Tim Steller's column: U of A community fractures persist after reports on professor's killing

University of Arizona President Robert Robbins launched a relationship-rescue effort Monday morning.

Monday afternoon he scuttled it.

The upshot is a relationship with the UA faculty that remains fractured even as the university administration and faculty float ideas about building trust and improving safety on campus.

This is all, of course in response to the Oct. 5 on-campus killing of Thomas Meixner, the then-head of the Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences Department. Meixner was shot to death despite repeated efforts over 11 months by him and others to get somebody to do something about threats made and the danger posed by Murad Dervish, the accused gunman.

On Monday, Robbins and the university released a report by the Pax Group, outside security consultants, that confirmed much of what was known and gave some more infuriating details about the run-up to the predictable killing.

It revealed, for example, that Dervish visited the University of Arizona Police Department on Sept. 27, eight days before Meixner’s death, while he was still banned from campus and subject to misdemeanor criminal charges. He requested information about a vehicle VIN number.

Apology for faculty committee

Friday through Monday were an eventful few days in the multifaceted responses to the murder. On Friday, Meixner’s widow Kathleen and their sons filed a claim against the university. This was an unexpected development, given that the family had previously found little interest from lawyers due to the state’s stringent workers’ compensation law.

Unbeknownst to outsiders, Friday was also the same day that Robbins received the report from the Pax Group. Robbins said he spent time over the weekend reading the report again and again to digest its details, dry as they were.

On Monday at 2:30 p.m., Robbins held a news conference to discuss the report, while at 3 p.m., a UA faculty senate meeting began, to discuss the resignation of a faculty committee that had already released its own report on Meixner’s murder.

It was something that Robbins did Monday morning, though, that at first jumped out as one the most important steps of the day. Robbins announced that he had met with the members of the General Faculty Committee on University Safety for All and apologized to them.

This committee produced its own interim report in January, spelling out “Lessons From the Events Surrounding the Murder of Professor Thomas Meixner.“ The report itself was well-researched and not unduly critical of the university administration.

Yet, the written comment on the report, put out by a university spokeswoman, was biting. A statement by university spokeswoman Pam Scott said the report “represents the work of a subset of faculty that has reached sweeping conclusions based in large part on misleading characterizations and the selective use of facts and quotations.”

This gave the members of the faculty committee a fright. Although their work wasn’t done and had been supported unanimously by the faculty senate and Meixner’s family, they all resigned from the committee in mid-March. They cited fears of retribution.

No-confidence vote passes

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So it was good that Robbins met with the group Monday morning and apologized. At the press conference that afternoon, Robbins said, “It gave me the opportunity to meet with them and to tell them it was a mistake for us to release that dismissive criticism of their work. And I believe that we can go forward by uniting to work together to make the campus a safer place.”

But at the same time, Robbins and most of his administrative team were choosing not to attend the Faculty Senate meeting. In fact, they set the news conference for a half-hour before that meeting was to start.

Robbins and others said they were not invited to the meeting, but they do often attend, and the scheduling of the news conference overlapping with the faculty senate meeting was not viewed as coincidental by faculty senators — professors elected to represent their units of the university.

So, when they met, as the news conference was in its last 15 minutes, their conversation turned to a question of what to do, about the committee report and the resignation of the members. The decision was to consider a vote of no confidence in Robbins and the administration over their handling of the Meixner killing.

“I wasn’t even prepared to make such a motion until there was a complete boycott, except for Provost (Liesl) Folks, of our meeting, which I thought was a slap in the face of the senate and faculty governance,” said Ted Downing, a longtime research professor of social development.

His no-confidence measure passed by a 29-13 margin, with seven abstentions. It cited the failure of the university to protect Meixner and his colleagues, the administration’s “combative” response to the faculty committee’s report, and the timing of the press conference, overlapping with the faculty senate meeting.

“I find it quite appalling that they talk about trust and confidence and don’t even bother to come here today,” said Pierre Lucas, a professor of materials science and engineering.

Accountability not unity

So the atmosphere on campus is not primed for the unity of purpose that the president called for at his Monday news conference.

My hope is that unity isn’t necessary so much as accountability. While the Pax Group report zeroes in on the need to fortify the UA’s threat assessment management team, it dances around the failures of the people who could have done something more to intervene with Dervish but simply shirked their duties.

When I asked him about holding people accountable, Robbins said he hoped others would hold him accountable as the ultimate authority on campus, then added: “There are going to be many detailed and difficult conversations that will have to be had in the coming weeks to months.”

I hope so.

Apparently, though, those tough conversations won’t be between the Arizona Board of Regents and Robbins. Regents Chair Lyndel Manson put out a statement after the no-confidence vote saying the board “fully supports” him — even if the faculty don’t.