May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Jeffrey Gold please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Jeffrey Gold please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here.
We appear to have two different President Golds.
Sometimes we get Jeff. Jeff dedicated his medical career to saving babies and now is doing his best to keep a troubled University afloat. He is well-intentioned, wanting to help people, but maybe a little naive and overly trusting. He is open to feedback, admitting mistakes, and changing course when it is in the best interest of the institution and the people he serves. Jeff is definitely the President that records holiday train videos.
Jeff is the President who showed up at the listening session last week asking for suggestions on how to rebuild trust with the UNL campus community.1 During that listening session, Jeff seemed to actually be listening and responding as a human being talking to other human beings. Jeff really had believed that all of the people around him were competent and telling him the truth when they said that the UNL budget reduction process was done with care, broad consensus, and transparency.2
But, when presented with evidence to the contrary, both at the December 5 Board of Regents Meeting3 and during the listening session itself, Jeff was able to admit that his trust was misplaced. And not only could he admit that his trust had been misplaced, but he was willing to work with the UNL campus community to figure out what to do about it moving forward, including reconsidering the academic program cuts.4 He issued a broad invitation to meet with anyone who wanted to talk with him; he has an open-door policy.5
Jeff was really upset about the way that his trust was violated by multiple parties that he relied on for accurate information. He was upset with the Provost’s Office for violating his trust that information being provided to him and to the Board of Regents was accurate.6 He also indicated that his trust in other members of the UNL administration who were part of the process had been violated and that they would need to work to regain his trust.7
Although his job is to lead the system, not any individual campus, Jeff was committed to being more hands-on at UNL to make sure that the harms done to the campus community were being repaired. And if members of the UNL administration were not in alignment with his efforts, he would build a new administrative team that would be.8
In the end, Jeff is the guy who will go beyond listening and providing platitudes; he will commit to taking action and follow through on that commitment.9 Jeff is a true leader.
Unfortunately, more often than not we get Doctor Gold. Doctor Gold is a pro at gaslighting, avoiding responsibility for wrongdoing, and talking a lot while avoiding answering the question he was asked. Doctor Gold is the President that sat through the December 5 Regents meeting, and he is definitely the President who sent out the message to the campus community the day after the listening session, walking back everything that Jeff had said the day before.
Despite Jeff’s assurances, in his follow up email Doctor Gold bluntly told the UNL community that there would be no reconsideration of the program eliminations.10 And contrary to Jeff’s lack of trust in the UNL administration beyond the Interim Chancellor, Doctor Gold maintained his full support for the UNL administration, claiming that they acted with care and integrity. Doctor Gold even referenced the very quantitative and qualitative data that Jeff had lost trust in.11
Perhaps the fault here lies with us, the faculty, students, and staff at UNL. See, we have a lot more experience with Doctor Gold than we do with Jeff. We should have been more reluctant to believe that Jeff would show up the next day to follow through on his promises.
We had even seen hints of Doctor Gold breaking through Jeff’s performance at the listening session. Doctor Gold interrupted Jeff when he was pushed on the fact that he had recommended the program cuts to the Board of Regents.12 Doctor Gold also showed up when Jeff was asked about where the $800 million is coming from for the Nebraska Medicine/Clarkson deal.13
And yet, many of us were taken in by Jeff’s heartfelt performance at the listening session. We believed him when he said he wanted to fix the harm that had been done, that he would take a more active role in the governance of UNL, and that he was committed to change.
Perhaps Jeff was tip-toeing too closely around the nondisparagement clause in Bennett’s separation agreement. Perhaps the Interim Chancellor threatened to quit if Jeff actually paid too much attention to UNL.14 Whatever the reason, Jeff disappeared and Doctor Gold took over.
As Jeff said at the end of the listening session, “We can sit here and talk to you and say we’re listening to you forever, but if you don’t see the change that’s palpable and obvious, it’s just words, and time will tell.”
It didn’t take long for time to tell that Doctor Gold, not Jeff, is really the one in charge.
EDIT: For those who were not the lucky recipients of the Jan. 16 email from Gold and Ankerson, here it is:
Footnotes
Jeff speaking at the January 15 UNL Campus Listening Session:
1 “If any of you either have a suggestion now or want to bring forward suggestions to either Kathy or to myself on how to begin to rebuild that trust, we are wide open.”
2 “I trusted people who said that they were accurately communicating, that there were metrics that were validated and agreed upon. I trusted people that said that there was formal input on multiple levels of appropriate shared governance.”
3 “I sat through and listened carefully to the 113 people who spoke on December 5. Not only has the trust been violated, but it is very clear to me that the communications, the processes that were described to the board during committee meetings, that were described in the Provost Office, were not accurate, and I’m more than willing to sit here, stand here, and admit that…. I’m accepting the responsibility right here and now that my trust in the process that was presented to me was not accurate.”
4 “My trust has been violated, and that is one of the main reasons that I’m sitting with you today…. I want to fix it….” When pushed by the last speaker who asked him to consider cancelling the cuts to allow time for real faculty involvement in dealing with the budget situation he said, “I hear you loud and clear, and I’m willing to have that conversation.”
5 “My office is always open. I try to respond to every email, every letter, people that say they want to meet with me. It’s rare that we don’t find a way to make that happen.”
6 “[The work of the President] requires trust in the Provost Office, as I served in that role for a number of years, I’m working with the chief academic officers and the senior research officers, and that trust has been violated.
7 When asked, “how can you have any confidence in the UNL administration going forward?” he replied, “I have confidence in Kathy.” When pushed about his trust in other administrators he replied, “That’s a really good question, and that trust will have to be earned.”
8 “I recognize fully that I will need to have a significant hands-on presence in order to try to do that and work shoulder to shoulder with Kathy. And if we don’t have a team that is aligned, we need to change the team.”
9 “I appreciate the transparency and the directness of your comments; they don’t fall on deaf ears. You know, my mom told me many years ago that actions speak louder than words. We can sit here and talk to you and say we’re listening to you forever, but if you don’t see the change that’s palpable and obvious, it’s just words, and time will tell. But I’ll tell you this, the commitment is there.”
Doctor Gold at the Listening Session and Via Email the Next Day:
10 “the recommendations for programmatic reductions will continue to move forward, given that they have been reviewed and approved by the Board. While this does not lessen the impact of these decisions, we believe it is important to be clear about where we are in the process as we continue to listen, support one another, and identify ways to mitigate harm wherever possible.”
11 “During a highly difficult process to reduce the UNL budget deficit, we wholeheartedly support the leadership team and the values that guided their work… UNL’s leadership team acted with integrity and care, making decisions based on quantitative and qualitative assessment amid significant financial constraints. These were not easy choices, and they were made with a sincere effort to minimize harm while preserving the long-term strength of the institution.”
12 When pushed during the listening session on the fact that he had recommended the program eliminations to the Regents, Doctor Gold replied, “If you listen very carefully to the narrative from the so-called script, I recommended to the board for consideration.” To be fair, those were the actual words he spoke during the Regents’ meeting on December 5. As he brought each of the proposed eliminations to the floor for discussion, he said, “I recommend it to you today for your consideration.” However, in the written materials, each of the four program elimination proposals contains the phrase, “The President recommends approval of the Chancellor’s proposed eliminations.”
13 When asked the $800 million would relate to the ongoing budget crisis, Doctor Gold replied, “Well, we’ve had plenty of time earlier today to answer that question in multiple different ways, but I can absolutely reassure you that there will be no impact on any state appropriated dollars, impact on tuition, research grants and contracts, indirect cost recovery, or anything that would have gone into the academic mission on any of our campuses that has been very clearly reiterated by the board and by myself, and I can assure you that that is the case, the structural funding will be a compromise of combination of what I would call structured debt and monetization of acquired real estate if and when the transaction closes.” He talked a lot about where the money would not be coming from, but not a lot about where it would be coming from or what the implications of that would be for the University’s budget.
14 Interim Chancellor Ankerson definitely did not seem to be pleased with Jeff’s statement that he would be more hands-on at UNL moving forward. After Jeff made that statement and offered to meet with graduate students to discuss their concerns, Ankerson interjected, “Could I just please add to your comments or actually disagree with your comments?… That’s a campus activity, and while I appreciate Dr. Gold’s partnership and support, that’s my job.”
