in a situation that’s not comfortable or safe,” Gallimore said.

Future of Title IX reporting

The MU Title IX Office was established for student victims of sex discrimination, Eardley said. This first report was intended to address students’ experiences with sex discrimination and not those of faculty and staff.

“It’s a process,” Eardley said of the overall development of consistent processes for dealing with sex discrimination on campus.

“I work on a regular basis with several places on campus that have historically addressed faculty and staff issues including Human Resources, the MU Equity Office and the Provost’s Office,” she said. “We’re continuing to work on those issues together. Certainly when reports of sex discrimination get to my office, regardless of who’s impacted by it, I address it and get involved in it.”

Eardley and Danica Wolf, coordinator for the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center, which works closely with the Title IX Office, said they expected the number of reports to increase in coming years, after students — and faculty and staff, who are now mandatory reporters — become more aware of the Title IX procedures.

“One of the signs of a good prevention program is that the numbers go up,” Wolf said. “I think that it can hopefully increase confidence in how their story will be handled when and if they do choose to report.”

Diversity and inclusion training to be required campuswide

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Columbia Missourian | Oct 8, 2015

COLUMBIA — MU will require all students, faculty and staff to take diversity and inclusion training. For students starting at MU in the spring semester, the training will begin in January. For current students, faculty and staff, the timeline is uncertain.

The training program is in response to instances of people using racist slurs on or near campus over the past month, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced in a statement to the MU community Thursday morning.

The program will teach students about racism concerns at MU, inform them of diverse organizations and resources on campus and emphasize the role of inclusion at the university, the chancellor’s message said.

Students who do not successfully complete this training will not be eligible to enroll in classes.

The administration also will consider making the training mandatory for current students, but the chancellor said the pilot program involving the incoming class in January will be evaluated before it is required of other students.

All faculty and staff will be required to undergo training “as soon as possible” — though no timeline has been set — to address both conscious and unconscious discrimination toward others on campus, the statement said.

Logistics of the training, such as how it will be administered and funded, are still being discussed, Loftin said at a brief news conference Thursday.

Loftin is looking for faculty members who might help design the training, Faculty Council chairman Ben Trachtenberg said at a council meeting Thursday afternoon.

“There’s no simple answer to this kind of issue,” Loftin said. “What I’ve said many times here is changing people’s hearts is very difficult and very challenging. You do it one step at a time, you do it multiple ways.”

Loftin had at least two private meetings with students and faculty Wednesday morning, after he returned from an international trip. One was with with the Rev. Carl Kenney, an adjunct journalism faculty member and a columnist for the Columbia Missourian, and Craig Roberts, a plant sciences professor at MU and a member of the Faculty Council committee on race relations. Another meeting was with student members of the Legion of Black Collegians (LBC), who were recently the targets of racist slurs.

The training program is a step in a larger evaluation of the climate of racism on campus. The administration has been discussing race relations at MU with faculty and students over the past year. The Faculty Council created a committee on race relations last spring, which has since been discussing initiatives to combat racism on campus.

But the university has been the site of highly publicized incidents in the past month — including racist slurs directed at Missouri Students Association President Payton Head last month, and then again at students involved with LBC early Monday morning — and angry students have protested, condemning both campus racism and the administration’s response.

“I think the activities over the past couple of weeks made it very clear that we can no longer wait on the Faculty Council to come up with a recommendation,” Kenney said. “I think that the chancellor exerted strong leadership in coming up with a decision that may not be popular among some of the faculty, but was able to really address the critical concerns.”

But not everyone is celebrating the chancellor’s announcement.

“This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough,” Jonathan Butler, a graduate student and former president of the International Association of Students in Economics and Commercial Sciences chapter at MU, wrote in a letter to Loftin on Thursday.

Butler characterized the chancellor’s announcement as a knee-jerk reaction to recent incidents on campus, rather than a thought-out decision with a strategic plan.

“You’re telling me that in less than three months, you’re going to pull quality, impactful, diversity training and inclusion programming out of thin air?” Butler said in an interview.

He also challenged the assumption that the chancellor and the administration are making decisions on their own. Rather, Butler credits reformative action to years of activists and protesters at MU.

“If you look at the LBC demands from 1969, they ask for this same exact thing, for diversity training and recruiting faculty of color,” Butler said.

“It’s zero percent administration, 100 percent years and years and years of people of color and underrepresented people actually fighting for this.”

Head, the MSA president, said he had no comment at this time.

This is not the first time that the university has considered mandatory diversity education. In a 2011 vote, the general faculty rejected an initiative to require a cultural competency course for all undergraduate students. The faculty rejected it for multiple reasons, including it being too vague and lacking a way to measure success, according to a report from the Faculty Council’s then-committee on diversity enhancement.

But even with the decision to implement mandatory diversity training, the current race relations committee will continue to examine more initiatives to tackle racism on campus.

“The Chancellor’s approach complements the long-term work our Faculty Council Race Relations committee began earlier this year,” committee chairman Berkley Hudson wrote in a statement Thursday. “Our 12 members are developing strategies specifically aimed at assisting faculty.”

One of those strategies is to require a cultural competency requirement within the university curriculum, including a possible semester-long class students would take for credit.

If the new curriculum is implemented, it would be in addition to the required diversity training, said Angela Speck, director of astronomy at MU, who is leading the effort to create this curriculum. However, the curriculum may take up to four years to develop and implement on campus.

The Faculty Council Committee on Race Relations did not meet with the chancellor this week, Hudson said in an email; the committee last spoke with the chancellor in August. It is scheduled to meet Friday with Provost Garnett Stokes.

Earlier in the week, Loftin announced a few other decisions regarding campus diversity, including the creation of a new position, vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity. Although the responsibilities of this position are not yet clear, this role is likely to have more authority than that of the university’s current chief diversity officer, a position held by Noor Azizan-Gardner. She could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday.

The new vice chancellor probably will have the “ability to make stronger statements around how to manage issues around diversity than we have before,” Kenney said, based on discussions with Loftin.

In addition, those in charge of hiring faculty and staff will be required to undergo diversity training, and the administration will conduct a campus climate survey to examine issues of race on campus.

The university already has a four-week online course that faculty and staff may elect to take called “Diversity 101.”

Although much discussion about race has occurred on the Columbia campus, University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe is directing all four campuses to share ideas concerning their own campus diversity policies, UM system spokesman John Fougere said.

Several campuses across the United States have a form of diversity training incorporated through mandatory Title IX training. Not all colleges have training specifically for diversity and inclusion, though.

The University of Oklahoma has a program similar to the one announced at MU, requiring all incoming first-year students to complete diversity training. Officials from the university did not return a call Thursday for comment about how the training is going.