Admins: School is "Failed Experiment"
Wed, May02, 2007 - Category: School of
Law
The fear is growing that Dean Dobranski and Mr.
Monaghan now intend to abandon our school, whether or
not a new one eventually will arise in Florida.
Indeed, at a recent meeting with AMSL students, the
Dean stated that the administration has no
contingency plan in the event that the ABA refuses to
acquiesce in the move, and that two Board members
believe that AMSL is a "failed experiment."
- Association of Ave Maria Faculty, excerpt from statement, 4/30/07
Several weeks ago, Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernhard Dobranski held a "town hall meeting" for AMSL students. According to students at the meeting, the Dean stated that "at least two members of the Board of Governors expressed their opinion that the Law School was a 'failed experiment'." The Dean's intentional public leak of such sentiment comes on the heels of a memo to all employees and students in which he said, "Naturally, activities that are affirmatively injurious to the Law School during the course of one's employment at AMSL are not acceptable." [full memo]
For all of the administration's threats against any kind of "affirmatively injurious behavior" in the move to Tom Monaghan's Florida real estate development...
For all the false accusations that the faculty are the ones attempting to start a "new" school rather than protect their existing school...
For all this, could there be anything more injurious to the school's future existence than the Dean spreading the notion that some Board members find the school "failed"? How are prospective students, existing students, employees, donors, and institutional accreditors to respond to this?
- Association of Ave Maria Faculty, excerpt from statement, 4/30/07
Several weeks ago, Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernhard Dobranski held a "town hall meeting" for AMSL students. According to students at the meeting, the Dean stated that "at least two members of the Board of Governors expressed their opinion that the Law School was a 'failed experiment'." The Dean's intentional public leak of such sentiment comes on the heels of a memo to all employees and students in which he said, "Naturally, activities that are affirmatively injurious to the Law School during the course of one's employment at AMSL are not acceptable." [full memo]
For all of the administration's threats against any kind of "affirmatively injurious behavior" in the move to Tom Monaghan's Florida real estate development...
For all the false accusations that the faculty are the ones attempting to start a "new" school rather than protect their existing school...
For all this, could there be anything more injurious to the school's future existence than the Dean spreading the notion that some Board members find the school "failed"? How are prospective students, existing students, employees, donors, and institutional accreditors to respond to this?
Memo from Dean to AMSL Faculty, 3/14/07, excerpt:
Ave Maria School of Law resources, including the Law School email, may not be used ... for any ... activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage, tangibly or intangibly, the successful operations of our Law School. [full memo]
Does leaking the fact that Board members called the school a "failed experiment" act to "undermine or damage, tangibly or intangibly" success? Remember too that AMSL is currently under scrutiny by colleagues as the ABA investigates violations of accreditation standards and evaluates the school's request to move to Florida. The Dean violates his own imposed rule against undermining institutional success, and appears unable to recognize his own self-injurious behavior. Those who believe that Monday's "Mirror of Justice" statement by The Association of AMSL Faculty intended to hurt, rather than preserve, AMSL should ask themselves whether the follow acts are injurious or preservative:
+ faculty bringing violations of governance and accreditation standards to the attention of their school's accrediting body and professional colleagues... this after exhausting internal routes for grievance
+ administrators calling the school a "failed experiment" and then telling students
+ administrators having no contingency plan to even preserve the school in Michigan if their institutional accreditor will not maintain accreditation during the move to Florida (that is, Florida or bust)
Suffice it to say, if an AMSL faculty member had called the school "failed", it would have been considered "injurious" by the Dean's own standard. The Falvey Report is a convincing objective testament to the faculty's strong belief in preserving and strengthening the existing school, not starting a new splinter school, as the Board's current path will likely lead to.
For administrators to call the school a "failed experiment" shows a breathtaking disregard for the human dignity embodied by an academic community comprised of individual persons and not experimental variables. It also shows a stunning denial of the administration's own culpability, particularly since the Dean and the Board have always acted as if their duty to Tom Monaghan's control over all aspects of the school supersedes all other duties. The Board wants a top-down model without assuming responsibility for the administrative failures under such a model.
Further, the academics who sit on AMSL's Board - Robert P. George, Helen M. Alvare, Michael M. Uhlmann, and Gerard V. Bradley - should be thoroughly scrutinized by their university colleagues. Would these Board members spend their own work and career subjugated to administrators who, as they are doing on AMSL's Board, spurn the standards that guide academic governance as well as institutional accreditation?
Who failed? If anyone, it was this Board - the individuals with the smallest stake in the school's community. Yet, to speak of failure seems inappropriate given that the school's most precious resources - its faculty, students, and alumni - seem to still be rallied around the founding principles and mission that initially drew them together.
Indeed, the faculty seem right to fear that AMSL's administration is intentionally trashing the school to facilitate a new start in Tom Monaghan's Florida real estate development.
Be sure to read Fumare's articulate analysis on the topic of AMSL's four Boardsmen from academia.
[hat-tip to readers and Fumare for insights used in this AveWatch post]
Ave Maria School of Law resources, including the Law School email, may not be used ... for any ... activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage, tangibly or intangibly, the successful operations of our Law School. [full memo]
Does leaking the fact that Board members called the school a "failed experiment" act to "undermine or damage, tangibly or intangibly" success? Remember too that AMSL is currently under scrutiny by colleagues as the ABA investigates violations of accreditation standards and evaluates the school's request to move to Florida. The Dean violates his own imposed rule against undermining institutional success, and appears unable to recognize his own self-injurious behavior. Those who believe that Monday's "Mirror of Justice" statement by The Association of AMSL Faculty intended to hurt, rather than preserve, AMSL should ask themselves whether the follow acts are injurious or preservative:
+ faculty bringing violations of governance and accreditation standards to the attention of their school's accrediting body and professional colleagues... this after exhausting internal routes for grievance
+ administrators calling the school a "failed experiment" and then telling students
+ administrators having no contingency plan to even preserve the school in Michigan if their institutional accreditor will not maintain accreditation during the move to Florida (that is, Florida or bust)
Suffice it to say, if an AMSL faculty member had called the school "failed", it would have been considered "injurious" by the Dean's own standard. The Falvey Report is a convincing objective testament to the faculty's strong belief in preserving and strengthening the existing school, not starting a new splinter school, as the Board's current path will likely lead to.
For administrators to call the school a "failed experiment" shows a breathtaking disregard for the human dignity embodied by an academic community comprised of individual persons and not experimental variables. It also shows a stunning denial of the administration's own culpability, particularly since the Dean and the Board have always acted as if their duty to Tom Monaghan's control over all aspects of the school supersedes all other duties. The Board wants a top-down model without assuming responsibility for the administrative failures under such a model.
Further, the academics who sit on AMSL's Board - Robert P. George, Helen M. Alvare, Michael M. Uhlmann, and Gerard V. Bradley - should be thoroughly scrutinized by their university colleagues. Would these Board members spend their own work and career subjugated to administrators who, as they are doing on AMSL's Board, spurn the standards that guide academic governance as well as institutional accreditation?
Who failed? If anyone, it was this Board - the individuals with the smallest stake in the school's community. Yet, to speak of failure seems inappropriate given that the school's most precious resources - its faculty, students, and alumni - seem to still be rallied around the founding principles and mission that initially drew them together.
Indeed, the faculty seem right to fear that AMSL's administration is intentionally trashing the school to facilitate a new start in Tom Monaghan's Florida real estate development.
Be sure to read Fumare's articulate analysis on the topic of AMSL's four Boardsmen from academia.
[hat-tip to readers and Fumare for insights used in this AveWatch post]