LUCKE'S ANNOUNCEMENTS OF HER NONRENEWAL

We've heard a lot in the comments about Lucke's e-mails to both faculty and students announcing her nonrenewal, more or less refusing to go along with the dean's proposal that she tell everyone that she is stepping down at the end of the year to focus on scholarship.  For those who have not seen these e-mails, they are linked below:

Download lucke_080313_17.PDF

An offer to keep things hush-hush such as the dean's can be seen two ways, actually.  Sure enough, it does keep things low-key for someone who's looking for another job, but it also helps preserve the appearance that nothing is wrong at the school. It takes grit to do what Lucke did and tell the truth about her nonrenewal.  Although some have posted disagreeing with the notion of informing the students that she was asked to step down, the Blogmeister fails to see how the e-mail linked above would leave them emotionally scarred. 

Lucke has created a dialog, one that needed to occur.  UTMB administration can either embrace the conflict, work things out, and emerge with a much stronger School of Nursing, or it can try to change nothing, crush the dissent and the dissenters, and ensure that the conflict lives on to surface again and again. 

Comments

In my opinion, if UTMB higher Adm does nothing the SON will collapse. More faculty and staff will leave, and students can be stranded.

[Interested from afar.]

Dr. Lucke is a first class act. Like the many "A" faculty who fled or were forced out by "C" and "D" administrators under Stobo, she will be quickly scooped up by an A class instituition somewhere north of the island.

Stobo took UTMB from a solid "B" to a "C" healthcare institution. This continuing loss of talent surely means a C- or D grade can't be too long in coming.

Does Galveston really need a SON?

That will be moot point before long.

Short answer is yes- 800,000 nursing shortage ia estimated- the country needs the nursing school...does UTMB seem to care about this one school-no it does not act as if it does.

[another interested party]

It seems there are so many things the current SON administration could do to at least give the appearance that faculty voices are heard. But alas that is not the case. Yes, there is a nursing shortage and UTMB can contribute significantly to solving the problem - but what kind of graduates will they produce if the faculty are so oppressed they have no voice? How can they educate a graduate to be a consumate professional when the role models at the top are lacking?

Dr. Lucke is not a class act nor is she courageous. Dr. Lucke was one of the gang leaders that tried to oust Dr. Robin Froman at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio in her post as Dean of UTHCSA 3 - 4 years ago. In that situation she also tried to get the students involved in supporting her protest. She was also very vindictive and hostile to faculty that did support her efforts. Now she is doing the same thing here at UTMB.

The only question is why Dr. Watson hired her in the first place. Clearly, Dr. Lucke does not belong in Administration. You need to ask yourself where all this hostility is coming from that has been demonstrated in this blog. Dean Watson has taken a positive first step to put a better administration in place for SON.

You call it hostile when someone of reason gets frustrated with your sceaming and poor decisions.
Stop pointing to Dr Lucke and start with the person in the mirror.

[another interested party]

Obviously, you made an error in your first sentence. I believe you intended to say "Dr. Lucke is a class act and is very courageous". And, how would you know about what happened in San Antonio? Were you there, or are you into spreading vicious rumors? And, about the first step you are applauding: if you approve of the step that has initiated this outcry and the disrespectful presentation the Provost made to the faculty, then you are in the minority--not one of the upset 95% one of the dean's own fans (maybe you?) reported in an e-mail appearing on this blog.

So why did Dr. Watson hire Dr. Lucke? It’s a long, convoluted story of power and retaliation and insecurity and fear. I can’t even begin to tell it here and if you heard it, you would weep.