Administrative Situation Under Drs. Kuchera and McGovern
‘The organization of the school has drifted into the current status of having no definite organizational hierarchy, defined responsibilities, or accountability. Current actions of the dean and administration reflect an attitude not in the best interests of K.C.O.M. students. The educational program quality including the curriculum at K.C.O.M. and clinical rotations have suffered as a consequence.’
-K.C.O.M. funds appear to have not been spent effectively.
e.g.: The ‘Healer Within’ exhibit cost over $600,000!
How is this justified after the president called for a college usterity program and when tuition is at an all time high?
The clinical faculty feels it would be in the best interests of the students if these funds were spent either for a new library facility, to recruit faculty at the rotation sites, or on other quality education programs.
-Open friction exists between the president and the dean.
e.g.: The president has made repeated open comments to the general faculty regarding the dean’s “immaturity” and “inexperience”. This caused the president to inappropriately intervene in the dean’s duties.
e.g.: The dean has lost all control of academic functions of the college including: registrar, curriculum, and admissions. All of which have been assumed by the president.
-Organization of the college has changed haphazardly without adequate communication between departments and without regard for the educational process.
e.g.: Associate deans, vice-deans, assistant deans are created and deleted frequently
e.g.: The organizational chart of the college changes frequently making administrative hierarchy ineffectual or non-existent.
This makes implementing or enforcing administrative
decisions by clinical deans and section chiefs very difficult.
-There is a pattern of the administration to lower traditional academic standards comparable with other institutions of higher learning.
e.g.: A substantial initiative has been made by the administration to delete clinical hours taught on campus by videotaping lectures and sending these to students on 3rd and 4th year rotations.
e.g.: The curriculum is currently grossly unbalanced. In the face of this glaring inconsistency, the administration continually attempts to “find more hours in the curriculum” by looking to cut clinical didactic hours.
-40 hours (20 hours required and 20 hours optional) is devoted to cranial manipulation and only one hour is devoted to vascular surgery
[The clinical faculty’s ability to effect change within the administration is mitigated by difficulties outlined in the next
section.]
e.g.: New faculty appointments are made by the dean without regard to previous academic rank, experience, or qualification, and against the recommendation of the ECF.
e.g.: A second year student was approached by the administration to teach his own class.
e.g.: Secretaries from two departments were utilized to evaluate medical physical exam skills for second year students.
e.g.: Non-physicians are routinely employed to proctor clinical cases given by first and second year students.
-Problems exist in the structure and makeup of the curriculum committee that cannot be addressed within the administration due to partiality issues. This has to be addressed to the board directly.
e.g.: The curriculum committee [that sets student educational priorities] is unbalanced with a diminutive role given to the clinical faculty. The clinical faculty is a minority voting block on the 20 person committee. The voting committee members consist of :
4 non-teaching Ph.D’s
4 administrative D.O.’s
4 basic science Ph.D’s
4 clinical faculty D.O.’s
2 medical students
1 resident physician
e.g.: The placement of Dr. McGovern's wife, Rene, on the curriculum committee makes open discussion and decision making difficult and awkward.
e.g.: The curriculum committee is largely unorganized without defined long-term goals. There are many meetings held with a large volume of paperwork produced containing little substance.
e.g.: The dean was regularly meeting with one of the co-chairs (Dr. Degenhart) to discuss agenda matters without the invitation or attendance of the other co-chair (Dr. Bragg) who subsequently resigned the chairmanship in protest.
