Police chief, provost out at the University of Arizona

After intense criticism of the University of Arizona administration’s management of campus safety, both the school’s provost and police chief are stepping down.

In a memo Monday, UA President Robert C. Robbins said UA’s Senior Vice President and Provost Liesl Folks will stay at her post until the end of the school year and that UA Police Department Chief Paula Balafas’ departure took effect Monday.

This comes about one month after the UA Faculty Senate named both Balafas and Folks in a vote of “no confidence” in Robbins, whose annual salary is more than $1 million, and his leadership team’s handling of campus safety investigations.

The focus on campus safety followed the on-campus shooting death in October of hydrology professor Thomas Meixner, allegedly by ex-student Murad Dervish. UA officials had known Dervish sent threatening communications to Meixner and several others.

Folks, provost since 2019, who received $497,490 a year in that role, will continue working for the UA to establish a Center for Semiconducting Manufacturing and as a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Robbins said.

Robbins said he will soon announce an interim provost before launching a national search for Folks’ permanent replacement as the UA’s chief academic officer.

Balafas was hired in early 2022 at a $200,000 annual salary and served as UAPD’s first woman police chief.

In the months following Meixner’s shooting, faculty and staff criticized UAPD, as well as other administrative offices, for a breakdown in communication in the university’s handling of the situation with Dervish.

When the UA attempted to discredit a faculty-led report criticizing UAPD’s handling of public safety, the police chief used the department’s February 2023 newsletter to speak against the faculty report.

“Take pride in your work and continue to demonstrate your professionalism, even in the face of criticism,” Balafas wrote to the department, echoing Robbins’ urgings to wait for the campus safety report from PAX, the outside firm the UA hired to evaluate the leadup to the Meixner shooting. “We are stronger than our critics.”

However, when PAX’s report came out, it also criticized various administrative units, including UAPD, for failing to effectively communicate about the threat posed by Dervish, who was expelled and barred from campus in February 2022. With that, Robbins said at a news conference that he regretted the UA’s dismissal of the faculty report, which made similar conclusions as PAX.

While the UA launches a national search for the next police chief, Chris Olson, commander of the Oro Valley Police Department’s Field Services Division, will serve as interim chief.

Olson, a 31-year law enforcement veteran who previously served as a UAPD officer, “will work closely with the campus’ Chief Safety Officer, Steve Patterson, who reports directly to me,” Robbins said.

Last month, Robbins announced that UAPD would no longer report to the Office of Business Affairs. Instead, it now reports to the newly established Office of Public Safety, led by Patterson.

Robbins praised Folks in his memo for “the development and rollout of a new general education curriculum; the completion of our world-class Student Success District; development of our pay-equity protocol for faculty; the opening of the renovated and newly constructed Chemistry Building and the Commons; the successful hires of eight new deans; the launch of the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Applied Science and Technology; and the bolstering of faculty recruitment, retention, and support initiatives.”

He thanked Balafas for focusing on “rebuilding partnerships and reimagining campus safety.”

Reorganization

Robbins’ memo also announced numerous other administrative changes.

“In conjunction with establishment of the new Office of Public Safety we will more closely align several public-facing and public-serving units,” Robbins wrote. “I am confident the collaborative grouping of these key units that interface heavily with internal and external community members will foster even greater coordination among them, particularly with regard to matters of public safety.”

Effective July 1, this is how the reporting relationships of the following units will change:

Risk Management and Safety, under the leadership of Miguel Delgado, chief risk officer, will transition from the Office of Business Affairs to the Office of Public Safety.

Facilities Management will move to a dual-reporting structure, connected to both its current Business Affairs home as well as the new Office of Public Safety. Facilities Management is led by Associate Vice President Chris Kopach, who also will continue to serve as Incident Command System commander.

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Parking and Transportation, headed by Executive Director Jim Sayre, similarly will shift to a dual-reporting relationship with both the Office of Business Affairs and the Office of Public Safety.

Those changes to the UA’s organizational structure are part of the university’s attempt to carry out the 33 recommendations PAX identified in its report as concrete steps toward improving campus safety. One of the report’s criticisms was of the UA’s Threat Assessment and Management Team, which according to PAX, operated in a disjointed fashion before Meixner’s death, resulting in “each TAMT member hesitating to offer a proactive response.”

PAX recommended that the Threat Assessment and Management Team adopt a formal charter, which has since been done. Robbins said TAMT will continue to make changes.

“Focused attention remains on enhancing the capabilities of TAMT both to intake community input and to evaluate and act upon reports of concerning behavior and threatening or potentially violent situations,” Robbins wrote in a memo. “With a TAMT charter now in place and TAMT members contributing to this important campus function, I would like to remind everyone to report any threatening or concerning incidents through the Threat Assessment and Management Team website.”

Additionally, Robbins announced the creation of the Campus Safety Advisory Commission, which is composed of “accomplished individuals from various disciplines and backgrounds (who) will offer their unique perspectives as new safety and security measures are implemented.” The committee, which will meet regularly over the next year, will report directly to Patterson.

Student privacy

Another recommendation PAX included in its report involved interpretation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, a law intended to protect student records. “Individual understanding of FERPA and privacy also contributed to confusion on what could and could not be shared about the prior (hydrology department) traumas and information about threats made by (Dervish),” noted the report.

Thus, Robbins announced Monday that the UA has updated its FERPA training website and is launching a FERPA and privacy education campaign “that will benefit all University of Arizona employees, in coordination with the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of the Provost, and Human Resources. More details on the campaign will come this summer.”

Moreover, Robbins is moving the human resources department under the oversight of the Executive Office of the President, effective July 1. Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Helena Rodrigues will report directly to Robbins. “Human Resources will continue to engage colleagues across the University’s campuses and within its colleges to foster a culture consistent with our shared values,” Robbins said of the change. “The HR team will remain instrumental in meeting the everyday needs of our people while strengthening our connections to one another. “

Cultural centers shakeup

In addition to overhauling the UA’s campus safety leadership and organizational structure, Robbins also announced Monday that numerous cultural resource centers on campus are now under the oversight of the Office of Inclusion, led by Interim Vice President and Chief Inclusion Officer Francisco Moreno. The dean of students previously oversaw all of the cultural centers.

The affected centers include:

African American Student Affairs

Asian Pacific American Student Affairs

Adalberto and Ana Guerrero Student Center

Immigrant Student Resource Center

LGBTQ Affairs

Native American Student Affairs

Women and Gender Resource Center

This announcement comes weeks after students launched a petition calling for the resignation of Kendal Washington White, who oversees the cultural resource centers in her capacity as the UA’s dean of students and vice provost for campus life. White, who makes $208,314 a year, has served as dean of students since 2014.

In addition to Balafas and Folks, White was also named in the Faculty Senate’s recent limited vote of no confidence in UA leadership’s response to campus safety concerns. The non-binding resolution also named Lisa Rulney, chief financial officer of the UA, and Laura Todd Johnson, general counsel.

According to the authors of the petition, the calls for White’s resignation came because “she is unwilling to be part of a process of rebuilding trust with those she is charged to serve, and that to the contrary she contributes to an ongoing culture of fear and retaliation.”

The petition cites an April 4, 2023 email exchange, which the Arizona Daily Star obtained a copy of, between White and other administrators discussing the potential termination of “problematic” cultural center employees.

UA officials have not responded to the Star’s request last week, through a spokeswoman, for comment about the petition and its calls for White’s resignation.