Culture of Contempt

UC Places Students In The Margins

I. In Their Own Words

The University of Cincinnati, according to the website of University President Nancy Zimpher, has a “profound sense of community,” combined with a policy of “listening to our students”, all in the service of “plac[ing] students at the center”, a goal Zimpher identifies as “first among equals” for the University. A visit to UC’s website will reveal a staggering volume of praise for UC’s administration, all generated in-house. Reading the voluminous proclamations of UC’s orientation towards student needs, it becomes clear that UC is a place of truly peerless commitment to the student body, a truly inspiring institution where students are certain to feel heard and respected, where any problems or complaints they might have – in the clearly unlikely event that they should have any – will be addressed respectfully, promptly, and with utmost concern for any inconvenience suffered by the students affected.

I am probably not the only UC student to wonder where we go to apply for admission to the university we hear so much about from UC’s public relations material. For those who get the opportunity to experience UC’s commitment to student satisfaction first-hand, however, the picture is quite different.

On occasion, one does meet employees on the bureaucratic end of UC who are committed to serving the student body, and who do so with respect. And then there is the rest of the time. When you have one employee who consistently fails to take students’ needs seriously, and to do his or her job conscientiously, you have what the human resources lexicon calls “a training issue”. When you have two such employees, you have a coincidence. But when students experience contemptuous treatment from a wide range of employees in various departments over a period of years, you have a culture. In attempting to discern the culture of an organisation, a serious observer will give little weight to grandiose proclamations about placing students “in the center”, and instead turn to the experiences of the students themselves as they play out in everyday life.

II.
Question: How Does UC's Bureaucracy Handle A Routine Issue?

My most recent case study in UC’s organisational culture began on 25 July, when I received a letter from UC’s collection’s office, written by a Kristine Loughran. In it, Loughran, addressing me by my first name, demanded payment of $660.00, without any explanation of the reason for the demand, and threatening litigation and “needless … embarrassment” in the event of non-payment.

This came as quite a shock, as I had been informed previously that I had a zero balance. I immediately disputed the demand, pointing out that it plainly contradicted what I had been told throughout the Spring quarter, and requested verification of the alleged debt, as is my right.

III.
Answer: Poorly

Loughran’s response to my request was to reiterate the demand that I had disputed. The message was clear: When we make demands, you comply with them; you have no right to request evidence showing that the demands are justified.

IV.
Who Sets the Tone?

This message was later reinforced when I spoke on the phone with UC’s Assistant Director of Collections, Connie Boyce. When I pointed out to her that Loughran had not provided the slightest bit of evidence to back up her demands, Boyce begged to differ. Taken aback, I pointed out that reiteration of the demands in dispute does not constitute “substantiation”. Cutting me off in mid-sentence, Boyce exclaimed, “Yes it is!” in the rhetorical style and tone of voice most frequently observed in five year olds. As I tried to explain that the law did not allow people to simply go around demanding money without stating reasons or providing evidence that the money was in fact owed, she replied, “Yes it does!”

You certainly can’t argue with that.

Of course, if what Boyce said were true, no one would ever have to have financial problems again. We’d all just have to go through the phone book at random and send out demand letters threatening litigation and “embarrassment” for whatever amount we happened to need. It’s not like we would need actual facts to back up our demands and threats.

Here, again, however, the issue is not really the fact that what Boyce said was so patently false as to be laughable. That is a given. The real issue is this: Did UC’s Assistant Director of Collections seriously believe that what she said was true, or did she merely hope that I would?

If she actually believed what she was saying, then we have a serious hiring and training issue on our hands. If the Assistant Director of Collections is so deluded about something so basic, it seems reasonable to suggest that she seek employment in another field.

If, however, the Assistant Director of Collections knowingly misstated the law in order to dissuade me from challenging an unfounded demand letter, we have an entirely different problem on our hands. For one thing, in order to feel comfortable making a misstatement of this magnitude so blatantly, an employee would have to be pretty certain that there would be no consequences for her actions. For another, if she made the misstatement knowingly, she would be knowingly using false pretences in order to obtain money (for a third party) that was not owed - also known as “fraud.”

And this is not just some entry-level collections office employee; this is the second highest-ranking employee in the department. Boyce not only acts in accordance with UC’s organisational culture; she is responsible for setting the tone in her department. The above episode should provide a good idea of what that tone is. Similarly, the fact that she is a senior employee of her department and engages in such disgraceful behaviour with no apparent fear of sanction or consequences, in turn, tells us a great deal about the tone set for her by her superiors (who, it’s worth noting, felt she fit into the organisational culture so well that she could occupy a position of authority within it).

V.
Contempt Begins at the Top:
Enter Mitchel Livingston

My attempts to resolve the matter next moved me further up the food chain, to the office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Mitchel Livingston. Readers of the New York Times may remember Livingston, who boasted about the $200 million that the University of Cincinnati was spending on the “Main Street” mall complex (Jacuzzi U, NYT, 5 October 2003); he did not, however, comment at that time on whether any money was earmarked to put working locks on the restroom stalls in the Old Chemistry building.

My first contact with Livingston was not promising. The phone call was basically an interminable, and not particularly respectful cross-examination. When I suggested – looking for the most harmless possible explanation – that the entire problem could be due to a glitch in the billing system, Livingston spent several minutes demanding an explanation of what “glitch” meant. Vocabulary gaps aside, he peppered me with rapid-fire questions in no particular order, often asking the same thing more than once. It was rather difficult to get a word in edgewise.

A Little Detour

At one point, he took us on a detour to discuss the involvement of the Ohio Attorney General’s office. When he claimed that this dispute should now be handled through OAG, I pointed out that I had had prior contact with them, and that they seemed none to happy to find out that UC had failed to inform them that the charge was disputed when the file was sent over. In any case, I explained, the representative of the AG’s office with whom I spoke was quite adamant that I handle the dispute directly with UC. This sentence took a couple of minutes to form, however, as Livingston repeatedly interrupted me to contradict the AG’s position on the matter. Once I was finally able to explain, without interruption, what the AG’s office had said, he rather glibly replied, “And that’s what I’m trying to do.” Apparently, then, this pointless digression was for his amusement.

Ultimately, Livingston stated that he would look into the matter, including the disappearing need grant that was listed as a credit at the beginning of the Spring Quarter and had somehow disappeared from my record by July. This is, in fact, quite typical of the standard UC billing glitch. The cases of which I am aware – UC’s billing is notoriously inaccurate – all seem to point to a problem occurring at the point where the computer attempts to apply the financial aid accepted to a student’s bill.

Additionally, Livingston insisted on shifting UC’s burden of proof to me. Although UC had been quite reluctant to provide any proof that the $660 charge was actually valid, Livingston et al. were quite happy to put the onus on me to prove it wasn’t. If only we had rules like this outside of UC; we’d all have more money than we knew what to do with.

The matter, Livingston said, would be resolved by the end of the day. That was several weeks ago.

After our phone conversation, I followed up with Livingston via e-mail. Specifically, I asked:

(1) whether the blocks on my account that prevented me registering for classes and being covered by student health insurance had been lifted, even on a preliminary basis;
(2) whether it was the policy of the University of Cincinnati to deny health coverage to matriculated students who dispute charges during the pendency of the dispute;
(3) on what statutory, regulatory, or other standards, if any, that policy was based;
(4) what methods, if any, were used used to collect statistical data concerning disputed and/or inaccurate student bills and billing records, whether such records were available for public inspection, what measures had been and/or were being taken to improve the overall accuracy of student bills and billing records;
(5) whether Collections Office employees were given any training on applicable statutory and regulatory restrictions on the tactics used to collect alleged debts.

As much as he enjoys interrogating, however, Livingston apparently is less enthusiastic about answering questions. In his response, he indicated that he would not answer these questions, which go to the heart of the issue, until I paid the disputed amount.

Since Livingston’s stonewalling was wasting valuable time, and standing in the way of my having basic health coverage, I submitted payment of the $660 with an “under protest/charge disputed” endorsement. In an attached notice, I explained that I was submitting payment under duress to avoid further exposure to the dangers of going uninsured, and reserved all rights to recover the amount later.

It Keeps Getting Better

However, Livingston became even less responsive after payment was submitted. When I attempted, that following Monday, to register for classes, I discovered that the service blocks, which should have been lifted as a result of the payment I made, were still in place. A phone call to the “One Stop” centre revealed that, since my payment, the amount due had actually been increased by $150. Apparently, a “late fee” had been assessed to my account after the amount demanded had been paid in full, in addition to a $150 “late fee” (part of the $660) that had been imposed before I had received any communication on the matter at all.

Of course, I had no intention of paying this new charge, even under protest. How could I know whether an additional charge would be tacked onto the account the minute the payment posted? Attempts to rectify the matter were unsuccessful. Livingston’s continued refusal to respond to reasonable inquiries left me with little choice; I sent him a notice threatening legal action, and attached a copy of the first page of this article.

UC Learns to Cut Through the Red Tape

I sent the notice by fax at the end of the day, so it was most likely first read the next morning. Shortly after Livingston's office would have received the fax, I received a phone call from Livingston’s assistant. “We received your communication,” she said, “and we’ve been in contact with your home college. You’ve been suspended.” Given that no one had ever mentioned suspension, or even probation to me before, the timing is quite interesting, to say the least.

Far from being inherently inert and congealed, it appears that UC’s bureaucracy is impressively nimble when properly motivated. Not even UC’s rules on the time and manner of suspensions stood in the way.

As noted at the outset, to evaluate UC’s organisational culture, we must first discount the voluminous self-congratulatory PR materials UC puts out. It is certainly clear that UC is dedicated to talking about respect for students, their rights, and their needs. However, the chorus of self-adulation breaks down once placed alongside the actual experiences of UC’s students. The case described above is a particularly useful sample given the involvement of two upper-level UC employees, the Assistant Director of Collections and the Vice President of Student Affairs.

The way in which the above case has been handled tells us a great deal about the culture encouraged by these upper-level employees. A simple matter – a disputed charge – which could have been resolved quickly and painlessly, has instead been escalated to an absurd degree. Rather than either substantiating the charge or reversing it if it could not be substantiated, Loughran, Boyce, Livingston et al. preferred to stonewall, reversing the normal legal principle that the party making a demand must also bear the burden of proof.

This case is indicative of an overall pattern of organisational behaviour at the University of Cincinnati. While the economic burden for the educational system is increasingly shifted toward the students themselves through significant tuition increases, no effort is made to spend this money more efficiently in a manner that would be beneficial to the students. Instead, the University has erected barriers to meeting student needs, such as the “One-Stop” centre, which relieves students of the inconvenience of direct access to employees in the Financial Aid and Student Accounts departments who are actually likely to help them with their problems. Instead of compensating the students’ increased burden with an organisational culture of responsiveness to student needs, the University adds insult to injury by doing little or nothing to improve the overall contemptuous and unhelpful treatment of students by the bureaucratic employees of UC. Instead of spending the negligible amount of money necessary to give its female students the elementary dignity of bathroom stall doors that actually lock in Old Chemistry and other buildings, UC dumps hundreds of millions of dollars into vanity projects. Meanwhile, we have “graduation contracts” that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, bills that only appear accurate to the majority of students who don’t read them carefully, and a university administration that is happy to be committed to its students, as long as the commitment is limited to press releases.

And why should they do anything else? Who cares how a pliant, docile, captive audience feels?

Having run a freelance consulting business for over a decade, I know a thing or two about communicating with customers. My clients, located in over ten countries, have almost no restrictions on their choice of service providers. Because of that, rather than simply providing excellent language consulting services, I cultivate relationships with my clientele to ensure that they know that they are valued, and that I am there to help them however I can. I know they have a choice, and I want to make sure they continue to choose me. If a client of mine disputed a bill I sent out, I would never dream of stonewalling and reiterating the demand for payment, as UC has done with me. If I did that, I'd lose a client and gain a reputation as a crook. If I responded to a client inquiry on such a simple, yet vital, matter in a contemptuous tone that asked: who are you to be asking questions of me?, I wouldn't have to worry about hearing from that client again, though I might find myself hearing from their attorneys. I keep clients because I make it clear that they're valued and respected, and because I make sure they get my best work. This is the natural consequence of recognising that one's customers have other options (in addition to simply being a decent person).

UC, on the other hand, has realised just the opposite: many of their students have no other place to go for financial or other reasons. Accordingly, the message that UC sends to students is unmistakable: you have no rights here; we will treat you however we see fit, and if you dare to respond to our actions with anything other than passivity, you are fair game – we’ll cut you off from your health insurance, keep you away from classes, and, if that doesn’t shut you up, we’ll suspend you, too.