Scarborough stirs up Akron

University of Akron President Scott Scarborough’s recent actions, including his attempt to rebrand the school as Ohio’s “polytechnic university,” have created significant friction between himself and Akron’s students.

At a speech made in the City Club of Cleveland on May 15, the former University of Toledo provost said, with its rebranding as polytechnic, UA will be one of the “great public universities,” placing itself alongside Ohio State University,

“He’s been trying to, not necessarily change UA, but shift its identity into a different direction,” said Taylor Swift, Undergraduate Student Government President at UA. “The way he’s painting the picture, it’s not a bad thing at all.”

Swift said there isn’t anything wrong with the change, but there has been a lack of transparency concerning the process.

“There were murmurs about it for awhile, even before I was elected president for this year I heard about it.” Swift said. “He denied it a lot, and then he goes and announces that this isn’t necessarily a name change. In reality it’s more of a rebranding or a reimage.”

This prompted Swift and the vice president, Richard Angeletti, to write an open letter to Scarborough asking him to take a step back and look at how his decisions are “directly harming the student body’s and public’s opinion of our university.” The letter also mentioned how the changes brought increasing financial pressure to current students.

John Barrett, interim provost and vice president of academic affairs, said while Scarborough had some good ideas while at UT, he didn’t implement them correctly.

“Scott had some good ideas, like enhancing the Jesup Scott Honors College, but he also had a number of initiatives that were very controversial,” Barrett said. “His management style tends to be top-down rather than getting input from various constituencies before finalizing decisions, which I don’t think is the best approach for UT.”

Linda Rouillard, associate professor of French, was faculty senate president during Scarborough’s time here and said she believes he was a hard worker but didn’t learn from his time at UT.

“I don’t think he knows what ‘shared governance’ means,” Rouillard said. “I am saddened by the fact that as he has gone to the University of Akron, he hasn’t learned from his time here at UT. He’s missed some important lessons from his time here.”

In light of recent events, parody T-shirts of Akron’s “Fear the Roo” slogan have been made that say “Fire the Scar.” Rubber City Clothing, the Akron-based clothing company that sells the product, has received mixed reviews on the shirt.

There is also a change.org petition entitled “Scott Scarborough, Uphold Mission for Education, Not Bad Business.” Since this article was written, the petition has received nearly 11,000 votes.

Scarborough was only available for this written statement:

“My colleagues have identified many of the contributions and strengths that northeast Ohio public universities provide by offering high quality educational opportunities for the many, not just for the selective few. I also agree that the benefits of cooperation among our universities yield great benefits for the region, and I look forward to expanding those ventures. The future of higher education will require each of our universities to adapt in ways that are unique to their individual institutional missions and historical strengths. There is strength in diversity, and northeast Ohio will be best served by colleges and universities that choose to be great in different ways. Our path is as a great polytechnic university.”

Update: On Monday, August 24, the University of Akron reached an agreement with Academic Partnerships so the business could manage UA’s online RN-to-BSN nursing program. Details for the contract are being worked on.