UT Arlington president resigns from post; faculty discusses ‘issues’ from his tenure
UT Arlington President Vistasp Karbhari is stepping down from his position, effective August 31, 2020, according to a message posted from him on the university website and emailed to employees.
“The institution is stronger than ever before, and it is now poised for its next set of great advancements,” he wrote. “Serving you has been the greatest honor of my career, and I am proud of what we have accomplished together.”
He said in the note he was resigning after reflecting about the progress and achievements made during his tenure and deciding it was time to consider his next step.
Karbhari became president in June 2013. At the time, UT Arlington had an enrollment of 33,000 students. The university now has 47,000 students (third in Texas, behind only Texas A&M and the University of Texas, according to Department of Education data) and was designated a Carnegie Research 1 university. UT Arlington has also been a leader for diversity. It ranks No. 1 in Texas in undergraduate degrees awarded to black students and No. 1 in Texas for master’s degrees awarded to minority students.
But his tenure has not been without controversy. Last month, former administrator Deborah Robinson filed a lawsuit against Karbhari, alleging he had threatened and bullied her and other women employees. According to the lawsuit, Karbhari made unreasonable demands and used crude language while threatening to fire employees. Robinson, who was vice president for institutional advancement, claimed Karbhari stopped communicating with her in February 2019. She was fired in March 2019.
Robinson alleged that she complained about Karbhari’s treatment toward her and other employees to university counsel. Karbhari’s behavior did not change after these conversations, according to the lawsuit.
UT Arlington faculty discussed Karbhari during a closed-doors session of a faculty senate meeting Wednesday afternoon. “We were just reflecting on the issues we were having the last few years,” said Bill Carroll, professor of computer science and engineering and the chair of the faculty senate.
The faculty senate voted to send a letter to the UT system and UT Arlington leadership, but it discussed the contents of the letter in the closed-doors session. Carroll declined to discuss the content of the letter.
Karbhari’s departure was greeted with gratitude by local government officials. State Rep. Chris Turner, chair of the House Committee on Higher Education, said in a statement that Karbhari had been “a tireless advocate for UT Arlington’s students, faculty and staff.” State Sen. Beverly Powell, on Twitter, praised Karbhari for UT Arlington’s success in educating a diverse student body and veterans.
Ford Ramirez, a freshman studying art, said he’s happy Karbhari is leaving. The departing president has come off as pretentious and closed-minded in making decisions about construction, renovation and initiatives on campus, Ramirez said.
“I feel like he was too closed-minded and didn’t care about what students think,” Ramirez said. “We’re the ones paying thousands of dollars to be students at UTA. He should at least ask us what we think about things.”
Ramirez said things like renovations to older buildings serving liberal arts or language students seem to have been put on the back burner while STEM students have newer buildings and nicer facilities. Karbhari is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and is an engineering professor. UT Arlington recently broke ground on a $125 million building for science, engineering innovation and research.
Landry Rhodes, a political science sophomore, said he hopes students studying anything other than engineering will start getting attention from the office of the next president. “I feel good about this,” Rhodes said. “There were a lot of students who felt like their departments were being ignored in favor of engineering.”
Chris Morris, a history professor, said Karbhari often overlooked the needs of the College of Liberal Arts. During the faculty senate meeting, he motioned for the senate to suspend the search for a new Liberal Arts dean, noting irregularities in communication from Karbhari regarding the search.
Before coming to UT Arlington Karbhari was provost at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He was recently announced as a finalist for the job of university president at Central Florida.
In his note to staff, Karbhari did not mention his candidacy for the position at Central Florida. He ended the message by saying he looked forward to working with staff in the months to come and accelerating “our momentum to ever higher levels of excellence.”
A UT Arlington spokesman said the university had nothing to add to Karbhari’s statement. The University of Texas system has not responded to an interview request from the Star-Telegram.
James Hartley contributed reporting to this article.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 10:43 AM.
