Missouri\'s Civil War in the Early 1980\'s,

Missouri's Civil War

In the early 1980's, the University of Missouri's Columbia campus was facing a bleak economic future as a poor economy and the state's tax-based appropriations system were projected to be sharply curtailed. The university's newly appointed Provost, Ron Bunn, was assigned the task of finding a solution to the looming financial disaster. When the Board of Curators and faculty gave Bunn their full support for him to single-handedly come up with a solution, they then became outraged at the solution he proposed to the problem. As reported in the New York Times, Bunn had "proposed abolishing two of the university's 14 schools and colleges and sharply reducing the operations of seven others.." (Maeroff, 1982) In response to these budget cuts, the university's faculty and Board of Curators attacked both Bunn and his solution.

Integrative bargaining is founded on the principle that at the end of negotiations, both sides can gain. However, this is predicated on the assumption that the sum, or the solution is flexible. In such a situation, the solution must avoid the win/lose scenario and find creative solutions that offer a win/win outcome. When Ron Bunn offered his solution to the university's budgetary problems, it was based on the premise that some departments would become winners, while others would be forced to lose. And in some cases this meant complete abolishment. Ultimately, the fact that some were going to win and others were going to lose was the source of the conflict. After all, it was George Nickolaus, Dean of the College of Public and Community Service, who's "college was slated for extinction in Bunn's recommendations," who started the firestorm of opposition to the proposal. (Stefkovich, 1986, p. 12)

Bunn failed to find a creative solution to the problem, and instead chose to accept full control over the process. This was where the process went off track, his single-handed approach kept information out of the hands of both sides, he was inflexible about his win/lose approach, and should not have accepted full control. Refusing the lone-operator approach and insisting on a committee-type solution would have been a better way to face the problems. He should also have looked to more creative integrated bargaining techniques in order to maintain the harmonious atmosphere at the university.

The conflict which arose from the decisions made by Ron Bunn can not be seen as being "functional." First of all there was only one person involved in the decision making. With no group to assume responsibility, there was no debate and no consensus on the solution. The university did not become cohesive, supporting the solution, instead it became divided and the conflict increased. Although Bunn proposed that a committee be organized "provide them with the criteria and necessary information and let them make the decisions," this idea was rejected in favor of a single officer appointed to make the decision. (Stefkovich, 1986, p. 7) Without creating a committee made up of members of the faculty and staff, there was no way to get the competing groups to come to a consensus on a decision. There was no chance of someone offering alternative solutions which may have been overlooked. Bunn's single-handed approach also negated the possibility of a third party facilitator bringing an outside point-of-view to the discussion and a possible different solution. Finally, functional conflict requires that the system of hierarchy be delayered and Bunn's solution to the economic crisis was to set up a hierarchy of importance based on his criteria. His insistence on creating such a hierarchy undermined the trust of the other colleges and faculty as some of them were, according to Bunn's calculations, less important that others. This created animosity and bad feeling between the faculty and toward Bunn personally.