A mess inside and out

By Deron Snyder

If nothing else, the University of Maryland has proved itself to be an equal-opportunity violator of communication best practices. The school has demonstrated extraordinary incompetence in virtually every conceivable way. 

As a government entity. Through its internal communication. As an institution of higher learning. Via its external communication. As an athletic department.

Just as the University of Alabama and Auburn University are shining examples of excellent communication in reaction to a crisis – the 2011 poisoning of Auburn’s venerable oak trees by an Alabama fan – Maryland forever will be the first chapter in “What Not to Do” for its response to the tragic death of 19-year-old Terrapins football player Jordan McNair.

“We have got politicians involved, students upset and the public wondering what’s going on,” a former Terrapin Club president told the New York Times last week after a chaotic series of events. In a span of roughly 48 hours, we received announcements that: 1)  the president was resigning; 2) the football coach was being retained; 3) the football coach was being fired; and 4) the board of regents’ chairman was resigning. The following day, news leaked that besides urging the reinstatement of suspended head coach DJ Durkin, the board of regents also recommended retaining the athletic trainers who failed to properly treat McNair when he collapsed from heatstroke in May and died two weeks later.  

From the time of McNair’s death to the sudden reversal on Durkin’s fate, Maryland failed at overcoming some of the communication challenges in the public sector. There seemed to be a lack of goal clarity. Was the aim to protect the school’s reputation? The school also struggled to adequately address each of it several publics, all of which had slightly different interests. The football team and players’ parents were concerned with corrective action. Staff and faculty worried that academic standing would suffer. Athletic boosters were interested in effects on recruiting. Donors fretted about a negative effect on fundraising. State legislators had the school’s overall reputation on their mind. Meanwhile, the media demanded answers and accountability.

The school might’ve overcome those challenges if it could present a unified front. But a report released last month revealed that bickering and infighting had made a mess of the athletic department’s internal communication, causing the overall ineffectiveness. According to the report, the then-athletic director and his deputy athletic director were involved in “turf battles,” and the former frequently attempted to “freeze out” staffers with whom he disagreed. The dysfunction within the athletic department contributed to a lack of oversight for the football program and it’s so-called “toxic culture.” As often is the case when poor internal communication exists in an organization, problems festered and flourished until they eventually were visible from the outside.

Scholars have noted both the importance of internal communication and the gaps in theory.  Some theorists also point out the fuzzy boundary between internal/external communications, easily crossed when private documents make their way into the media and when leaders hold news conferences viewed by stakeholders inside and outside the organization. In Maryland’s case, not only was their dissension within the athletic department, but also struggles between the president and the regents’ chairman, as well as factions on either side of the school’s conference change six years ago. The conflict and tension spilled out into public view as Maryland grappled with McNair’s death. The school’s initial response was deemed slow and inadequate, and it received poor grades for openness and transparency too, holding multiple news conferences on bury-the-news Fridays, late afternoon or early evening.

It was as if Maryland’s communication professionals were shoved aside and their counsel was ignored. Or, they in complete control but never took the time to understand Image Restoration Theory and where their crisis fit. They seemed to believe that Denial and Evasion of Responsibility would work for them, when the only solutions were Corrective Action and Mortification. The university tried to shift blame from Durkin to a former assistant coach and the athletic department’s overall dysfunction. It also tried to time-shift by implementing a couple of lengthy investigations.  As noted in a report by Hahn Public Communications on universities’ response to reputation challenges, “time-shifting is an evade responsibility technique to imply that a full truth, beyond the sensationalized allegations, exists.”

Hahn also notes that in the aftermath of a crisis, “speed is the new authenticity.” If that’s true, Maryland came off completely ungenuine.  McNair died on June 13; the school didn’t release a summary of events surrounding the workout until July 12 – also the first time it states that Durkin was present at the workout. On Aug. 3 (a Friday), Maryland released findings from an external review to the media under the state’s Public Information Act. One week later (the following Friday), the school released a statement that unnamed members of the athletics training staff were placed on administrative leave, just as ESPN publishes an explosive, in-depth report that describes a toxic culture within the football program. The next day, Maryland announces that Durkin has been placed on administrative leave

Slow-forward to Oct. 30. – 11 weeks after a group was established to investigate the ESPN claims – the president and regents chairman held a disastrous news conference that was roundly criticized by students, staff & faculty, alumni, elected officials and just anybody with a pulse. The tone-deaf regents had no idea of the backlash ahead when they voted to keep Durkin and the former deputy athletic director who was charged with oversight of the football program. Failure to accurately gauge the community’s temperature was another fatal flaw of the crisis response team as the vast majority of people who spoke up were incredulous. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan was one of them, issuing a statement that called on the regents to reverse the decision; he also pledged an investigation into what happened.

Maryland’s president fired Durkin the next day, stating that “a departure is in the best interests of the university.” A day later, the regents’ chairman – a Hogan appointee – stepped down in the face of immense public outrage over the initial decision. But it was too late to save the institution from national scorn and derision.

The university’s abysmal organizational climate and culture, coupled with its atrocious communication process, doomed Maryland to a prominent place in the Hall of Shame for crisis responses.