Continuum

University Strengthens Oversight of Athlete Complaints

University of Utah President David W. Pershing in July announced new measures to ensure student athletes have multiple outlets to report inappropriate behavior. Pershing acted after an independent investigation revealed deficiencies in the current system.

In March, the University’s Board of Trustees hired three attorneys as independent investigators to explore allegations of physical and psychological abuse by former U coach Greg Winslow within the University’s swimming and diving program. The final report—compiled by investigators Alan Sullivan JD’74, John Nielsen BS’67 JD’69, and Michael Glazier—was made public in July after a three-month, comprehensive investigation. To gather their information, the investigators interviewed 53 witnesses. Eleven people declined to be interviewed, including some former students and their parents who had complained about Winslow’s coaching methods and who told the investigators they would not meet unless the investigators agreed to a list of preconditions, which the investigators found “unacceptable,” according to the report. Thirteen more people did not respond to the investigators’ requests for an interview.

The investigation found “isolated instances” of physical abuse and a pattern of psychological abuse by the coach, who was an alcoholic, Sullivan said during a July news conference to announce the findings of the inquiry. Winslow was the U’s swimming coach from 2007 until he was suspended this past February, and his contract was allowed to lapse this summer.

“After thoroughly reviewing this report, it is clear to me the Athletics Department failed to properly support its students,” Pershing says. “While the administration did place Winslow on a performance improvement plan after several complaints about his coaching techniques, a communications breakdown allowed Winslow’s personal problems to disrupt the program and create an unnecessary, uncomfortable, and inappropriate environment for our student athletes. This is unacceptable.”

Pershing has been working with U Athletics Director Chris Hill MEd’74 PhD’82 and the Athletics Department to implement appropriate change. Pershing says he is confident Hill and his staff are fully dedicated to taking whatever steps are necessary to correct their mistakes. Hill notes that during his 26 years as the U’s athletics director, the department’s top priority has been to provide strong support for its student athletes. “As this comprehensive and independent report indicates, we could have done better,” Hill says. “I could have done better. I am ultimately responsible for all of our 400 student athletes and pledge to do a better job in the monitoring of our staff and programs.”

At a news conference in July to announce the investigators’ findings, Hill apologized: “I’m sorry. I want to apologize to any of our current or former swimmers who think I didn’t do my job.”

Hill has already implemented changes within his department and will now incorporate recommendations from the investigators. The enhancements include an ombudsman to Athletics who has been appointed through the Student Affairs office and will serve as a confidential conduit for student athletes. The position, held by Ryan Randall MSW’03, will report directly to the dean of students, independent of the Athletics Department. Pershing also has appointed Karen Paisley to be a faculty athletics representative and special assistant to the president, with specific direction to monitor student welfare.

Members of the Student Athlete Wellness Team have been instructed to now report instances of abusive coaching practices directly to the director of athletics. The Athletics Department also is developing written standards for safe and effective coaching methods and must ensure these standards are strictly enforced. And Hill, during the news conference, said the Athletics Department plans to do more extensive background checks when hiring coaches.

The University of Utah will also work to better ensure all employees and students are provided with information on substance abuse and how to report it. Associate Vice President Amy Wildermuth will work to verify that the proper disciplinary process is followed if substance abuse occurs, with consequences ranging from a performance improvement plan to a required leave of absence for treatment to termination.

Web Extra

Read the investigators’ full report on the swimming program here.

Five New Deans Appointed at the University of Utah

The University of Utah in recent months has hired five new deans, all of whom are nationally and internationally recognized scholars, researchers, and educators in their fields.

Rena N. D’Souza became the inaugural dean of the U’s new School of Dentistry in August, when the school also welcomed its first class of 20 students. Prior to her arrival at the U, she was a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Baylor College of Dentistry and served as its chairwoman from 2006 to 2012.

D’Souza is known for her research in craniofacial development, genetics, tooth development, and regenerative dental medicine. As principal investigator and director of a National Institutes of Health-funded institutional research training grant, D’Souza supervised and mentored the training of dentists and scientists at the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels. She also organized a team of faculty who conceptualized and collaborated in an innovative, evidence-based dentistry curriculum for the DDS program supported by an NIH grant. D’Souza received her bachelor of dental surgery degree from the University of Bombay and was awarded her doctor of dental surgery, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

The U’s College of Nursing also has a new dean: Patricia G. Morton—a nationally known expert in nursing education, critical care, and cardiovascular nursing. Morton most recently worked as a professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Maryland’s School of Nursing and was a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow. Last fall, she was appointed as the editor of the Journal of Professional Nursing, a scholarly journal published by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and she is the author of Critical Care Nursing: A Holistic Approach, a textbook now in its 10th edition. Morton holds undergraduate degrees in biology and nursing from Loyola College and Johns Hopkins University and obtained her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland. She also completed the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing.

In June, David Kieda was named dean of the U’s Graduate School. As professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the U, Kieda worked closely with faculty and administrators to establish and expand the astronomy program. Kieda received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his doctorate in physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the University of Utah faculty in 1990 and is an internationally known researcher on the use of astronomical telescopes and observations to study the fundamental particles and forces in the universe. He was honored with the 2012 Utah Governors Medal of Science and Technology and the U’s 2013 Distinguished Scholarly and Creative Research Award.

Also in June, Alberta Davis Comer was named dean and director of the U’s J. Willard Marriott Library and University Librarian, and she assumed her new roles in August. Prior to her arrival at the U, she had served as dean and associate dean of library services at Indiana State University’s Cunningham Memorial Library since 2004.

Under her leadership, Indiana State University developed a number of innovations, including an academic library consortium across three universities (Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College) in partnership with a county public library to establish an integrated online library catalog system. Comer, who holds a master of library science degree from Indiana University at Bloomington, has served as editor of Indiana Libraries, published by the Indiana Library Federation, as well as editor of Cognotes, the daily paper of the American Library Association Conference.

In July, the U announced that María E. Fránquiz would become dean of the College of Education this coming January. She currently teaches qualitative research methods and bilingual teacher education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Mexican American Studies and assistant dean of Faculty Development in the College of Education.

Fránquiz, who received her doctorate at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is co-editor of the Bilingual Research Journal, the premier journal in the field of bilingual education. A native of Puerto Rico, she was taught in diverse communities during her elementary and secondary education, including Panama and Germany, and says her interest in bilingual and multicultural education stems from those experiences.