University of Toledo’s first female president is saying good-bye this week after five years at the helm, at a time when the future of its medical school is unknown.
Details about her final payment agreements with the board of trustees also are uncertain.
In an interview with The Blade this week, Sharon Gaber said it’s bittersweet to leave the University of Toledo.
She recognizes that she’s exiting at a time when UT and other schools are facing budget challenges, as well as other hardships, because of the coronavirus. But she is optimistic about the university’s future as she prepares to take over as chancellor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, a role that was too good to pass up.
“I think the time seemed to be right, and it was something that looked like it would be a nice next step in my career,” she said. And although questions remain about reopening the university in August and what funding will look like going into the 2020-21 school year, she believes the state might come to the aid of the university and that financial troubles might not be as bad as university officials predicted.
“So I’m optimistic, and I think if the university continues to do the good things that it’s doing, it will continue to get better,” she said.
Prior to her taking over in 2015 as UT’s 17th president, trust in the university administration was already low, she said.
Her predecessor, Lloyd Jacobs, resigned a year before his contract ended, and neither he nor UT board members provided an explanation. Students and staff were angry over the board’s decision to offer him a contract that would pay him more than $1.3 million over three years, pay him during a year-long sabbatical, and have him return to the university as a professor.
Ms. Gaber also came into her role facing falling enrollment, low faculty morale, and a $11.5 million midyear shortfall that arose just months into her five-year contract.
Slowly but surely, year after year, things began to change.
Five years later the university’s graduation rate hit a record high of 51.7 percent and research funding increased 40 percent. Graduate, law, nursing, and other programs also moved up in national rankings. Board members would annually laud Ms. Gaber’s leadership, not just with words, but with more than $100,000 in performance bonuses.
But one area Ms. Gaber is most proud of is diversity. In 2015 the university’s senior leadership team was made up of 12 men and one woman. It now has four women and nine men. She also made a priority of hiring a vice president for diversity and inclusion to develop a diversity plan that included the input and engagement from throughout the university both with staff and students.
She’s also proud of the annual Rocket Week, featuring a series of events held in the Toledo community during the first week of the academic year leading up to the home-opening football game.
“We’re in a very diverse community and, really, what I’ve learned is that we hadn’t done enough to celebrate and to recognize and acknowledge our diversity, previously,” she said. “And, now, I think the community recognizes that we’re doing a lot more internally and in the way that we’re reaching out.”
Willie McKether, vice president for diversity and inclusion and vice provost, credits Ms. Gaber for quickly recognizing the university’s need for a diversity and inclusion plan as well as the importance of sending a message to the campus that their president was taking such a matter seriously.
“This kind of work... it’s only impactful when you have the support of the president, because the president sets the tone,” he said. “Every step of the way, her narrative was always, ‘This cannot be a plan that we just put on a shelf. We have to do the work.’ And because of that, the culture of the campus began to change.”
But while board members and others have been happy with Ms. Gaber’s performance metrics in areas such as graduation rates and diversity, she does have her critics, particularly from those who feel she and the UT board members have mismanaged the the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital.
In particular, community members and area lawmakers say Ms. Gaber and the UT board too often operate in secret and discuss the public’s business behind closed doors when they should be doing so publicly and with the community’s input — particularly when it comes to UTMC.
For much of this winter and spring, a newly formed community group pressed UT administrators about what the group characterized as the pending sale or shutdown of the hospital.
The university remained largely tight-lipped about what was going on with UTMC while, for months, board members periodically met in closed-door executive sessions, declining to say whether those meetings had to do with UTMC. Then in mid-April, the university announced it was exploring options to sell or lease the medical college.
Former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, one of the leaders of the Save UTMC Citizens Group, and Randy Desposito, president of AFSCME Local 2415, which represents a significant number of UTMC employees, agree the UTMC issue and what they view as a lack of transparency under Ms. Gaber’s presidency tarnish her legacy.
“The president of the board and President Gaber have absolutely made critical decisions about the future of the university and UTMC behind closed doors where the general public has no idea what is being said and is not allowed to weigh in,” Mr. Finkbeiner said. “To me, this will overshadow any other improvements she’s made at the university during her time here.”
Ms. Gaber said it’s unfortunate that the matter has become heated, but she wouldn’t say whether issues surrounding UTMC played a role in her decision to leave the university.
But she won’t be leaving the medical school issue behind — her new chancellor role, which she starts July 20, will have Ms. Gaber overseeing University of North Carolina’s regional campus in Charlotte and join a community whose members are pushing for a new free-standing four-year medical school.
Her advice for moving forward with UTMC discussions is in line with the desire of Mr. Finkbeiner and Mr. Desposito, in that she believes university officials will have to have open talks with stakeholders to determine the medical college’s future.
“I think UTMC has, and unfortunately it’s become a political issue, but I think the reality is we’re going to have to continue talking to the state, our representatives, and the groups who are interested in keeping UTMC and figuring out what that looks like,” she said.
Final payouts unknown
It’s still unclear how much the school will pay Ms. Gaber after she ended her contract three years early with roughly two months notice instead of the required six months notification.
Ms. Gaber is expected to be paid at least $117,692 as of June 30 — consisting of $31,384 for working as president in June and $86,307 for her unused 352 hours of vacation, which calculates to 8.8 work weeks.
Ms. Gaber’s last day on the job is Sunday, and UT officials say they don’t know how much she will be paid for working five days this month. One spokesman said she will receive “deferred compensation per her contact,” but wouldn’t specify what that would amount to or whether she would receive any additional bonuses or other forms of compensation.
Officials also didn’t answer whether UT board members gave Ms. Gaber a final performance review. Board members typically evaluate the president during their last June meeting.
Ms. Gaber announced in late April that she was taking a job as chancellor at UNC in Charlotte with a salary of $525,000 — $15,000 more than her current salary.
Her contract runs through 2023 and calls for six months written notice of resignation, which was submitted to the board on May 12. And while UNC announced Ms. Gaber would start her new job this past Wednesday, UT officials, as well as then UT board chairman Mary Ellen Pisanelli, stated they were negotiating with Ms. Gaber to allow her to leave by that date.
Throughout different parts of June, The Blade had asked UT officials when UT board members would take action on a separation agreement between Ms. Gaber and the university. Officials responded June 23 — after the board’s last meeting — that a transition was still being worked on.
However a June 15 letter obtained this week shows board members and officials didn’t intend to vote publicly on a separation agreement, with Ms. Pisanelli stating in the letter, “because the Board is putting the timing of your separation within your discretion to choose, there is no need to enter into a separation agreement.”
The letter also offered to allow Ms. Gaber to step down on Nov. 12. UT officials wouldn’t answer how her payout would differ if she chose to stay until that date.
Calls and texts to Ms. Pisanelli — who stepped down as board chairman effective this month — were not returned. Attempts to reach newly selected UT board chairman Alfred Baker were also unsuccessful.
A UT spokesmen on Thursday sent a statement from the board of trustees:
“The board has already indicated that Dr. Gaber’s separation and its timing was her idea; and that once she does in fact separate, we will evaluate it as a Board along with the new administration to determine how her decision and timing of her separation impacts any final payments under her employment agreement. We are not going to speculate as to what processes or procedures we would use to assess what she is entitled to or any final open issues.”
First Published July 4, 2020, 2:22 p.m.
