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Who
Stepped In It
Board's PR efforts failed to sell ouster
By Donna St. George, The Washington Post – 10/9/12
The public message would be important. Helen Dragas understood that. Eight days before the leader of the University of Virginia’s governing board stunned Charlottesville with a surprise move to oust the school’s president, she was finessing a news release.
It was June 2, and U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan had no idea that her presidency was in peril. Several board members had only just been informed. Dragas was negotiating with a public relations firm.
Now she emailed Mark King-ton, second in command on the Board of Visitors, a draft release that spoke ambiguously about finding a leader to “define and guide the strategic direction of the university while securing the support and resources that will be essential for U.Va.’s future.”
Thus began behind-the-scenes efforts to put the best public face on a leadership clash that has become a case study in crisis management. Over 18 days of turmoil, Dragas sought help from three public relations firms, according to emails that The Washington Post obtained through a public records request.
Pieced together with previously released correspondence, the emails show that Dragas, a Virginia Beach real estate developer, understood the importance of public presentation. But she mistakenly believed the fallout would last only a day or two. Most critical, she could never convince people of the need to remove a popular president.
The idea of a public relations consultant was seemingly modest at first. Dragas got pricing quotes on May 31 from the Communication Center, a K Street firm founded by Susan Peterson, a onetime network television correspondent. The first 10 hours of “strategic communication consulting” would cost $7,500.
Finally, Dragas and Kington arranged to meet with Sullivan in her Madison Hall office at 5 p.m. on June 8.
The board leaders told her that she was a good but not great president. Sullivan was moving too slowly; she lacked strategic vision. She had a day to agree to resign, or risk being fired at a public meeting.
About an hour later, Peterson emailed Dragas: “Hope your meeting went well. … Have a new press release for your approval. And finished with Plan B steps.”
Dragas and Kington announced the resignation June 10 in a release that quoted Sullivan as citing a “philosophical difference of opinion” and the Board of Visitors as noting “a rapidly changing and highly pressurized external environment in both health care and in academia” that called for a new leader.
Immediately, people demanded more explanation. Again and again, Dragas was not specific, often citing privacy protections related to personnel and contract issues.
“What on earth is going on?” an alumnus emailed Dragas minutes later. “Answers, please.”
As her inbox filled, Dragas asked the university to mass-email remarks she had given to deans and vice presidents about the daunting challenges facing U.Va. and the need for “a bold leader” to push for change.
It did not appear to help.
“We found these remarks just as opaque and unhelpful as your original press release and your subsequent press conference,” one alumnus emailed that afternoon.
The next day, June 12, Dragas called on a new consultant. Eva Teig Hardy once served with Dragas on the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and was an executive vice president at Dominion Resources. Both Dragas and Kington serve on Dominion’s board of directors.
Critical days to take control of the crisis were passing.
At U.Va., theories of conspiracy soon filled the void.
The campus fumed to read that Peter Kiernan, chairman of the Darden School of Business foundation, knew about the coup weeks ahead of time, along with “two important Virginia alums.” Those details – in a widely circulated email from Kiernan – were viewed as proof that wealthy donors had conspired with Dragas.
Dragas responded quickly, but the fallout was increasingly difficult to contain.
In the early hours of June 14, U.Va. heavyweights exchanged emails about a letter that Dragas had written replying to faculty objections.
“What do you think of her response?” asked Carl Zeithaml, dean of the McIntire School of Commerce.
“Not good or clear,” responded Jeffrey C. Walker, chairman of the university’s Council on Foundations. “They are interviewing a crisis communications firm. They were woefully unprepared communications-wise.”
Zeithaml responded: “If anything, I thought that this response made things worse. Maybe much worse.”
As the week progressed, U.Va. spokeswoman Carol Wood wrote Dragas two emails asking her how to pay for public relations fees.
But before a plan was in place, Dragas’ second consultant bowed out. In an email, she said she had too many other commitments.
By then, the crisis was all over Twitter and Facebook. There were calls for more disclosure , for Sullivan’s return, for board resignations.
Dragas did not idle between consultants.
She asked the student member of her board about approaching classmates willing to blog favorably.
She instructed the school’s top two administrators to issue a statement describing the board’s action as “authoritative and resolute.”
She talked with billionaire donor Paul Tudor Jones, who wrote a n op-ed piece that backed the board.
His commentary, in the Daily Progress of Charlottesville, fueled the theory that donors had had a hand in the ousting.
It was published as the U.Va. Faculty Senate delivered a no-confidence vote on the board.
It also came as Dragas brought in a third crisis management firm, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a Manhattan-based communications giant – on the eve of a tense, high-profile board meeting to select an interim president.
The man running the Hill+Knowlton operation was John Ullyot, a senior vice president and former Marine intelligence officer.
Ullyot helped Dragas with the prepared remarks she delivered, which included an expression of “sincere regret for the pain, anger and confusion” caused by Sullivan’s resignation – but no deeper explanation.
The pivotal meeting lasted more than 12 hours, with Zeithaml named interim president. But the turmoil did not abate. Within hours, Kington resigned.
On June 21, Dragas issued a three-page statement intended to lay out the problems underlying the president’s ouster. It cited concerns about declining state funds, online learning and faculty pay.
“I agree with critics who say that we should have handled the situation better,” Dragas wrote. “In my view, we did the right thing, the wrong way.”
The fury did not die down.
The next day, Gov. Bob Mc-Donnell told U.Va. board members to resolve the crisis or he would fire them.
Dragas issued another statement, this one to thank the governor for affirming the board’s authority and agreeing “on the importance of providing clear explanations of our actions. ...”
Dragas asked that her statement be mass-emailed. Wood, the university’s spokeswoman, urged her to reconsider.
“I am well aware of the fact that you don’t trust my advice – that has been very clearly communicated to me by all three of the outside PR firms you have talked with – and I’m sorry for that,” Wood wrote. “But I sincerely believe that sending one more email to alumni today will result in another onslaught of negative responses from alumni.”
The mass email went out.
By then, another board meeting had been set for June 26.
At that meeting, Dragas joined a united board in voting to reinstate the president she had tried to force out.
Sometimes people expect too much from after-the-fact public relations, said Herman “Dutch” Leonard, who specializes in crisis management at Harvard University’s business and government schools.
“A lot of people in a lot of organizations feel that what crisis management means is having a public relations firm on speed-dial,” he said. “By the time those PR firms got speed-dialed, this thing was already a huge mess.”
Dragas spent $45,000 of her own money to pay for the first consultant. Hill+Knowlton was paid by Dragas’ fellow board member, John L. Nau III, a wealthy beer distributor. The bill: $208,577. The full board did not take action on any consultants, officials said. Both consultants declined to comment.
If you are in proactively in the market for a crisis management PR firm, or have come face-to-face with your worst PR nightmare, please call David Rourk at (757) 478-0150 for a no-cost phone consultation.
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