This is the third of a three-part series examining how the University of Akron came to replace Gary Miller as president and elevate the business school dean, R.J. Nemer, to the role.
The plan laid out by University of Akron Provost John Wiencek to quickly vet and approve business school dean R.J. Nemer as the university’s new president came together as speedily as he proposed.
University leaders met May 13 to hear how Nemer said he would run the university; feedback on his candidacy was due by 5 p.m. the next day, including on his strengths, weaknesses and leadership skills.
Nemer was voted in as the new University of Akron president May 15.
While nine groups sent the provost their assessments of Nemer as a leader, one — the head of the American Association of University Professors’ union — took the opportunity to critique the process the university used to choose him as the lone candidate at the same time she evaluated Nemer’s qualifications.
“Well, you wanted our thoughts,” wrote Toni Bisconti, who is also an associate professor in the university’s psychology department. “Be careful what you wish for ;).”
Bisconti had “lots of frustrations and reservations,” she wrote the afternoon of May 14, though, like others who were asked, she supported Nemer in the role.
That didn’t mean she was happy about it.
The groups that offered detailed feedback, including undergraduate and graduate student representatives, the staff employee advisory council and the university council and faculty senate, felt similarly about Nemer’s strengths — as a non-academic, he has a unique skillset. They also agreed Nemer values communication in leadership, is passionate about the University of Akron and has the connections to help improve the university’s standing.
In his weaknesses, too, they found common ground — that he has limited knowledge of academia outside the business school, that he uses business language instead of academic jargon, that he might not understand the role of research or the importance of shared governance. That there were still a lot of questions he didn’t have the answers to.
But setting aside whether they thought he could do the job — all group leaders agreed that, yes, he could — Bisconti’s assessment spoke to concerns regarding the “rather unconventional search for a new president” and the “reservations, and even frustrations, with the process” that led to Nemer being presented as the only option.
She brought up three main points:
- That presenting only one candidate put leaders in the “impossible position” of having to decide between Nemer and a failed search without having anyone to compare him to.
- That the board seemed to begin the process of selecting a new president before telling the old one that there were issues, depriving the university of a good transition period.
- That the decision to hire Nemer appeared to have been made before anyone had consulted with faculty members or others.
“It is clear that this is your guy,” she wrote, calling it “disconcerting” that the provost and trustees supported him without considering another candidate “with a different vision for the University that might represent a more unbiased way forward.”
To that end, she asked if Nemer would be the outward-facing partner and Wiencek would really be the “functional president” or if Nemer is simply an extension of Wiencek. It might not be bad if Wiencek was really leading the university, she mused — but independent thought in the administration was important.
Click to view the timeline full size.
‘Holes’ in university’s story
Bisconti also asked when it was clear that there was dissatisfaction with outgoing President Gary Miller, saying that any university constituent “will recognize the holes in the ‘Gary has retired of his own volition’ story.”
“Where’s the big going away party?” she asked. “Where are the photo ops and hand off to the new President? Where is the transition team of any kind?”
If someone asks whether she believes Miller voluntarily retired, Bisconti wrote, “I won’t lie.”
She also noted that the rushed transition didn’t have to be as quick as it was: “And if RJ was being vetted in the fall, why wasn’t this communicated to the President and his staff so that a smoother transition would be possible?” she asked.
Plus, Bisconti wrote, “to some extent, this decision has already been made” before the vote was taken. She called faculty approval “a box you needed to check” while acknowledging her group’s approval wasn’t required before naming a president. The union’s collective bargaining agreement says the AAUP has the opportunity to meet with the Board of Trustees’ presidential advisory committee and be part of the presidential search committee, as well as be involved in vetting discussions. But it does not have to sign off on the final selection.
Bisconti said she wanted to “vocalize our caution with this change” given that Miller said previously he would leave before carrying out a reduction in force.
She wanted her points in writing, she said, “because I don’t want to be complicit in something that is ultimately at the expense of our faculty. I want to believe that my fears are not founded.”
Frustration and understanding from faculty groups
Bisconti said in an email to Signal Akron late last month, in response to questions about the feedback she provided the provost, that while she thinks it’s preferable to have options when selecting a leader, Nemer’s appointment was “a unique situation in which I think it was more important to make a united decision to demonstrate our shared focus on the University of Akron.”
She said she did not get answers to her questions about the transition timeline or when the vetting of Nemer began.
“I don’t know all the reasons why Gary chose to retire, and after the initial shock about the change, I realized it doesn’t matter,” she wrote. “We were moving forward with our new leader and as part of the shared governance group, I was happy to do my part to support the decision.”
She added that if faculty members had “grave” concerns about Nemer’s leadership, she believed the Board of Trustees would have taken them seriously.
In the months since Nemer’s appointment, Bisconti said, he has been engaged in continuing to learn about the university and she is “cautiously optimistic” about his presidency.
The head of the faculty senate, Kate Budd, said in her May 14 assessment that that group “shares the frustrations, concerns and questions” in Bisconti’s memo, as well as “her assessment of the reaction that will greet the announcements.”
In an email to Signal Akron in late August, Budd affirmed that she had frustrations about the “compressed timeline and lack of other candidates” but said she understood the trustees’ reasons for moving forward as they did.
“Ultimately, the process was inclusive of a much wider range of campus constituent voices than the usual searches for a president are, and our input was listened to and taken seriously,” she wrote. “All in all, I’m satisfied with the process and result.”
How we reported the story.
When members of the University of Akron Board of Trustees voted May 15 to both accept the retirement of president Gary Miller and appoint the business school dean to replace him, the pair of quick votes were out of the ordinary for a university presidential changeover.
Signal Akron reported on Miller’s surprising exit and the speedy process to replace him, but reporter Arielle Kass still had questions. She requested Miller’s personnel file and information about any complaints against him as well as emails and texts to and from Miller, the provost and members of the Board of Trustees dating back to March. She also requested messages related to the sale of Miller’s home this spring.
Arielle received more than 700 pages of documents in response to her public records requests. With them, she created a timeline of events to better understand how Miller came to leave the university and how his replacement, R.J. Nemer, was chosen.
The original memos from Bisconti, Budd and others were forwarded from Wiencek to Board of Trustees Chair Lewis Adkins Jr., Vice Chair Christine Amer Mayer and board member Michael Saxon.
All three board members, through a spokesperson, declined a request for comment.
In sending the memos, Wiencek said, “Faculty groups not happy with the foregone conclusion process and feel ‘strong armed’ into this outcome, but concede we are at a vulnerable moment and need to come together.”
He suggested Bisconti’s lengthy comments critiquing the process might be dropped from the rest of her assessment before the full board saw them. Sending the memo in full, he wrote, “is the right thing to do but it may inflame some Board members a bit and things could unravel in the meeting.” It’s not clear whether the full board saw Bisconti’s email or not.
Before the Board of Trustees again convened, Wiencek emailed board members to let them know the Akron Beacon Journal had gotten word the board was meeting to discuss Miller’s future.
Wiencek, through a spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.
Naming Nemer the new University of Akron president
After hours of private meetings with various groups, the special meeting of the Board of Trustees on May 15, announced at 9 a.m. the day prior, lasted just more than five minutes.
The first item of new business, Adkins said when the meeting was called to order, “pertains to the approval of President Gary L. Miller’s decision to step down from his role after five years of successful leadership through challenging times in anticipation of his retirement” on Oct. 4.
Miller was not at the meeting.
Trustees approved his resignation in a 9-0 vote. Adkins said the board was “extremely grateful” to Miller for his leadership and would always consider him a Zip, referring to the university mascot.
In the next breath, Adkins moved on: The board would next approve a presidential search process and appoint a new president, the university’s 19th.
His framing of the resolution undersold the role Wiencek and board members had in crafting what would happen next. Adkins said faculty and other groups had “reached a consensus to unanimously endorse and recommend to the board a candidate to serve as our next president:” Nemer.
The board accepted their recommendation to appoint Nemer, Adkins said, and voted 9-0 to do so. After the vote, Adkins invited Nemer to say a few words.
The new president was greeted with applause.
“It’s frankly a surreal moment to be named president of this institution,” he said.
“I’ve been so fortunate and blessed in my professional life and I couldn’t have done it without being launched from the University of Akron. To now have this opportunity to return to work with our wonderful board, our faculty, our staff, our amazing students, our incredible worldwide network of alumni, I can’t think of a better way to kick off this next chapter for me and for all of us.
“And I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity and for the trust. I’m really excited for the future.”
