By Katelyn Weisbrod
University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld apologized after making an off-the-cuff statement during a Staff Council meeting last week that members of university organizations are calling a “threat” and “act of violence” toward the community.
Harreld said all unprepared lecturers “should be shot” at a Staff Council meeting on Dec. 9.
COGS, the union for graduate student teaching assistants at the UI, issued a statement on Tuesday, calling the comment a “threat” and an “act of violence” toward the UI community.
“It is not acceptable for Harreld to dismiss the statement with a casual apology to a single individual after making a violent threat against all of the university’s lecturers during an official performance of his duties on campus,” the COGS statement said. “His offending statement and flippant response are but one clear example of Harreld’s inability to function adequately or behave appropriately in the role of university president.”
The statement contended that Harreld’s comment violated both UI and the state Board of Regents policies regarding violent threats. COGS is calling for Harreld to resign his position as the president of the UI.
UI librarian Lisa Gardinier originally raised the concern. Gardinier sent Harreld an email questioning the morality of the statement.
“When discussing lesson planning, you claimed that there was ‘one way’ to prepare lessons, and any instructor who goes into a class without having done so ‘should be shot,’ ” Gardinier wrote in the email to Harreld.
“Violence is not to be joked about as a public authority and certainly not in the frame of consequences for professional performance in the workplace,” she wrote. “… to casually suggest potentially lethal punishment as consequences for failure to comply with a narrow perception of the correct way to fulfill one of our duties is irresponsible and unprofessional.”
Harreld responded to Gardinier, saying he will “likely never be able to live up to your expectations, but I will try.”
Harreld has since apologized for the comment.
“It was an unfortunate off the cuff remark, and I had no intention to offend anyone,” he said. “Nor did I seriously mean to imply I support gun violence in any shape, manner, or form.”
Harreld noted he has used the comment in “many, many forums,” and it was the first time someone objected to it.
Harreld recently hired a crisis communication consultant, Eileen Wixted of PR firm Wixted & Co., to help represent him more professionally. Harreld is paying for the consultant personally.
