Amid roiling faculty anger, the University of Miami announced the number two executive at the Miller School of Medicine, Jack Lord, is “stepping down,” to be replaced temporarily by Joe Natoli, UM’s chief financial officer.
The change, announced by Dean Pascal Goldschmidt, comes as a petition circulates among tenured medical school faculty expressing no confidence in both Goldschmit and Lord.
Goldschmidt said in a letter to faculty, obtained by The Herald late Wednesday that he extended his “deepest gratitude” to Lord for his leadership in helping to restructure the medical school’s finances, which showed a surplus of about $9 million for the first six months of this fiscal year -- compared to a $24 million loss for the first six months of the previous fiscal year.
Lord, a physician who had been chief innovation officer at Humana, became the medical school’s chief operating officer last March. He was deeply involved in a series of drastic changes, including laying off about 900 full-time and part-time employees in the spring.
Many faculty members, who had spent decades at the medical school without seeing mass layoffs, were angry that the cuts were made without consulting them. A report by a faculty senate committee said medical school professors described the layoffs as “unprofessional,” “graceless” and “”heartless.”
The report said faculty “fear is widespread within the school. They cited instances in which someone suffered retribution for criticizing the school’s administration. ... Faculty with alternatives are leaving.”
UM did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Last May, President Donna Shalala, a veteran administrator at several universities, said tradition-bound faculty often complained when tough changes needed to be made.
Associate Professor Sam Terilli, head of the committee that wrote the interim report in late August, said last week a follow-up report is being prepared, but said it was too soon to offer details of what it would say.
Meanwhile, several anonymous sources have sent The Herald a copy of a petition being circulated among school faculty members who “wish to express, in the strongest possible terms, the concern we feel for the future for our school of medicine.” The petition blamed “the failed leadership of Pascal Goldschmidt and Jack Lord. ... We want to make clear that the faculty has lost confidence in the ability of these men to lead the school.”
The petition states: “Under the current leadership, there has been a major shift in the mission of the schools that we feel jeopardizes our educational, clinical and research enterprises. The deterioration of the relationship with Jackson Memorial Hospital fundamentally threatens both our graduate and undergraduate medical education programs without which the school of medicine cannot exist.”
A half-dozen persons closely connected to the medical school who requested anonymity told The Herald that they’ve heard that between 400 and 600 of the school’s 1,200 faculty have added their names to individual copies of the petition.
The petitions are addressed to the chair of the faculty senate, Richard L. Williamson, a law professor. Williamson said last week he would not comment on how many had signed the petition because it was “an internal matter” and may never become public. He said that the number of those who know how many have signed is “extremely small and none of them will talk.”
