Faculty Members Express Anger Over UCI’s Handling of Crisis : Reaction: They cite pay cuts taken while administrators got raises, complain of being kept in the dark. One resigns as department head for lack of confidence in chancellor.

Alan Hoffer, chairman of UC Irvine’s education department, said he is quitting his post because he has lost confidence in Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening and other top administrators, and believes they have bungled the fertility clinic scandal and other explosive problems.

“I’ve been so discouraged by the way they’ve been running the university that I’m resigning” as chairman, said Hoffer, who plans to continue teaching and researching at the university. “The way they deal with things lacks kindness and humanity. There’s no collegiality. Rather, they’ve developed the environment of a cutthroat business.”

Hoffer said recent revelations that UCI paid out more than $900,000 in confidential settlements to three whistle-blowers who had reported misconduct at the fertility clinic only exacerbated his and other faculty members’ frustration.

With the biggest scandal ever to rock the university unfolding, faculty members expressed anger this week that the payouts were made just a year after faculty salaries were cut. They complained about poor morale on campus and poor communication by top administrators who have refused to answer even basic questions about the clinic’s troubles.

Wilkening did not return repeated calls to her office Thursday and has declined to comment in any detail in recent weeks about allegations involving the university’s medical center.

Hoffer said he is still waiting to hear from Wilkening a week after he sent her his resignation letter.

“It just seems to me that when you receive a letter like that, you should call up the person immediately and say, ‘What’s wrong? Can we talk about it?’ ” Hoffer said Thursday. “But it’s been a week, and I haven’t heard anything. I was recruited from Boston University five years ago, and it’s been downhill ever since.”

*

Ralph Cicerone, dean of the physical sciences department, said he is optimistic that Wilkening will lead the university through its current crisis.

He said Thursday’s firing of UCI Medical Center Executive Director Mary Piccione and her deputy, Herb Spiwak, is a positive sign that the chancellor is taking charge. “That’s the kind of decisive action that’s going to move things forward,” he said.

But Cicerone said he is concerned that the fertility clinic scandal has damaged UCI’s reputation and might make it difficult to recruit new professors and students.

“We are all dismayed at how the Center for Reproductive Health is seen to represent all of UCI, yet that’s just one department,” he said.

Several faculty members--some of them top faculty administrators--criticized Wilkening’s handling of the clinic controversy and the secret payouts to three former employees turned whistle-blowers.

“People are concerned about the serious ethical issues that have been raised, and how it reflects on the university,” said one professor, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of repercussions. “But they also are concerned about how the university has handled itself. They want to know who knew what when and what action was taken when.”

Last month, UCI sued three doctors at the medical center’s fertility clinic seeking the return of clinic records and alleging that the doctors stole human eggs from patients and implanted them in other patients without either party’s consent. The lawsuit also alleges that the doctors failed to report cash payments to the university and engaged in research misconduct, and that a non-approved fertility drug was prescribed.

At a state Senate hearing last week, a former clinic nurse said he had detailed the egg-stealing allegations to his superiors as far back as 1992, more than two years before a formal inquiry was launched.

Faculty members said they have tried in recent weeks without luck to probe top administrators for more information about the allegations.

At a June 9 staff meeting attended by UCI’s top administrators, deans and department heads, Wilkening and University Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney H. Golub refused to answer questions about how the crisis was being handled and what transpired after the whistle-blowers first reported their allegations, according to two faculty members who attended the meeting.

*

The faculty members said they were anxious to learn more about the crisis, but had to sit through more than an hourlong discussion about campus road planning before administrators made only a brief mention of the fertility clinic’s troubles.

“We received only a superficial account of what’s taking place,” said one administrator in attendance, who requested anonymity. “The meetings are for the university’s administrative management team, but when it comes to an issue of significance, they take an attitude like, ‘We can’t say anything to the children.’ ”

The administrator said faculty members particularly want to know whether Wilkening approved the firing of the three whistle-blowers to cover up the scandal.

Other faculty members said they want to know how top administrators, such as Medical Center Executive Director Mary Piccione, could receive a 25% pay raise in 1993 at a time when faculty members were being asked to take pay cuts, students were having to pay higher fees and department budgets were being slashed.

“The university was pleading poverty while it was giving administrators pay raises and paying $900,000 in out-of-court settlements,” said one professor. “The faculty members feel the university should have had higher standards.”

Wilkening arrived at UCI in 1993 and later vowed to turn the university into one of the nation’s top 50 research institutions.

But Hoffer and others said many faculty members have been dismayed at Wilkening’s leadership, particularly in her handling of the university’s ongoing budget problems.

“A lot of people felt her approach to deal with it was not to deal with it,” Hoffer said. “She has not come up with any creative ways to cut the budget. Rather, faculty members took at 3.5% pay cut, and students’ tuition was raised.”

UCI spokeswoman Fran Tardiff said she hasn’t noticed morale problems on campus. “It appears that the chancellor has as many supporters and detractors as she has had before,” she said.

Timothy Bradley, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, said Wilkening has boosted morale.

“Before her arrival, we went through a time when we had an acting chancellor,” he said. “Wilkening’s arrival brought new enthusiasm to the university. I think she’s united the academic community.”

“She’s doing the very best she can under the circumstances,” said Thomas Standish, chairman of UCI’s computer sciences department. “She’s been trying to get to the truth. She’s in a very tough position.”