Bullying, threats, confusion. Employees describe culture under UTA president Karbhari.
On the Friday before Labor Day in 2016, UT Arlington President Vistasp Karbhari asked Linda Johnsrud to attend a 5 p.m. meeting. Johnsrud, the interim provost, was working with Karbhari and a vice provost on a new strategy for the university budget.
The last several months had been trying for Johnsrud, a longtime academic administrator. After what she describes as a brief honeymoon period when she began working at UT Arlington in August 2015, she said, Karbhari had accused her of lying, disparaged her work in front of others and routinely asked her to make demands of deans about subjects that he would later disregard. She said Karbhari made her feel useless.
At the Friday meeting, Johnsrud told him that she didn’t understand the new budgeting process. “He looked at me and said, ‘It is not worth my time to explain it to you,’” she recalled.
“That was it. I walked out,” Johnsrud said in a recent interview. “It was the most demeaning, nasty thing I’ve ever had said to me professionally.”
That weekend, Johnsrud notified Karbhari and the deans she interacted with that she was leaving. Johnsrud was giving up a job that paid her about $300,000 a year. But after the public disparagement, the accusation of lying and the inconsistent orders — behavior she had never experienced in 40 years of higher education — she’d had enough. She cleared out her office before everyone returned to work from the holiday: She didn’t want to see Karbhari again.
Johnsrud’s short time at the university was emblematic of life under Karbhari, according to interviews with 12 current and former administrators, faculty and staff. While rapidly growing UT Arlington’s enrollment and its profile as a research university, Karbhari belittled employees, alienated them with bullying, and made retaliatory threats, they say. Since 2014, the year after Karbhari took over as president, at least 24 people who were in administrative and dean positions at UT Arlington have left, been fired or assumed other roles on campus, based on an analysis of staff directories (UT Arlington lists 20 administrative and dean positions; some positions were cycled through more than once).
The University of Texas system had its own concerns with Karbhari’s management. A performance evaluation of Karbhari for the 2018 fiscal year, which was obtained by the Star-Telegram, noted that his method of communicating and leadership style “continue to be an issue,” leading to low morale and high turnover. “UT System has been informed by multiple executives on the campus that President Karbhari’s inability to delegate and empower those he leads, and his need to control all decisions, has caused serious issues at the campus,” the 2018 evaluation read.
In February, Deborah Robinson, an administrator who was fired in March 2019, filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against Karbhari. She alleged that he made unreasonable demands and had bullied her and other women subordinates.
Karbhari stepped down as president Wednesday, effective Aug. 31, 2020, and was one of three finalists for president at the University of Central Florida before withdrawing on Monday, one day after this story was posted online.
In a note to the university community announcing his decision to leave UTA, he spoke of his accomplishments at UT Arlington and a desire for new challenges. During a public job interview at Central Florida Karbhari talked about Robinson’s lawsuit.
“Universities get sued by a variety of factors, people who leave who are upset they are being asked to leave. And the president has to make the right decision for the university and the leadership team,” he said. “Sometimes those decisions are extremely difficult but they have to be made for the benefit of the entire university. Most times what happens is that the press talks about it. ... What you don’t hear about later is when most of these lawsuits are dismissed because they have no basis. I can absolutely unequivocally tell you this one has no basis.”
One former administrator, who like many current and former employees asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, questioned the quote from the Central Florida interview. The administrator said the University of Central Florida should “take a hard look.”
Karbhari did not respond to a Star-Telegram interview request relayed through UT Arlington’s media relations office.
In a letter formalizing Karbhari’s resignation plans, which he expressed to the UT System late last year, UT System Chancellor James Milliken wrote, “It is important to the momentum of UTA that we can provide for a smooth transition to a new president.”
A lack of respect
Before Karbhari was hired in 2013, the University of Texas System Board of Regents named him the only finalist for the position. Francisco G. Cigarroa, who was then the chancellor of the UT System, said an extraordinary and visionary leader was needed for UT Arlington and that Karbhari was “extremely well suited to lead.”
Some board members didn’t know that Karbhari was a defendant in an active wrongful death lawsuit. Two families of professors who had been killed by a fellow professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville were suing Karbhari, who was provost there before coming to UT Arlington, alleging he had prior knowledge that the shooter was a potential threat. The Board of Regents, who were prompted by reporting from the Texas Tribune, admitted not all of its members were aware of the lawsuit when they interviewed Karbhari.
On visits to campus before his start date, Karbhari brushed aside concerns about allegations (they received so much attention that a story about them appeared in The New Yorker). An Alabama judge threw out the lawsuit in January 2014, writing there was no evidence to show Karbhari had been warned of any potential violence.
UT Arlington had grown in size and reputation under the previous president, James D. Spaniolo, and Karbhari immediately set out to further improve its research status. In the last seven years, UT Arlington has become a Carnegie Research 1 University, while solidifying its status as a hub for minority students and veterans. Nearly 50% of its student body is Hispanic or black (UTA awarded more bachelor’s degrees to African-Americans than any other college in Texas in 2018), and Military Times named it the top school for veterans last fall. Karbhari has also held informal meetings with students over pizza and last year participated in a bowling match with them while wearing a T-shirt personalized for the occasion.
Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams, who has interacted with Karbhari since becoming mayor in 2015, said Kharbari had helped create partnerships between the university and local startups. “I’ve seen in the last year he has worked really hard on developing community,” Williams said.
But from the beginning, faculty had concerns about a lack of respect from Karbhari. Chris Morris, a history professor, recalled Karbhari saying at a brunch attended by about eight faculty and staff early in his tenure that the university had been badly managed by Spaniolo, who was popular among university employees and the Arlington community. Two former administrators said that shortly after they were hired, Karbhari told them the individuals who worked in their departments were “worthless.” They said he suggested that they would need to get rid of staff.
Karbhari, according to administrators and faculty, involved himself in university matters that typically didn’t pertain to the president. For the various commencements, they said, he had to approve every speaker at individual colleges and the script for their ceremonies.
Previously at UT Arlington, faculty from each department took turns attending graduation, Morris said, a common practice at many universities. Karbhari ordered all faculty to attend commencement and took attendance, explaining they were failing at their jobs by not showing up, according to Morris. “That’s insulting,” he said. “That’s not a good way to win friends and influence people.”
The UT Arlington communications team, which was based in the same building as Karbhari, received heavy criticism from him, multiple sources say. They say he obsessively rewrote and critiqued routine press releases and, once, berated an employee while a conference room door was open. The staff interpreted the open door as an intentional act so they could hear him. At one point, according to two sources, he accused the communications staff of working against the university.
Many faculty and staff, feeling micromanaged, wondered whether Karbhari was dedicating enough time to the principal duties of a university president, which include raising money and building relationships with influential donors. From 2011 to 2013, the year Karbhari became president, UT Arlington took in $19 million, $24 million and $33 million in overall giving (cash received, pledges, gifts), according to UT System records. The System projected that UT Arlington would receive $35 million in fiscal year 2014, with the total steadily rising to $40 million by 2017.
The university raised $21 million in 2014, then $23 million, $14 million and $17 million. UT Arlington’s endowment is at about $150 million, short of the $500 million goal set by the UT System (UT Dallas has an endowment of about $550 million). In a 2014 evaluation, the System noted that it was “imperative” for Karbhari to initiate a capital campaign; in 2018, it again recommended a campaign. UT Arlington has yet to start one.
In Karbhari’s evaluations, which were completed by the UT System chancellor and vice chancellor for academic affairs, repeated comments were made about his philanthropy skills and his plans to improve fundraising. The 2017-18 evaluation noted that the hiring of a new vice president for institutional advancement was a “compelling” way to enhance donor support. That was the position of Robinson, the administrator who would be fired within a year and file a lawsuit against him.
Unwarranted pressure on staff
Linda Johnsrud was one of the most sought-after higher education administrators in the United States when she was contacted by the University of Texas System. She had spent 25 years in Hawaii, starting as an assistant professor at Hawaii-Manoa and rising to become executive vice president/provost for academic affairs. She was featured in Washington Monthly as one of the 16 most innovative people in higher education for her nationally recognized program stressing to advisers that full-time students should be encouraged to enroll in 15 credits per semester rather than 12.
The University of Texas System recruited her in 2014 to work in Austin as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. Despite being comfortable in Hawaii, the UT System was bigger, providing a new challenge, and her grandchildren were being raised four hours from Austin in Denton. In her role, Johnsrud got to know high-ranking officials from various campuses around the state, including Karbhari. He surprised her during one of his visits to Austin by asking if she wanted to work for him at UT Arlington.
Johnsrud recalls him as sharp and charming. He asked good questions and shared ambitious plans for the campus. She accepted an offer to be vice president for academic planning and strategic partnerships, with plans for her to later become provost. For her first six months at UT Arlington, she said, Karbhari was complimentary of her work and let her make decisions independently. His behavior started to change when she became interim provost in early 2016.
Johnsrud said Karbhari polled all the deans about formally making her provost without the standard search process. He commented to her that almost all of them expressed praise for her work, and he took that as a negative. “It was like, if I’m doing a good job they shouldn’t like me back. That if you’re going to be a strong leader people under you should despise you,” Johnsrud said.
Working closely with Karbhari, Johnsrud said she noticed a pattern: He would apply pressure on her and other staff without always caring about the result, or he would support ideas until people prepared them — and then tell them to stop. For instance, Johnsrud said, Karbhari asked her to tell deans to make phone calls in spring 2016 to prospective students to help improve enrollment. The numbers didn’t budge, and, she said, Karbhari didn’t trust their efforts. When a dean provided her with a thorough outline of their work to give to Karbhari, she said Karbhari remarked that it was “too little, too late.”
UT Arlington had launched a program under Johnsrud called TransferUTA. It identified potential transfer students from community colleges and provided assistance to them. Transfers were a key component of UT Arlington’s growth and part of its mission for serving working class and first generation college students. After the initiative had begun, Johnsrud said, Karbhari “turned the tables and was quite indignant that I would pursue transfer students,” criticizing her about it in front of others.
She witnessed him publicly question the capabilities of other high-level employees, including a time after a faculty member was not granted tenure. Johnsrud said Karbhari blamed a dean for not providing enough mentoring and support for the faculty member. “It was just totally uncalled for,” she said. “Not everybody gets tenure. He didn’t know what the dean had done.”
She said: “It is absolutely clear when he is choosing to belittle a professional in front of other professionals. It’s not something I’ve ever witnessed before. It’s sarcastic, belittling, condescending.”
One time she remembers Karbhari accusing her of being untruthful regarding the number of hires she had approved.
In March 2018, after Johnsrud noticed other administrators were leaving or being fired, she wrote a letter to then-UT System Chancellor William McRaven. The letter described her various various issues with Karbhari, and she provided a list of 17 other high-ranking employees who had left, been forced out or reassigned in the last two years. She wrote that all of them had been “berated, undermined or abused by President Karbhari (in my presence, or about which I have direct knowledge).”
According to Johnsrud, McRaven sent her an email acknowledging receipt of the letter, along with what she said was a vague message that suggested Karbhari would receive coaching from Tony Cucolo, a U.S. Army major general who worked as the system’s vice chancellor from 2015 to 2019. An interview request texted to a cell phone number listed for Cucolo was not returned, and a UT System spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the response to Johnsrud’s letter. McRaven stepped down as chancellor in May 2018 for health and personal reasons.
Allegations of bullying
In her lawsuit, Robinson emphasized that women employees were the targets of Karbhari’s alleged bullying. She said in the lawsuit that he made unreasonable demands of her and other employees and used “crude statements, such as ‘you will not be working here.’” She said she complained about averse treatment of women employees to UT Arlington’s general counsel on multiple occasions and named Johnsrud and two other former administrators as female subordinates who were forced to resign or be terminated.
“I’ve been asked more than once if it was based on (gender),” said Johnsrud, referring to Karbhari’s treatment. “And I honestly don’t know. ... He’s condescending to anybody who he has some sort of direct authority over.”
There have been other concerns during Karbhari’s tenure about the status of women. In 2015, he appointed a Campus Climate for Women task force. The task force’s 2016 report revealed that 44% of women tenure track employees either disagreed or strongly disagreed that UT Arlington provided a culture that supported the advancement and retention of women. A majority of the tenure track women also thought that UT Arlington’s top leaders did not show a commitment to gender diversity.
That report was not made available to faculty until March. In a letter sent to the UT System expressing concerns about Karbhari, the Faculty Senate wrote that its release had been requested for years. “This not only demonstrates a seeming lack of commitment to campus inclusion and diversity,” the letter read, “but displays a disregard for the faculty/staff time and effort of the Task Force, comprised completely (save one) of women. The findings of the report point to serious on-going issues for women on campus that need to be addressed.”
‘Conflicting messages’
With a revolving door of deans, provosts and vice presidents, many of the faculty and staff working under them have been unsure of the direction they need to follow. The Faculty Senate wrote in its letter to the UT System that the central administration had been ineffectual and had “led to mid-level administrators often appearing confused about initiatives, sometimes sending conflicting messages, hindering effective communication with faculty, and delaying execution of key priorities,” including new hires.
The faculty senators also had questions about the budgeting process, noting a lack of transparency and what they termed a “counterproductive” strategy of not having a well-defined annual budget for each department.
Several faculty members discussed with the Star-Telegram a loss of institutional knowledge. Enough people have left or been forced out that the replacements can’t rely on veteran advice to know how UT Arlington is supposed to be run. “It becomes difficult to complete the mission of the university,” said one longtime professor, “because you can’t grow programs efficiently and can’t help students when you don’t have a stable group of people to reach out to.”
Many of the administrators and deans who left or were forced out have landed equal or better positions at comparable or bigger universities. To Karbhari’s detractors, it’s proof he ran off top-notch talent. Others have settled for lesser positions or been unable to find employment in higher education.
Johnsrud said that for a while after her resignation she felt foolish. She couldn’t believe she had trusted Karbhari. She had spent her entire adult life as an academic but was so gutted by her UT Arlington experience that she didn’t want to look for new jobs.
Johnsrud, 70, splits her time between San Diego, where she and her husband recently remodeled a home, and Denton, where she spends time with her young grandchildren.
But sometimes she thinks about what she left at UT Arlington and who made her leave. It still bothers her, she said, that “I let him get to me.”
This story was originally published March 8, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
