Chapter 13: Advocating for Faculty with a Blog under Ronald DePinho

Chapter 13: Advocating for Faculty with a Blog under Ronald DePinho

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Description

In this chapter, Dr. Holleman describes how he started the first faculty happy hours to create time for faculty to build connections. He then tells the story of the blog he started to give voice to faculty concerns, The Faculty Voice. A primary reason, he explains, was the strong fear among faculty of expressing their critical views of the institution and its leadership. He explains why this sentiment took root among the faculty.

Next he explains the reasons why the administration under Ronald DePinho demanded that the blog be taken down after he published an anonymous post on nepotism focused on Dr. DePinho’s wife, Lynda Chin, MD. He explains his editorial standards in writing and publishing posts. He explains the reasons that the Legal Department gave for demanding that the blog be removed. He also talks about conversations he had with colleagues in the Department of Behavioral Science, in which they expressed concerns that his blog would have repercussions for his department. Dr. Holleman conferred with the Faculty Senate and a plan was made that it would be taken over and renamed, The Sentinel, but the publication foundered after a few months.

Identifier

HollemanWL_02_20170420_C13

Publication Date

4-20-2017

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - Contributions; Personal Background; Leadership; MD Anderson Culture; MD Anderson History; Working Environment; MD Anderson Culture; Obstacles, Challenges; Institutional Politics; Controversy; MD Anderson History; Contributions; Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose; Critical Perspectives; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose

Transcript

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, given that this is the context that you walked into as director in 2010, I can't help but think that it must have been frustrating for you to discover this, that some of the things that you were doing or going to do were going to not be able to stem the tide, essentially.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Well, I mentioned last time my mother and my father. And I think I did kind of invoke the spirit of my mother and my father. That was—I knew I was getting older when that happened, because my mother was somebody who wasn't afraid to take on—to speak truth to power. My father was a person who was very diplomatic. He got things done by bringing people together and getting them to talk. He was a community organizer. He never called himself that, but that's what he did. If there was a problem in the community, he would get the groups together and they would talk about it. So they both had a skillset that was relevant here. So I did sometimes try to channel them. That was one of my personal things.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

What were some of the things that you did to address the situation?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think probably the thing that was the most visible was, we started a blog called The Faculty Voice. [Document included at the end of this file.] Are you familiar with that?

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Hm-mmm.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Oh, okay. I actually—we shut it down about three years ago. But I copied everything onto a Word file.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I think you sent that to me and I did read through it.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Oh, okay. That's it.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

But I wasn't aware of it at the time.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Oh, okay. Great. So I thought, well, if nothing else, people come to me and talk to me. That's private. But in an aggregate way, I can try to reflect what faculty are thinking and provide a voice. So I started writing this blog called The Faculty Voice. I tried to say things like, a lot of faculty are concerned right now about X, Y or Z. And a lot of the things I've told you in this interview are things that would have been in the blog.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

So are there some other activities that you undertook to bring people together?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think another thing we started doing that sounds kind of not so serious, but actually made a difference, was that we tried to create social connections for faculty. We started a happy hour the first Friday of each month. Faculty would come and connect that way.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Why do you say that it seems like it wouldn’t be much? How did it make a difference?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Well, I mean, a skeptic would just say, "Oh, you're just giving parties." But for a group of faculty that works really hard, A, and then B, in a large institution where everybody is, quote, "siloed," they often have—especially the younger faculty don't know people in other departments at all. So they feel a little bit alienated from the institution, and then from the leadership. So if you can have a party, informal happy hour they can stop by on the way home, Friday afternoon, they can talk with their colleagues that they work with but don't have much time to decompress with. So they can decompress at the end of the week with people they trust and work with. Secondly, they'll meet a couple of people from some other department that might lead to a collaboration or a friendship. Or they might find that their children are in the same school, and a connection there. Sometimes research collaborations have been fostered in this environment. And then a lot of times, institutional leaders will pop in, and they get a chance to talk to them.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I think I went to one, maybe it was when Bob Brigham had first been hired? I can't recall, exactly.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Okay.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

But I know that there was someone who was a leader who came and addressed the group.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

So sometimes Katrina will start an hour early with an institutional leader or issue, and we'll kind of have a little mini town hall. Twenty or thirty people will come. And then at 5:00, we open up the bottles of wine and start eating and drinking and talking.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah. I know there were games the night that I was there. It was sort of—it was really a nice environment, because they were just stupid board games, or card games.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

It showed people in a little bit different light, a little more creative. Kind of breaking the usual professional persona, which helps make people feel like they're getting to know each other a little more.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah. I thought the board games was a crazy idea. I think Katrina came up with it. And we don't put them out there all the time. But we go through phases where people really get into them.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

And Scrabble is one. I've seen—I once watched a game where one of our executive leaders was playing two young faculty, and they were ripping him apart. (laughter) But I thought that was kind of cool. The most popular game these days is, I think it's called Jango?

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh—

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

You pile these blocks on top of each other, and then you have to pull them out one at a time. People love that!

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, yeah. Well, you've got a bunch of surgeons who are really good at hand skills.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

It's pretty incredible. And then of course chess is popular. I think if you look at the personalities of our faculty, we're weighted more to the introvert side. So a party is a little bit intimidating. And if you have an activity, and if it's kind of a geeky activity, like that Jango, or chess, they love it.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah. No, I think it's a very—it was a very pleasant environment. So but it's interesting that that was something that hadn't been done before, you know?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I didn't ask you what the effect of the blog was. What impact did you feel that had?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

A lot of people really liked it. They felt that they were being heard, and that what they were thinking and feeling and experiencing was being, quote, "published," so that—in other words, validated. And published and disseminated, so the institutional leadership could know what they were thinking. So there was quite a sense—I've never worked at a place like MD Anderson where there was just such a strong sense of fear of expressing your opinion. It just feels like a big corporation. So people would come to me or just among themselves and whisper things, how they really felt. But they didn't feel safe articulating that for some reason.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Are there fears—

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

And this was a way of doing it in an aggregate form.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Are the fears well-founded?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think some are. Some could get to bordering on paranoia sometimes. But there are a number who feel their email is being monitored, their phones are being tapped, that kind of thing.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

By the administration of the institution?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah. I mean, I hear that a lot. And I think, gosh, that says something about the place where you don't have any trust. So—

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, is that a new feeling with Ronald DePinho's coming in? Or was that also present under John Mendelsohn?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think it was present even under John Mendelsohn, to some extent. But I think it got worse under Ron DePinho.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I mean, I have to say that I've noticed some of that in interviewing people, speaking off-record, not that that's not an advisable thing to do at times. But when they've shared certain things, I've thought to myself, huh, that didn't seem like a very inflammatory thing to say.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Right.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

They felt that they couldn't say even that on record.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Right.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

So it was kind of interesting.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah. Well, I think--

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I hadn't had a large context to put that in. So now that you say that there's this unusual level of anxiety about speaking your mind, it kind of makes more sense.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think it speaks to feeling like this is a big corporation that's not very transparent. And that's true. I mean, I still don't understand where some of the clinical revenue goes to, you know. Why are we so having such struggles? They're not very transparent. When there's a lack of communication, there's a lack of trust. And I mentioned people worrying that their email or their phones were being monitored. I mean, that seems a little bit strange, because who would be the people doing this? How could they afford to hire people to do this? On the other hand, since I've been here, there've been a couple of incidents where people had some pretty strong evidence that actually did happen.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

So it probably does happen occasionally, enough to make people generally worried about it.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, you mentioned that the blog was taken down. Tell me why that happened, and why.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Right. The specific trigger, as I recall, was, we published a blog that was critical of Lynda Chin, who was the wife of Ron DePinho, the president.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

And this was what year? Or when?

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Probably about three years—maybe 2013, maybe, or '14, in there. And as I recall, we had a standard of professionalism that we would not publish ad hominem comments, or disrespectful—we would not be personally disrespectful. But we would express concerns about issues. And I don't remember the specific one, but the general criticism of her was that—and Dr. DePinho—was that—was the issue of nepotism, and that she had special privileges that other faculty did not that were unfair. And the day we published that, I got a call from the legal office saying that someone had filed a complaint about our blog, and that we had broken some rule, institutional rule. The institutional rules that you could not publish a blog without your name—you could not publish an anonymous blog. And someone who had written that, they said, "I don't want my name on it because I don't feel safe." So it was done respectfully. I thought it was proper. But it was anonymous. So it was pretty clear to me that Dr. Chin or Dr. DePinho had initiated that. So that was one thing. Related to that was colleagues in my two departments where I worked, including my bosses, had come to me and said, when you criticize our leadership, I'm afraid that's going to have a—there will be retaliation against our department, or against your colleagues in the department. So if you're from, say, Behavioral Science department and you criticize the president, other faculty in Behavioral Science are afraid he's not going to favor Behavioral Science. And I had to—I had never thought of that. It sounds simple, but I'd never thought of it that way, because I think I was invoking the spirit of my mother, in particular. And I thought, well, if they're thinking that about me, my own colleagues—I thought I was advocating for them. But they think it's better to fly under the radar. So I thought, well, could you just take me out of the department and let me be a free-floating faculty? And that wasn't a possibility. Then I went to the Faculty Senate, and I said I can't continue this, because my own colleagues are worried. And I don't want them to lose their grants or their jobs, so could the Senate take over the blog? Because the Senate would be immune, because it's not any one department. So that was the agreement, although that never really happened. There were a few publications. They revived an old publication called The Sentinel, but it only lasted for a couple of publications.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

And was the idea that it would be published not—people would put their names on it to get—

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

I mean, I guess I'm going back to the question of whether or not the original, The Faculty Voice actually did break any institutional rules, and how the Faculty Senate was going to alter—

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Right.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

The format of it.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah. I can't remember. I—

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

That's fine, yeah. I was curious.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I mean, I published a lot of things under my name. But I always felt pretty safe because I would—I wouldn't necessarily—if it was a little bit dicey, I might, instead of saying, I think—I might say "I think" or "I believe"—but I might just say, "A number of faculty I've talked to have expressed this concern."

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Mm-hmm.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

And my job was just to bring this out. And so technically, I wasn't even saying whether I believed that or not. And I thought that was a good way to do it. I'd have to go back and look to see who had—but the trigger was that something had published something anonymously.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Mm-hmm.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

But I had developed, as editor, I developed my own editorial standard which I thought was good, which was, I reserved the right to edit anything that comes in. And I frequently would take out ad hominem language. And I got criticized by faculty for doing that. I got some really strong criticism. "No, I wanted to say that Dr. DePinho is a"—whatever. And I'd say, "No, we don't say that. You have to say what your concern about Dr. DePinho is." And I got criticized for that from the faculty side. I thought I had worked out a nice compromise, but apparently there was some rule about anonymity.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I think if they had not—I personally think my approach was better than theirs. But anyway—

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

But effectively, it—

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

I said, "I take responsibility for everything that's in here. If you find something that's unprofessional, you let me know." And they couldn't—they never found anything.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

So essentially, it kind of drifted away. It turned into The Sentinel, but then it just didn't go any further.

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Chapter 13: Advocating for Faculty with a Blog under Ronald DePinho

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