How the New Yorker's Atul Gawande Caused the Debacle at UVA

AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Sabrina Schaeffer

What's the difference between a risk and a gamble? You can rescue yourself from a risk. If a gamble goes wrong, the consequences are irrevocable. I first learned this distinction from a battalion commander who had served several tours in Afghanistan. I interviewed him for a series of articles I wrote about risk. The lesson is now playing out in the pitched battle over the firing of Teresa Sullivan, the University of Virginia's president, whose pursuers completely ignored this distinction even though they imagined themselves to be brave risk-takers.

The central risk taker in the story is Helen Dragas, the rector of the university who orchestrated the plot to unseat Sullivan. Days before she pushed Sullivan out, she emailed her co-conspirator Mark Kington a transcript of a commencement address delivered at Williams College by the New Yorker's Atul Gawande on risk, failure, and recovering from failure. His thesis is that while commencement speakers talk about risk, they never offer the key to risk-taking, which is knowing how to rescue yourself when your risk goes wrong. That is a key insight and a gift to the students. People are always going on about how we need to take risks, but they never explain how exactly one goes about it. Gawande was unwinding the mystery a little and giving the students something extremely useful.

We don't know exactly why Dragas, a successful Virginia Beach real estate developer, sent a transcript of that speech. She just wrote to Kington, the vice-rector and a successful businessman in his own right, that it was "timely." She very likely was using its argument to validate her push for a post-Sullivan public relations plan that she had put in place. In a collection of emails--obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by the student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily-- Dragas and Kington discuss using an outside firm to address the blowback. (An aside: This drama, with uncovered emails, secret plans exposed, and J.K. Rowling-esque names is really only lacking a passion subplot. In the movie version, someone somewhere is going to be getting at least a canoodle.)

Gawande is a brilliant, lucid, and enjoyable writer. And what a multitasker! (Surgeon and writer; I can barely keep up with the laundry and meet my deadlines.) But the story he tells about risk-taking is imperfect. Gawande tells the story of a fluke surgical crisis. An 87-year-old woman who entered the hospital to have her carotid artery unblocked survived the surgery but then developed gastric volvulus, a very serious condition. The team of doctors was able to solve the problem because they were prepared and calm in the face of chaos. It is imperfect because while the surgeons showed two traits crucial to risk-taking--preparation and calm--the emergency condition they were facing was not the result of their own risk-taking. It was a fluke.

Since the surgeons were not the agents of the chaos, they didn't have to deal with the normal failure cycle risk-takers have to manage: the constant retracing of steps, the loss of confidence (if I screwed up taking the risk, why won't I screw up trying to solve it?), and the refusal to admit that your first risk-taking action was a mistake. The surgeons in Gawande's story are open to alternative diagnosis to solve the mysterious second illness, which is a good trait, but it's not the same as knowing how to unlock yourself from the entrenched defense of your original risk-taking decision.

What we know for sure is that Dragas and Kington did not get the central message of Gawande's address to the graduating class at Williams College. Gawande concluded by saying:

So you will take risks, and you will have failures. But it's what happens afterward that is defining. A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it--will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right?--because the difference between triumph and defeat, you'll find, isn't about willingness to take risks. It's about mastery of rescue.

If there's one thing that everyone can agree on, it's that Dragas, Kington, and their anti-Sullivan cabal blew the rescue. They stood up in the lifeboat, they threw gas on the fire, they put the oxygen mask on the child first, and forgot themselves.

Sullivan was very popular. That meant she had a big constituency. Furthermore, she had served only two years. Her short tenure makes it hard to claim that she lacked the skills to get the job done when the same board had so recently hired her. If anything, she hadn't been given sufficient time even to be evaluated.

There was a massive outcry when the news hit that Sullivan was leaving. (I too cried out. I sat next to Sullivan at an alumni event. I thought she was spectacular.) Alumni were asked to send their opinions by email, which nearly melted the servers. Everyone may have loved Sullivan, or they may have just been reacting to the clumsy and offensive way her firing was handled.

Other voices have weighed in. Sullivan's predecessor, John Casteen, called for her reinstatement. So did the former Gov. Tim Kaine, who is running for the Senate. Gov. Bob McDonnell said the board had mishandled the whole business. Thefaculty passed a vote of no confidence in the Board of Visitors. A senior faculty member resigned, saying he didn't want to be associated with a school headed into the abyss. The American Association of University Professors wrote to the board, urging it to reconsider. TheCavalier Daily called on the whole board to resign.

In the aftermath, the board, led by Dragas--which I swear is the name of a teacher of the Dark Arts in Harry Potter 8--was obscure, shifty, and defiant in the face of questions about what had led to the surprise firing. Dragas published a statement that was as serpentine as Mr. Jefferson's famous walls. It alternated between jargon, ass-covering, self-congratulation, and faux sympathy. She answered none of the pertinent questions related to Sullivan's ouster while declaring that any turmoil over how she had been fired stemmed from the board's excessive attachment to the "truth." A later statement from Dragas outlined some of the challenges the university faces but never addressed the central point: where Sullivan fell short. Perhaps it was part of some kind of a smart public relations move (ask the firm that authored it for her), but the document only exacerbated the belief that Dragas was never going to give the straight story.

At an institution founded on intellectual inquiry, it is a bad idea to respond to questions with stonewalling. But it would be a mistake to think the board just mishandled the aftermath or that a different statement confected by a team of PR wizards would have helped. The calamity in the post-risk period of Sullivan's firing was baked into the initial risk-taking act. This is where the incomplete analogy in Gawande's speech is important. You must have a plan if your risk goes awry, but you also can't do things in the risk-taking that doom your clean-up effort. So when you're climbing a tricky pass on El Capitanwithout a rope, don't wear an anvil. When you launch a start-up, don't sign on with venture capital firms too fast or the money you get will cause you to grow too quickly, amplifying the early failures you'll inevitably have and putting you on the hook with merciless investors. Don't think because you've been successful making one kind of risky decision that you will be successful making others.

Risk takers are actually highly cautious. They squeeze every ounce of chance out of their actions because they know what they're doing may fail. Dragas and her accomplices did the opposite. They hatched their plot in secret, and they never brought the firing to a full vote in front of the board. The dishonorable sneaky route can never work at a university where students must pledge at the bottom of every paper and exam that they did not receive or provide any assistance on the assignment. The board turned their risk into a reckless gamble.

If they'd followed a fair approach, the anti-Sullivan group would have either given ballast to their ultimate judgment or discovered in the process that they were being hasty. Instead, they strapped on another anvil and headed up the mountain.

The underlying debate between the Board of Visitors and Teresa Sullivan was over how to shrink and change the university when budgets are tight. The business-minded board members thought Sullivan wasn't up to the task. She lacked the corporate smarts and familiarity with hard-nosed tactics. They took a gamble in the name of a more business-oriented approach to university administration, but they did so without exercising what the smart CEO knows: Minimize risk. "Sweeping action may be gratifying and may create the aura of strong leadership," said Sullivan in her defense, "but its unintended consequences may lead to costs that are too high to bear." She's right. The school is in chaos. The gamble didn't pay off. Tuesday, the board will meet again. Gov. McDonnell has said he will replace the entire board if they don't put an end to the controversy. Perhaps the board can regain its footing by embracing another piece of business jargon: "Fail fast." They should admit their mistake and bring back Sullivan.

[CatsPaw4]

In retrospect savvy students and educators can outsmart a wile coyote which society as whole cannot because it is uneducated.

[CLAS84]

This story has been driven by several forms of incomplete or absent facts due to a non-disparagement clause. The media has done with it what it could, but what has been accepted as a fact pattern is incorrect. The BOV's discussion of Sullivan's performance is not going to be found in meeting minutes nor discovered thru a FOIA request for email. Dragas, Kington, & Sullivan had bi-weekly calls--no transcript, no minutes, & certainly the concensus-building among 16 members took place in person or over the phone. I think that poor preparation by the BOV for the atermath of asking Sullivan to go triggered a tidal wave which they were constrained from correcting. Sullivan dangled her presence to a madding crowd. Anger at the handling converted to support for Sullivan. The roar hasn't been that she's so great, it's that she's a victim. I don't know what will happen Tues but I know this: everyone should prepare to be left unhappy. But they should prepare to move on come Wed. AM.

[rleegarcia]

CLAS84, the whole thinks smacks of trying very hard to evade the Commonwealth's Sunshine Laws. If no more than two of the BOV ever talked or met together, then there is no need to keep records. In the Military School's Code of Honor this would be referred to as QUIBBLING. Still an honor code violation. Our NCO's found guilty of quibbling were dismissed from whatever school they were attending.

[valiberian]

In graduate school I had to do a case study of a management crisis. As a 1976 graduate of the College of Arts & Sciences I chose one directly from the time I was at UVA. A previous president, named Hereford, refused to resign from an all-white country club (his membership was his private business, he said). He completely misjudged the response of the University community and it's power. Among many lessons that may be lThearned from the current crisis, it will certainly make a remarkable case study. Risk taking in the private sector often pays; in the public sector other variables are in play and must be heeded. For far too long,far too many people are attempt to employ business models in education. In my opinion it doesn't work in education at any level; be it primary, secondary, or higher.

[marychgo]

I'm not a UVA alum, but having spent years in adult education, I find the business class's idea that it can provide quality education at a much lower cost by rapid, ill-conceived shifts to online platforms utterly delusional. Will there BE good online courses? Absolutely! But everything I've seen so far says that the normal distribution of lousy/okay/good/great courses will be pretty much the same online as it was for face-to-face instruction.

More important, anyone who's spent a few weeks on a college campus knows that no more than half of what one learns in college is learned in class. It seems clear that Dr. Sullivan was doing a good job on those aspects of heading the university; it's sad that the business types on the Board of Visitors didn't respect her work in supporting and nurturing the university community.

[rleegarcia]

Marychgo,

Good points. While I have seen some online colleges with more affordable tuition, the savings have not been that substantial. I also agree with your premise that applying a strictly business model to education and privatizing does not necessarily lower costs to the institution. Most private schools have a much higher cost per student, probably driven in part by having to make budgets balance and partly by higher wages to administrators.

[hoostaxlaw]

Mr. Slaven,
Just to be clear, the totality of this matter sickens me. I think it's important, for the sake of moving on from here, that there be a clear, full and level discussion of the issues. So, I am grateful for your response. Thank you.

I'd like to respond to a few of your comments and then restate my main point.

"All the issues identified in Ms. Dragas' belated explication..... there is scant evidence that their appearance in print was related to any previous discussion or prioritization by the University's Board of Visitors let alone any charge to its President."
I think you will have a hard time convincing me that the President of the University did not have discussions with the BOV concerning , and, was not charged with the oversight of, such issues as funding, professor pay, student costs and academic quality.

"Her progress in these areas (academic planning, financial restructuring, and restoring philanthropic support) has been more than satisfactory." And "If the Board is alarmed about lack of results of items on The Dragas List, where is the evidence of that concern?"
Just to be clear, the charge against Mrs. Sullivan is that she did not lay out strategic plans for these issues which are integral to the operation of the University. And, from the few comments I have seen from her, she seems not to deny the allegation, e.g. incrementalist.

"You certainly won't find it (evidence of concern) in the Minutes of the Board's meetings, which are available online for review." And "Sounds like after-the-fact scrambling to me."
Perhaps, but, two points. First, according to an email from Dean Zeithaml, the Board has been discussing these issues for a year. Second, I assume you've had board experience. How much chastising of the Executive Director made it into the minutes of your board meetings?

I feel as though my main point stands. If Mrs. Sullivan, after two years in her position, did not have long term strategic plans (vision) for those issues outlined by the Dragas memo, then she was failing as a leader. And if the BOV was communicating with her to get long term plans together for the past year, then firing her was the correct move. You may argue whether or not she had plans in place, and, you may argue whether or not she was getting proper communication from the board (Two points for which the BOV has much more data than your or me). But, if you accept those two points, then I think you must accept that her firing was appropriate.

Mark Flanigan Comm '95 & '97

[TerrySlaven]

Mr. Flanigan,

All the issues identified in Ms. Dragas belated explication of "the truth" are serious ones present at virtually any state supported university, and ones deserving study and planning.

However, there is scant evidence that their appearance in print (traced to the computer of a PR flack) was related to any previous discussion or prioritization by the University's Board of Visitors let alone any charge to its President. Only short of rounding the second year of her five-year contract, she has been hard at work resolving some of the immediate tasks facing a new executive in terms of academic planning, financial restructuring, and restoring philanthropic support to pre-recession levels. Her progress in these areas has been more than satisfactory.

If the Board is alarmed about lack of results of items on The Dragas List, where is the evidence of that concern? You certainly won't find it in the Minutes of the Board's meetings, which are available online for review.

Indeed, the list has all the earmarks of an ex post facto rationalization. Ms.Dragas' first criticism was that the University was "behind" in developing distance learning. Turns out, the University has been studying and implementing distance learning --in a careful and financially responsible way -- for years. Apparently, the Rector was unaware of this. Her criticism now becomes that these efforts are not "centralized". Sounds like after-the-fact scrambling to me.

The events of the past week are unworthy of our University both in deed and in execution. Mr. Dickerson got this one right.

Terrence M. Slaven, GSAS '72

[hoostaxlaw]

Mr. Dickerson,
There are two issues here, the process utilized to fire Mrs. Sullivan and the evaluation/decision to fire. As with many of your fellow Sullivan supporters you take the sins of the process to delegitimize the decision to fire. In the first instance, I am on board with you, the Governor and even Ms. Dragas, when you argue that the process was a failure. However, in the second, I have strong reservations. Your reading of the Dragas email leaves you wondering where Sullivan fell short. Perhaps you scanned over the email, so here is some of what I read:

Decreasing Federal Funding - "The University has no long-range plan to (replace these resources)."

Use of Technology in Education- "The University of Virginia has no centralized approach to dealing with this potentially transformational development."

Rising Professor Pay & Student Aid Costs- "the University has no articulated long-range plan that prioritizes these competing demands for resources."

Academic Quality - "There is no long-term program in place for assessment, reporting, and improvement in many disciplines."

I find these statements, if accurate, to be damning. Two years into an administration without any plans on universally recognized issues represents incompetent leadership. If we care about the University, the greater question should not be Teresa Sullivan's personal popularity. Rather, it should be her capacity to lead.

Mark Flanigan, Comm '95 & '97