Category: Education

Presidential Outburst at UofL Board Meeting. 

ramsey-may2015•Only Nominally Over Executive Compensation.
•Trustee requests for information and oversight rebuffed.
•Audit called for.

Readers will note that I have not posted anything for over a month.  In truth, I was in Europe for three weeks and am just now getting over a jet-lagged recovery. This was to be an “unplugged” holiday. My long-suffering wife likes to tell the story of how I once almost missed our connection in the Amsterdam Airport waiting to upload a post over the free McDonald’s internet connection. She has other stories too! Indeed, I admit to occasionally feeling guilty of insufficient spousal attention during our travels in these hyper-connected times.

Always something to write about.
I did cheat on this good woman a little by occasionally peeking at the news.  It is not that there was nothing I like to write about!  Several updates of existing hospital quality, safety, and performance ratings were released, as well as a new rating approach by U.S. News & World Report. Flanking these stories were scholarly reports addressing the same issues I have been raising about the reliability and usability of existing rating systems.

There was new data-hacking breach of over a million members at another health insurer. No one should feel safe!  Medicare released a massive database of all outpatient drugs prescribed for those with Part-D drug coverage or in Medicare managed-care plans. The data is broken down by individual drug, healthcare provider, and cost and is already generating a flurry of attention.  For example, it turns out that many of the top prescribers of specific drugs receive monetary payments from the manufacturer. [Naturally this does not influence their professional judgments!] I started looking at the drug database on the flight home– this wasn’t really cheating–  and will have more to say future articles.

New Sunshine Act Data Release.
Entirely by coincidence, the next iteration of the federal database of payments to medical providers by device and drug manufacturers will be released in a month or so and will now list at least some payments to providers for continuing medical education (CME).  These latter payments, previously undisclosed, provide a measure of the degree that manufacturers have taken control of what physicians and other providers think and do.  If transparency and accountability is the goal of the Open Records Program (a.k.a. Sunshine Act), it was a critical error to have initially allowed payments for CME to remain hidden. The fact that such payments were exempted from disclosure attests to the lobbying power of both drug companies and the academic medical establishment.

UofL against the world (and its own Board?).
There were other items I filed away in my write-about-later folder, but the big-ticket item for Kentucky was the further unfolding, indeed explosion of nagging concerns over University governance and secrecy, fueled by revelations about executive compensation at the University of Louisville, and triggered by a recent call from a University Trustee and others for an external independent audit by Kentucky’s State Auditor of Public Accounts. The news reports of the Trustees’ meeting used words like “angrily,” “testy,” agitated,” “contentious,” “defiant,” and “lashes out” to describe the behavior or UofL President James Ramsey.  All of this was in response to quite reasonable requests by responsible board members for information that either they or the public is entitled to.  Comments to articles from the public on the three major Louisville markets were solidly against Dr. Ramsey’s positions, except for the reliable fan-boy or contract internet-troll for whom UofL can do no wrong.  I found the reports of the apparent melt-down difficult to believe until, on my return, I had a chance to view a video clip of part of the encounter— it was worse than I thought.  View it yourself. Was this justified indignity, staged outrage, or a hissy-fit?  You be the judge.  In any event, it must have been embarrassing for most of the folks present. Continue reading “Presidential Outburst at UofL Board Meeting. “

Faculty Senate Meeting Updates— Or Lack Thereof!

I attended the April 1 meeting of the University of Louisville’s Faculty Senate hoping for updates in a number of areas of both faculty and community concern that we have been following. These included the politically motivated grants to the Business School, compensation packages for senior UofL executives, and Board of Trustee concerns about University governance.  In all honesty, I came away disappointed.

Koch/Schnatter Foundation Grants.
Last month, Pres. James Ramsey signed linked contracts on behalf of the University and the University of Louisville Foundation accepting a potential $6.3 million dollars but which carries with them tight restrictions on the kind of thoughts allowable in the minds of recipients.  Others and I found the restrictions impermissible in the academic setting but I expressed my opinion why University Administration would have no objection, indeed, no option except to accept both the money and the outside control.  In accepting the grant, the University violated its own rules about requiring faculty approval before new centers or programs were applied for.  In the faculty Senate meeting of March, representatives of the relevant faculty Academic Program Committee pointed out that no such approval had been requested.  The Provost made much of the great value the administration placed on the input of its faculty but what else could she say?  The fact is, that as of the April 1 Senate meeting, the Committee had not met to consider the matter and there was no further discussion offered from the assembly. In contrast, in his March newsletter to the community, President Ramsey makes acceptance of the grant sound like the done-deal that skeptics in the community like myself believe has occurred.  Certainly there was no mention in the update of any contingency upon faculty approval. No doubt faculty other than myself are feeling steamrolled. Continue reading “Faculty Senate Meeting Updates— Or Lack Thereof!”

Why UofL Can’t Say No to the Kochs or Papa John.

A Former UofL Lobbyist’s Perspective.

A few months ago, someone anonymously sent me preliminary news reports about the University of Louisville’s engagement with politically conservative donors over the establishment of a new University Center.  A fair amount has been written since about the UofL’s willingness, if not eagerness, to accept a grant from the John H. Schnatter Family to fund a new John. H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise within, but effectively independent of the School of Business.  Insider Louisville and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting have followed the matter closely.  The grant itself is contingent on the University’s also accepting a grant from and sharing controlling interest with the Charles Koch Foundation.  Most community concern stems from attached strings that restrict the academic viewpoints that can be addressed by the funding, and which give inordinate and inappropriate academic control to outside political and business interests. Read the Grant Contract yourself (6MB).  As I lifetime member of the Academy, it made me shudder— and I am not alone. Alas, I do not think the University felt it was in a position to say no.  Even as a non-University person, would you have agreed to all the provisions in this contract?  If so, tell us why in your own name in the comments section. What parts of the contract do you believe are inappropriate? I don’t have enough room to do so here. Continue reading “Why UofL Can’t Say No to the Kochs or Papa John.”

UofL Board of Trustees Addresses Governance and Faculty Practice Plan.

trustees-feb5I attended the University of Louisville Board of Trustees meeting yesterday. There was one major item on the published agenda that I wanted to follow, and one not on the agenda that I had hoped to see. Others have reported on additional business conducted by the Board yesterday. What I was most interested in was how the University and Board were going to handle the two-page draft document presented at a committee meeting in January that brought to a head increasing public concern, reinforced by some board members, that they were not being given the information needed, nor the opportunity to discuss issues central to the Board’s legislatively-mandated oversight responsibilities.

Dissidents or public heroes?
The response announced by Board Chairman Robert Hughes was that he was forming an Ad Hoc Committee on Governance on which any interested Board member was invited to participate. He hoped to come to some kind of charge or product in the next 4 to 6 months, presumably coinciding with the time left in his current term as Chairman of the Board. There was no comment from anyone in the room.

Constructive solution or not?
On first blush, it might be said that the important issues on the table are not being swept off under the rug as I feared might have been the case by lack of inclusion on the agenda. On reflection, I have concerns that this approach is not the right one. In the first place, offering committee membership to the “interested,” opens the door to skeptics like me who wonder if this tactic is merely a way to allow board members with concerns to ventilate ineffectively. Would the committee meetings or their minutes be public? Public or not, deciding to join a volunteer-only committee could be taken as an indication of having picked a side and be detrimental to intra-board relationships. No board member should feel any degree of intimidation in stepping forward to suggest that Chairman Hughes might not be correct when he asserts that everything is going well and no meddling is needed, or acknowledging that the community has a right to greater accountability from this public institution. It is the Board as a whole has this latter mandate, not a few self-selected individuals. The rest of us need a clear signal from the University that they are taking this matter seriously and that this is not a fig leaf, ad hoc, off-the-agenda, or less than mainstream fix. Continue reading “UofL Board of Trustees Addresses Governance and Faculty Practice Plan.”