Steller: Two more years of UA's president is too many

The Arizona Board of Regents could stand to heed the title of UA President Ann Weaver Hart’s strategic plan when dealing with Ann Weaver Hart:

Never Settle.

With its announcement Friday that Hart will stay on for two more years but leave the presidency in 2018, the regents have settled for an untenable limbo.

That Hart is leaving is a good thing in that more and more people are growing fed up with her. Even some regents seem to be feeling that way. When I asked regents Chairman Jay Heiler if they were trying to ease her out, he said, “There was no coalesced regents opinion to that effect.”

I interpret those words this way: Not enough regents were strongly enough opposed to Hart to buy out her contract and say goodbye.

Now, abstractly speaking, a little lead time in replacing a president is helpful. But two years?

Knowing that we’ll need a new UA president in two years means we can take our time and find the right person, as the UA’s faculty president and Heiler pointed out to me Friday.

“The positive side is that we really have time to think about the succession,” faculty president Lynn Nadel said. “This provides the institution with the ability to do this in a reasonable, thoughtful way.”

Heiler, who is outgoing as regents chair, told me the time would allow the regents to do some “strategic analysis” in a deliberate way.

“I think she’s done a good turn for the university and herself in approaching it this way,” Heiler said.

True enough, in abstract. It would be especially true if we were talking about a beloved and trusted figure at the helm of the university.

But we’re not.

Hart’s presidency has been contested since the beginning. Six months into her tenure, she floated the idea to the regents of receiving an extra $150,000 in compensation — on top of the agreed-upon $620,000 — paid for by donors to the UA Foundation. The foundation was not interested.

This set a polarizing pattern of Hart eagerly pursuing her self-interest, even when it bothered donors, faculty members and others.

She chose to move the president’s office from the administration building to Old Main, which was being renovated at a cost of $13.5 million. The move itself wasn’t so controversial — it actually makes some sense — but the cost was. Donors have been very slow to pick up that tab.

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In fact, it emerged in 2014 through my colleague Carol Ann Alaimo’s reporting, that big donors were upset with Hart’s polarizing character and were holding out on giving. They papered over those differences, but even now, for next fiscal year, the university is forecasting a 9.6 percent decline in donations. You can’t overestimate the significance of that.

There have been other flash points, such as the 2015 book in which she trashed previous UA leaders by describing how she cleaned up the mess at the university left by others.

But no controversy has burned so hot as this year’s decision by Hart to join the for-profit DeVry University’s board of director. Again, the issue has been that the benefit her actions offered the university seemed dubious, while the annual $70,000 in pay plus $100,000 in stock offered to Hart was tremendous — for her.

This isn’t to say Hart has done nothing good. Of course she has — perhaps her most important accomplishment was the merger of Banner with University Medical Center.

It’s just that she has exhausted much of the goodwill traditionally afforded university presidents with her self-interested actions. And that two years of waiting for the next president could hurt the university.

Will the Legislature, which has been harsh to the universities for years, respect a lame-duck president? It’s easy to see them looking past Hart while continuing to offer respect to the 14-year veteran at Arizona State University, Michael Crow.

What will the University do with its Never Settle strategic plan and the resources dedicated to it? A new president will inevitably come up with a new plan, with its own catch phrase.

Will the university be able to undertake significant new ventures under a lame-duck president? Maybe, especially if they’re grant-funded, but the doubt will always exist whether the next president will support it.

How about the president’s cabinet and other high-ranking officials? You couldn’t blame them for looking for work elsewhere when they know their future here is in question.

Nadel, the faculty president, acknowledged the risk of a two-year transition but told me it’s really up to the university community whether Hart keeps her oomph.

If “we go about our business and don’t let it become a factor, it won’t be a factor,” Nadel said. “She isn’t a lame duck. She still has the power for the next two years and presumably will use it to good effect.”

I doubt that, of course, but I took some solace from the words of Heiler about Hart’s remaining tenure as president.

“There’s two years to run on her contract,” he said. “It isn’t necessarily the case she’ll end up serving the entire two years as the president. She’ll end up serving much of that or most of it.”

Here’s a simple proposal: How about just one more year of Hart? With the presidential search starting in the fall, that should give enough time for attracting candidates, selecting finalists and interviewing them.

Yes, it’ll cost us a year of paying two presidents. That’s not cheap, but it’s likely cheaper than the downside of settling for a weakening university administration.