Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 11:25 a.m.
Libby Lumpkin, the UNLV assistant art professor who some say brought life to the local art scene, is leaving Las Vegas -- and many believe her husband, David Hickey, resident MacArthur genius, isn't far behind.
"I really loved this town," Lumpkin said Wednesday as she packed up a few of her belongings. "I hate to leave this town. I leave with a lot of regrets."
After being told by an art faculty tenure review committee this spring that she "lacked collegiality," Lumpkin came to believe she would not be tenured and so decided to take a job at California State University, Long Beach.
Some feel the departure of Lumpkin will hurt the art community and the university and ultimately lead to the departure of her husband, a UNLV professor and renowned art critic whose accomplishments are used by university officials to promote the school.
"I had earmarked (a donation) to be used at Libby Lumpkin's discretion to improve the exhibition program at the gallery," said Roger Thomas, executive vice president of design for Wynn Las Vegas, the resort scheduled to open on the Strip in spring 2005. "That donation has (been) stopped, as well as all of my thoughts of giving any donations to the institution have stopped. I intend to fund institutions where excellence is rewarded."
Another member of the local art scene expects to see the imminent departure of Hickey, who holds a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, which carries a $500,000 stipend.
"According to Hickey, he will be delivering one more class and that shall be his last," said Kathy Saxe, an artist and student of Hickey, who took a Hickey class last semester.
She said he told the class he plans to leave Las Vegas by January.
Hickey declined to comment for this story, but has said in the past that he is "entertaining offers."
University officials said they tried to negotiate with Lumpkin and that they are continuing to do so with Hickey to avoid losing both.
"I can say that the university made extraordinary attempts to try and resolve issues with both individuals," said Ray Alden, UNLV's executive vice president and provost. "And, I think it may even continue to be negotiated as we speak."
Regardless of how Lumpkin was looked upon by the art community, opinions of her differed within the insular world of UNLV's fine arts department.
During a mid-tenure review with faculty members at UNLV's art department, Lumpkin was told she lacked collegiality -- the ability to work productively with her colleagues.
In a March 2003 interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Lumpkin said she was told her research was "thin" and biased because she chose not to teach the work of certain artists.
Within the Las Vegas art scene, Lumpkin became known for cataloging Steve Wynn's art collection at the Bellagio. She soon became the assistant curator of UNLV's Donna Beam Gallery of Fine Arts and her supporters described her as a diplomatic critic who nurtured young talent, had a deep knowledge of art and enjoyed the respect of art historians, critics, artists and collectors.
Ultimately, the reviews of her academic work by a university tenure committee eclipsed whatever prominence she had gained in the art community.
Lumpkin's departure leaves some local art enthusiasts to wonder how someone with teaching experience at Harvard and Yale, someone who is so respected in her field, could not make a go of it at UNLV.
Bill Robinson, UNLV's former faculty senate chairman, pointed to a flawed tenure review system as part of the problem.
Robinson said a system exists at UNLV that allows department heads to take punitive measures against people they don't like by wielding the collegiality clause as a weapon.
"We have a system that allows those few administrators who want to act in a punitive way to run their units with a baseball bat mentality," Robinson said. "We don't have many of them out there, but fine arts is one of them."
The dean and the chairman of the fine arts department were unavailable for comment.
Robinson said that in theory collegiality should be about a person's ability to work well with colleagues, but unfortunately, in practice, a personal vendetta can skew the process with a complaint of non-collegial behavior.
"The actual reality from the lawsuits that we have seen is that all it takes is one person" to throw someone's tenure off track, Robinson said.
Lumpkin is the second high-profile professor at UNLV to speak out about the use of collegiality as a basis for tenure.
Marcella McClure, a former assistant professor of biology, sued UNLV in May 2000 for breach of contract after she was denied tenure.
McClure contended that her department head and supervisor manipulated her tenure review process out of professional jealousy.
Lack of collegiality was used as a basis to ultimately get rid of McClure. The Nevada Supreme Court found that the university is immune from lawsuits when it comes to decisions about tenure.
Alden said the term collegiality often gets confused with the term congeniality. When a tenure review committee decides to give an individual poor marks for collegiality, it is usually because the person was "mistreating others or harassing others" more often than once, he said.
Lumpkin wouldn't say whether she was considering a lawsuit.
But it's clear the McClure case made an impact on both Lumpkin and Hickey: In a letter to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hickey described how he did not feel wanted in UNLV's art department, despite his prominence his field.
"I was sent word by my chair that the prevailing opinion in the department was that I 'would be happier' in another department or another school or another university," Hickey said in an April 25 letter to the Chronicle.
Hickey said "to emphasize this point," someone placed a newspaper clipping of the Supreme Court decision in his box telling him effectively that lack of collegiality is "sufficient grounds for removal of both tenured and nontenured faculty members."
"I took the hint and began looking for work," Hickey wrote.
While Hickey was moved to the English department because of his background in writing, there evidently was not a place for Lumpkin.
Lumpkin opted instead to take a job at California State University, Long Beach -- where, incidentally, former UNLV President Bob Maxson serves as president.
"I would say that I'm delighted to go to work at a university where Robert Maxson is president," Lumpkin said, perhaps aiming a barb at UNLV's current administration. "Everyone at CSULB sings his praises and he acts in the best interest of the university."
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