Professors
refute claims made by former chairman
Removal:
Interviews and documents show high ranking
professors in the university’s finance
department were dissatisfied with Lowell
Runyon’s performance as chairman.
By
Jeff Overley
On-line Forty-Niner
The
firing of Professor Lowell Runyon as chairman
of the university’s finance department
was warranted given a long history of abuse
of power, several of the department’s
professors said Friday.
Runyon
claimed last week that his removal came
on the heels of criticism he directed toward
College of Business Administration Dean
Luis Calingo over the past four months.
After continuously shedding light on what
he called the dean’s lack of accountability
to students and the local business community,
the dean chose to remove him from his chairmanship,
Runyon and other sources said.
But
several of the college’s professors
rebutted those claims, saying they were
not only false, but also ironic. Runyon
had for years used the power of his position
to punish and reward teachers based on personal
relationships, the sources said.
“I
think it’s the other way around,”
said one business professor who spoke on
condition of anonymity. “When Professor
Runyon was the chair, anyone who spoke up
against him, they [got] a bad schedule,
no money to travel to conferences, no money
to buy a computer. He uses resource allocations
to retaliate against people, so nobody dared
to speak up against him.”
One
professor, who requested anonymity, defended
Runyon’s actions.
“There’s
a resource allocation committee,”
the professor said. “It’s not
Dr. Runyon who makes a resource allocation.”
Another
professor, who asked to remain anonymous,
elaborated on the way in which Runyon allegedly
created irregular class schedules to reprove
professors who challenged his decisions
as chairman.
“People
got penalized by the scheduling, by the
very terrible scheduling if they disagreed
with [Runyon],” the professor said.
“There’s a faculty member, his
schedule was from early in the morning at
8:30 to 9:45 late at night.
“I
don’t think any human being can handle
that kind of schedule. It was simply because
he was disagreeing with Dr. Runyon,”
the professor said.
Runyon
said that while student needs come first
in determining a schedule, faculty preferences
were always respected and that he had never
manipulated course times for personal reasons.
“I’ve
changed the schedules if requested,”
he said.
Runyon
added that all requests for travel to scholarly
conferences had been fully funded this year
despite budget constraints.
In
addition to unfair methods of doling out
resources and assembling schedules, professors
charged that Runyon had conspired to deny
assigned time awards to faculty members
whom he disliked.
Assigned
time is a program that lessens a teacher’s
course load by three units while allowing
them to continue receiving the same salary.
It is intended to facilitate the type of
research faculty members need to complete
in order to gain tenure.
Runyon
repudiated the assigned time allegation
as well, saying that all faculty members
who qualified during his 13-year stint as
chairman had received assigned time.
Yet
another complaint about Runyon’s leadership
involved the finance department’s
curriculum.
“I’ve
been in this school for 17 years,”
said Hamdi Bilici, a professor of finance.
“The finance curriculum did not change
an iota during that period, though the finance
field is changing.
“That
in itself is cause for removal,” Bilici
continued. “He showed no leadership
in the area of scholarship or anything else
for that matter.”
Thomas
Rhee, also a professor of finance, offered
a similar criticism.
“Compare
our curriculum to the finance department
at Cal State Fullerton,” he said.
“They have 27 classes. We have [10].
This is nonsense. This is embarrassing.”
Runyon
countered by noting that a study of the
curriculum that every faculty member was
invited to participate in had been unanimously
approved in 2000. He said this support was
reaffirmed when the university officially
reviewed the study in 2003.
“Anyone
who has problems [with the curriculum] has
not attempted to instigate any change,”
Runyon said. “Anyone who makes an
allegation that there’s a need for
a change in the curriculum has to look at
[himself or herself] and say, ‘It’s
me who has to do it.”
Rhee
acknowledged that Runyon’s depiction
of the unanimous agreement was technically
true, but only because of the chairman’s
tight grip on power and retaliatory style
of management.
“In
principle, Yes, but in practice, No,”
Rhee said. “Some people are not tenured
and they do not voice their opinion like
I do. These non-tenured faculty members
cannot go against [Runyon].”
Indeed,
documents obtained by the On-line Forty-Niner
contain a strongly worded memo criticizing
Runyon’s handling of the 2003 review.
The
memo — dated Feb. 14, 2004 and signed
by professors Bilici, Rhee, S. V. Le and
Darshan Sachdeva — outlines alleged
problems involving Runyon’s leadership
as chairman and his statements to the Program
Review and Academic Planning Council, which
oversaw the 2003 review.
The
professors first alleged that Runyon withheld
the findings of the council. Once they finally
obtained the review, they discovered that
Runyon had already written a rebuttal to
the council, an action described in the
memo as “the normal practice of [Runyon]
over many years — to keep faculty
in the dark.
“This
kind of ‘non-transparency’ …
goes against the spirit of good management
and leadership,” the professors wrote.
Rhee’s
depiction of a curriculum that was failing
students was presented to the council in
2003, before its findings were reached.
In his rebuttal to the council, Runyon claimed
that these concerns were baseless and that
Rhee had never expressed them personally
to him.
The
council’s review said that it nevertheless
found Rhee’s claims — with which
Bilici, Le and Sachdeva concur in the memo
— to be “substantive”
and “worthy of further discussion
and possible action.”
The
department of finance actually is known
as the department of finance and business
law, and previously was known as the department
of finance, real estate and business law.
Professors argued that Runyon was responsible
for the demise of the real estate program,
which is now defunct.
“The
curriculum has been deteriorating under
Runyon’s administration,” one
professor said. “Under his program,
the real estate program has been destroyed.”
Runyon
said the foundering of the real estate emphasis
was in no way his fault.
“In
the early 1990s, when then real estate market
in California collapsed, students chose
not to take the classes,” Runyon said.
“The department voted unanimously
to eliminate the department.”
Asked
why Runyon would abuse his office to the
extent described, one professor suggested
a lust for authority was Runyon’s
motivation.
“He
would like to consolidate his power,”
the professor said. “Those who disagree
with him, he considers them as enemies.
He will do everything to mistreat them.”
The
professor said that Runyon operated the
department under a system of “cronyism.”
An
anonymous source in the department questioned
those allegations, however, saying that
they were not consistent with Runyon’s
character.
“Dr.
Runyon has a lot of integrity,” the
source said. “I’ve never seen
that side of him. I don’t agree with
that claim at all.”
Runyon
suggested that the accusations made toward
him were based upon a lack of personal responsibility
among several professors.
“I
think that their priorities have been other
than seeking the best for our students.
They’d rather undertake allegations
than seek change. They want someone to do
it for them.
“I
find it rather disingenuous for them to
make allegations about the need for change
when it’s really their responsibility,”
he said.
Runyon
said last week that the dean, who is recovering
from a year of chemotherapy treatments,
had been consistently absent from university
functions and that this represented a lack
of caring for students. Two other sources
concurred, saying that the dean does not
attend student and school events as often
as he should.
Runyon’s
assertion that his removal as department
chairman was predicated upon this critique
of the dean’s job performance was
dismissed by finance department professors.
“We
argue with Dean Calingo. Sometimes we fight,”
a professor said. “[But] he would
never fire someone because they disagree
with [him].
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