Faculty members were stunned over the summer when Lisa Toms, dean of the College of Business at Arkansas Tech University, was escorted off the Russellville campus.
Colleagues said Toms, who had served as dean for two years, was told to clean out her office and was escorted to her car, where a security official took her university ID badge. Toms, who has tenure, has returned to campus as a professor, but ATU has given no explanation for Toms’ removal as dean, which officials wouldn’t discuss, calling it a personnel matter.
Toms said her Little Rock labor attorney, whom she wouldn’t identify, had advised her not to comment until the job situation is resolved. College of Business faculty members said they were told the firing came after Toms’ “irregular” promotion of professor David Pumphrey to department head.
Pumphrey was removed from his job, too. Through intermediaries, he declined to comment to Arkansas Business. ATU President Robin Bowen declined an interview request through university spokesman Sam Strasner, who said Toms’ situation, as a personnel matter, was off limits for discussion.
Some faculty members think Bowen demoted Toms to send a warning after a campuswide faculty survey in May revealed widespread dissatisfaction with her leadership. Several said they hoped Toms’ removal as dean would be a tipping point for sentiment against Bowen, who has led the state’s third-largest university since 2014.
“You know if you quote me I’ll get fired immediately, but I hope it does [add to dissatisfaction with Bowen],” one professor said. “I’m surprised it hasn’t [come to a head] already.”
Other faculty members also speaking on the condition of anonymity complained that Bowen has insulated herself behind an Executive Council, a group of administrators who make all major decisions with her. They also see little transparency in the decision-making.
“She doesn’t talk to her underlings below her Executive Council,” one professor said.
Colleagues said Toms wasn’t a rabble-rouser but would question Bowen about expenses and other matters during meetings. One professor said Bowen often talks about shared governance but doesn’t live up to that ideal.
“In reality, there is absolutely none,” the professor said. “You can give input all you want, but if people have gotten fired or demoted for doing it, that’s worse than not [doing] anything with it. That input is going to stop.”
A former member of the College of Business faculty said the timing of Toms’ removal as dean was no coincidence.
“This is the first action Bowen took since getting that negative feedback from staff and faculty,” said Kim Troboy, a former professor and department head who retired this summer after 23 years at Tech. “That was her response. It sends a pretty clear message, I think.”
‘Irregular’
Toms was hired as dean in July 2017 and was dismissed on July 31, about two months after she promoted Pumphrey from professor to succeed Troboy as head of the College of Business’ Management & Marketing Department.
Multiple colleagues confirmed to Arkansas Business that Bowen told Toms she was removed because of the “irregular” hiring process for Pumphrey. Colleagues said Pumphrey was unpacking his new office when campus security came to escort him out.
Professors acknowledged that Pumphrey’s promotion was “fast-tracked,” and that he was made an associate professor beforehand to qualify for becoming a department head. While not standard, the process isn’t unusual, they said.
“Lisa didn’t do this half cocked,” one professor said.
University guidelines prevent faculty members from being dismissed without a year’s notice, so Pumphrey was placed on administrative leave. Lacking tenure, he is still receiving his annual salary of $127,000 but is not welcome on campus, sources said.
Associate Dean Kevin Mason was named interim dean in Toms’ place. Tracy Cole, who had been promoted from interim to permanent head of the college’s Accounting & Economics Department, was reassigned to associate dean on an interim basis. The university has yet to name replacement department chairs.
Fritz Kronberger, chairman of Arkansas Tech’s Board of Trustees, said he was glad Toms was still a professor at the university but couldn’t comment on her reassignment or the reasons the board was given.
“The issue with Lisa is a personnel issue, and I am unable to comment on that, and I just hope that you can understand that,” Kronberger wrote in an email to Arkansas Business.
Faculty members said the hiring process had been approved by the university’s human resources department and by Phil Bridgmon, who was then interim vice president of academic affairs. They said Bowen signed Pumphrey’s department head contract at the end of the 2018-19 academic year.
“Why did it go through the whole process and be approved?” one professor asked. “If there was a problem in the hiring, it shouldn’t have been Lisa [who took the blame]. It should have been someone who approved it. It just doesn’t make sense.”
No Satisfaction
The comments of Toms’ colleagues echo thoughts seen in a faculty satisfaction survey from May, which Arkansas Business acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The survey asked 450 faculty members to rate their level of satisfaction on a variety of issues from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). Of the 180 who responded, just 28% felt the university was headed in the right direction.
Satisfaction with President Bowen had an average score of 2.66; satisfaction with Bowen’s executive council was 2.37; satisfaction with transparency was 2.06; satisfaction with faculty input was 2.39.
“How can you not question that something is going wrong if you read that,” one professor who participated said.
Some of the comments left by participants pulled no punches against Bowen’s administration. They included:
“This administration has become a joke.”
“The president cannot be trusted.”
“I’m ready for a vote of no confidence in Dr. Bowen. Things are that bad.”
A year ago, Arkansas Tech was the center of controversy over a scholarship endowment from a former professor, Michael Link, who was accused of promoting anti-Semitism. Some surveyed were disappointed that Bowen didn’t reject the scholarship.
In the survey, many faculty members expressed disappointment that Bowen hired Barbara Johnson as the university’s vice president of academic affairs rather than promoting Phil Bridgmon from the interim post.
Johnson had been Arkansas Tech liaison to the Higher Learning Commission, which is responsible for accrediting universities in Arkansas and 18 other states, and some faculty members protested that she’d never served as a dean and had a potential conflict of interest because of her work with the HLC.
Bridgmon is now provost at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.
Accreditation Process
Toms came to Arkansas Tech after serving as dean from 2007-17 at Southern Arkansas University’s Rankin College of Business in Magnolia. She is also a member of the peer review team at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, the organization that grants accreditation to business schools like ATU’s.
An AACSB peer review team is scheduled to visit Russellville early next month to re-accredit Arkansas Tech’s College of Business, a process the college goes through every five years.
Faculty members said it seemed unwise to remove Toms as dean shortly before the accreditation visit, but they say turnover shouldn’t affect Arkansas Tech’s chances. Toms, who did comment about the AACSB process, said her removal shouldn’t affect accreditation.
“I’m really not worried,” Toms said. “I think the college is in great shape.”
Bowen, in an email that asked her to comment on, among other things, the survey results, expressed confidence in Mason’s leadership as interim dean. The leadership change shouldn’t be a “cause for alarm,” said Stephanie Bryant, AACSB’s executive vice president and chief accreditation officer.
“As with many industries, reorganization within a business school is not uncommon,” Bryant said. “We would expect that any reorganization continues to best support the mission of the school.
“In general, it is not all that unusual for a school to have an interim dean or one or more interim department heads at the time of its accreditation visit.”
After Mason was interviewed about AACSB accreditation, he sent an email to College of Business faculty saying that Johnson had advised referring all questions about the college to Strasner, the university spokesman.
“The morale of the business school is not high,” another professor said. “They are all focused on, ‘Let’s get through this visit.’ I will tell you that they are not happy.”
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