When Dianne Morrison-Beedy came on board at the University of South Florida, she was hailed in a news release as the ideal candidate to lead the College of Nursing to the next level. When she left, suddenly, after a meeting with her boss earlier this summer, USF had little to say about why. The disconnect between then and now points up the emergence of "Good News U" — a major local employer, economic engine, consumer of public funds and growing international resource where nothing bad would ever seem to happen, judging from the institution's own pronouncements.
USF Health, the division whose six schools include the College of Nursing, has a sizable communications machine, and it did have some information to share on the day of that fateful meeting June 30 between Morrison-Beedy and USF medical school dean Charles Lockwood:
The medical school got word it had achieved accreditation for eight years, according to a news release, which added, "This caps off a month of great news for the University of South Florida medical school."
There is indeed much to celebrate at USF Health, including the rise of the nursing school. With an enrollment of more than 2,000 students, the school is ranked as the top graduate nursing school in Florida by U.S. News and World Report and brings in more National Institutes of Health research funding than any other Florida nursing school.
Morrison-Beedy had also been the public face of USF efforts to help answer a looming crisis in the shortage of nurses across Florida at a time when an aging population has created a growing demand for their services.
What's more, Morrison-Beedy was paid $362,846 a year and was listed as No. 3 in the hierarchy of USF Health — a vice president, behind only the USF president and the dean of the medical school.
The university needs to provide a better answer for why this key leader is taking a sabbatical, then returning to teaching. The official explanation so far has been a "desire for the college to move in another direction," and in Morrison-Beedy's own letter of resignation, to "pursue professional interests and opportunities."
It is short-sighted for an institution pinning so much of its hopes on health — and bringing Tampa along, with its partnership in a planned downtown medical school — to leave this question unanswered. It can't help in recruiting faculty, students and support from the community it serves.
Is USF keeping the answer secret to hide incompetence or worse at the top levels of its administration? To protect the reputations of highly paid public servants? To comply with terms of a non-disclosure agreement? Or out of some misguided notion that mere embarrassment provides an exception to public disclosure?
USF should take the initiative to communicate with the public even when the news is bad, balancing internal considerations like these against its accountability to the community to whom it owes its very existence. Instead, the school churns out just the good news, leaving it to others to spend their time and resources getting the records that might hold the answers otherwise.
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Explore all your optionsUnless and until these answers are available, the last word on her status from USF remains that news release, six years ago, announcing her hiring: "She truly understands our vision of how USF Health will shape the health care of the future."