This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 20, 2012 - Robert Archibald, the embattled president of the Missouri History Museum, has resigned, museum officials confirmed Thursday.
Leigh Walters, the museum’s assistant director of communications, said that Archibald has submitted a letter of resignation to John Roberts, the new chair of the museum’s board of trustees. She said the letter was not being made public.
Walters said the board’s executive committee will meet at 9:30 Friday morning to discuss the matter, but the meeting would not be open to the public because it concerns a personnel matter.
Archibald’s surprise resignation came at the end of a drumbeat of controversy over his compensation and over the museum’s purchase of a tract of land on Delmar that had been designated for a community center but was never developed. He had just recently signed a new one-year contract to lead the museum -- a contract that was reduced from three years after the controversy over his leadership surfaced.
Much of that criticism was led by four members of the eight-member board of commissioners of the Zoo-Museum District following a report by its audit committee following findings by an auditing firm. That report criticized in great detail the land purchase, Archibald’s salary and payout for unused vacation days and the general governance of the museum.
When the report came up for a vote, the eight commissioners split 4-4 on whether to accept it.
That tie reflected the often acrimonious attitudes of members of the commission.
Jerome Glick, one of the members of the audit committee who voted in favor of approving the report, said Thursday that he is pretty certain that the report contributed to Archibald’s resignation, but that was never the group’s intent.
“I’m sure it had something to do with it,” he told the Beacon. “I think if we hadn’t started it, none of this would have happened.
“As you know, there was dissension in our group. I think that we’re going to move forward from this point and I think we’ll have better governance that will be more responsive to the taxpayers. Our goal was not to get Dr. Archibald to resign but to change the governance and the responsibility of his museum, to make it more responsible to the people who pay the bills, the taxpayers. This may be a step in the right direction, but that was not the goal.”
Gloria Wessels, head of the audit committee, called Archibald's departure "a positive step forward for the museum and for the taxpayers. I'm really happy for the museum employees and look forward to working with someone with whom they can collaborate and give their ideas to make the museum world-class."
She said her committee played a role in Archibald's resignation because "our audit brought up a lot of mistakes that had been made at the museum. I think we kept on going and didn't stop."
Thomas Campbell, a commissioner who was on the side opposite that of Glick, agreed that after the first of the year, when new governance rules take place, operations of the museum will be improved. The new rules, negotiated by former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, gives the subdistrict commissioners more say over budget and compensation, among other changes.
Campbell said that Archibald’s resignation “hopefully will turn a new chapter in the ongoing governance of the history museum and reformation of the governance structure that Sen. Danforth was successful in negotiating, and it will be given a chance to work its way through and address some of the issues that have been raised.
“Hopefully, Dr. Archibald will receive the credit he is due for the fine work he has done at the history museum during his long tenure. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, the negatives tend to outweight the positives, and there are many, many positive things he has done. That shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Asked what role the criticism of some of the commissioners may have played in Archibald’s departure, Campbell said:
“I can’t imagine that that kind of drumbeat of accusations and otherwise could be a pleasant experience for anyone. I don’t know how much that factored into his decision, but I imagine that the last few months have not been all that pleasant.”
Ben Uchitelle, head of the ZMD board, said that during his tenure, Archibald brought the history museum to the high level where it is now. He certainly should be commended for that fact."
With the new governance arrangement in place, he added, it's time to look ahead.
"This will give the history museum a chance to move forward under new leadership, to strengthen its exhibits and its mission," Uchitelle said. "He's been there for 25 years, and it's time to add some new fresh faces."
Just last week, at a trustees’ meeting, and again two days ago, at a meeting of the commissioners of the museum’s subdistrict of the Zoo-Museum District, he won praise and support for his leadership and 25-year tenure.
Romondous A. Stover, chairman of the subdistrict board, said Tuesday that he had “all the confidence in the world” in Archibald’s leadership, adding: “I feel 100 percent confident in his abilities. And he’s done a great job leading this institution.”
That praise echoed what Roberts had said at a meeting of the board of trustees last week. He later told the Beacon that criticism of Archibald’s actions as president came from “people with an ax to grind.”
One of the issues surrounding Archibald concerned a payout of $566,000 that the museum said he was due for more than 400 unused vacation days. The audit committee voted last week to ask a committee of the city’s Board of Aldermen to hold hearings into the unavailability of his vacation records as well as allegations that documents had been improperly shredded and removed from the museum.
The board of trustees has engaged former U.S. Attorney Edward Dowd to look into the matter, but members of the audit committee said that because trustees had already said they believe Archibald had done nothing wrong, they did not think Dowd’s investigation would be impartial.
The audit committee’s vote led Campbell to strongly criticize its request for an aldermanic investigation, saying that it “far exceeds the bounds of common decency.”
Wessels said Thursday that she would like the aldermanic investigation to go forward despite Archibald's resignation. "I think it might be a good idea to find out what really had been going on there," she said.