Body Parts and Hotels

Some of you who read the LA Times may have been reminded of the body parts scandal at UCLA that unfolded about 6 years ago by a column that appeared yesterday by Sandy Banks. You may not have connected it, however, with the current controversy about the hotel/conference center proposed to replace the existing Faculty Center. Below is an excerpt from the column by Banks, followed by some observations and a question.

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Lost UCLA cadavers' final chapter: With no hope of winning lawsuits over loved ones' remains, relatives fight for the last word.

Sandy Banks, March 19, 2011, LA Times

Helen Yoshikawa walked into the courtroom in downtown Los Angeles armed with four pages of talking points. Kathy Pahlow came loaded with questions. They knew they'd already lost their case, but this was their one chance to address UCLA's lawyers — to explain that their dead parents were more than body parts and their failed lawsuit about more than money. "I wanted to have the satisfaction," Yoshikawa said, "of looking them in the eye and telling them who we were. I know some people would say it's a lost cause, but it didn't feel that way to me." Pahlow and Yoshikawa were among dozens of family members who sued UCLA after a scandal erupted over its body donation program.

Thursday's hearing was the final step in a drama that began in 2004 with the discovery that bodies willed to UCLA for medical research were, essentially, being sold on the open market. The scheme was a clandestine collaboration between the willed-body program's director and a private tissue broker, who told The Times he retrieved the corpses from UCLA's cold storage room, cut them into pieces with power tools and hauled them off, packaged in coolers. He made more than $1 million providing the cadavers and body parts to pharmaceutical and medical firms.

Both men were sent to prison, and the university's body donor program temporarily shut down…

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks-20110319,0,6741888.column
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Two years later, after that scandal and others on UC campuses and systemwide, I wrote an op ed in the LA Business Journal (3/6/06) which dealt in part with the management of the university:

"... UC is often criticized as bureaucratic, but the bureaucracy is bottom heavy. Much effort is directed at verifying a $25 travel expense. But at the top, there are too many reports funneling into presidents, chancellors, and other high officials. Each campus is a mini-city, not just an educational institution. The overall UC system is a federation of such cities. The top executives cannot keep track of the myriad responsibilities entailed in running such large entities and so risk being surprised when things go wrong.

Underlings are appointed to run functions ranging from plumbing maintenance to hospital administration. They are told, 'Call me if you have a problem.' And naturally, the last thing underlings want to do is tell their bosses that he or she has a problem or has caused one.

That's why, for example, we now have a kidney transplant scandal at the UC-Irvine med school. That's we had the body parts scandal at UCLA a few years back. And that's why executive pay has gone awry. Calls 'for transparency' miss the point; transparency identifies scandals after they occur. Improved management prevents them..."

So - in management-speak - what is the bottom line here? When we observe runaway projects such as the hotel/conference center, at the root of it all is management practice. Most organizations are hierarchical. A balance must be reached between reasonable autonomy for units and accountability to those at the top and those at lower tiers in the organization. Otherwise, you get empire building at the second tier or below and lack of accountability when things go awry.

Ask yourself the following question: If and when the hotel/conference center is built and needs to be bailed out in one way or another, will anyone now making the decision to move ahead be held accountable by the management "system" that we have in place at UCLA?