COVER-Tale of Woe: The death of the VQR’s Kevin Morrissey
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What happened at the VQR?HOOK’s 8/19 COVER
On John Casteen’s last official day in office as the president of the University of Virginia, a tragic story, one fit for the pages of the award-winning literary journal that he nurtured, began to unfold.
That Friday, July 30, the managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, 52-year-old Kevin Morrissey, took his own life. Since then, UVA has shrouded VQR behind a wall of silence, changing the office locks, launching an audit, and even routing all incoming telephone calls to the University’s public relations office.
A Hook investigation reveals that behind the staid, Thomas Jefferson-designed exterior of VQR’s headquarters swirl allegations of financial recklessness, conflicts of interest, and a bizarre pattern of management-by-email that drove a staffer to quit. Some say there was also a pattern of bullying that may have pushed a fragile man into tragic oblivion.
What’s more, according to a former VQR employee, University officials have known about some of the personnel problems for at least five years.
An ambitious editor
A group called the Workplace Bullying Institute minces no words about the situation, suggesting that Morrissey’s boss, VQR editor Theodore H. “Ted” Genoways was a bully and that UVA was “unresponsive.” But if Genoways has been cast as the problem, he also appears to be a key source of VQR’s success.
Hired in 2003 at the tender age of 31, Genoways arrived with high hopes and high praise including President John Casteen’s enthusiasm for his “energetic intelligence and visionary thinking.”
He transformed VQR— long known for publishing poetry and short stories on black & white pages— with punchy, magazine-style theme issues and loads of full-color photography. Along with the new look came an expanded mission including hard-hitting non-fiction such as Toni Morrison’s account of the long road to racial integration and an on-the-ground exposé on the capture of Saddam Hussein. Just three years after Genoways arrived, Casteen’s enthusiasm seemed justified as the journal won two National Magazine Awards, bringing new prominence to VQR, and to its young editor.
For Maria Morrissey, however, the older sister of the late Kevin Morrissey, the success also brought heartache. Based on information she gathered from VQR staffers, University officials, police, and her brother’s own notes, Maria Morrissey portrays Genoways as someone who created a work environment so hostile it became unbearable.
“Our family is convinced,” she says, “by all that we have learned since Kevin’s death that, were it not for Genoways’ relentless bullying, Kevin would be alive today.”
Genoways, now receiving his own pummeling on blogs and comment boards, has mostly avoided responding to the charge.
Morrissey: “I simply can’t bear it any longer.”FAMILY PHOTO
“I don’t want to jeopardize a resolution,” says Genoways, explaining why he’s referring all questions to his lawyer. However, he did comment for a recent article on Morrissey’s suicide in the Chronicle of Higher Education, claiming that UVA had already “reviewed all the allegations being made against me and found them to be without grounds.”
“That’s not true,” counters Maria Morrissey, contending that UVA officials told her after the article appeared that that was false. Citing the confidentiality inherent in personnel matters, UVA spokesperson Carol Wood declines to clarify the dispute other than to note that “not everything” in the Chronicle story was true.
What is clear is that Genoways issued a statement on the matter far ahead of his employer. On August 1, two days after Morrissey’s death, Genoways broadcast an email informing friends and colleagues of the sad news and defending himself against the accusations. Considering the way that Genoways learned of his managing editor’s death, he might be excused for panicking.
‘Please tell everyone I’m sorry’
After getting the devastating news about her brother that fateful Friday morning, sister Maria Morrissey learned something else: that Genoways had sent her brother an email accusing him of jeopardizing the life of a writer an hour before he shot himself. She says she confronted Genoways that afternoon by telephone.
“I introduced myself and asked him if he sent such an email to Kevin,” says Maria Morrissey. “It was only after Ted had admitted to sending the email and justified his anger that I told him that Kevin had taken his own life. ‘So it appears’,” Morrissey says she told the award-winning editor, “‘he felt the full weight of your accusation’.”
Two days later, Genoways began his explanatory email by saying that, according to Morrissey’s family, his managing editor had “set out beside him… a suicide note blaming me.” Maria Morrissey, however, says the note her brother left behind said no such thing.
“I said nothing to Ted on the phone that Friday about Kevin’s note, as I hadn’t seen it yet,” she says. “Kevin had too much integrity to blame anyone for his death. Kevin’s note simply said, ‘Please tell everyone I’m sorry. I know they wouldn’t understand, but I simply can’t bear it any longer.’ That’s it.”
Later that evening, members of the Morrissey family say they received calls from UVA’s chief operating officer Leonard Sandridge, who offered the University’s full support and said he would remain available throughout the night.
‘The toast of the publishing world’
“I will never forget the firm, enthusiastic handshake [Morrissey] gave me when they called out the award for General Excellence at the National Magazine Award ceremony in 2006,” wrote Genoways in his explanatory email. “We were the toast of the publishing world that night. We received a phone call on our way out to tell us that the Washington Post would be declaring us the industry’s big winner for the year.”
Genoways: “I feel unspeakably saddened by Kevin’s death, but I do not feel responsible.”FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO
Indeed, 2006 was a very good year for VQR. Under Morrissey and Genoways, the magazine had been nominated for six “Ellies,” the highest accolades in the magazine world. At the May 9 awards banquet at the Lincoln Center in Washington, D.C., VQR took the General Excellence Award for magazines with circulations under 100,000. Perhaps more surprisingly, it took home the Fiction Award, edging out such heavyweights as The Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Esquire, and Harper’s.
As Slate put it, “It was as if a scrappy farm team had demolished the Yankees in an exhibition game.”
On the big night, however, Genoways noticed that Morrissey had slipped away to his hotel room instead of celebrating and that “his mood darkened in the years that followed.” Genoways described how Morrissey, whom he had once considered a close friend, grew increasingly distant. Even his family members concede that he had distanced himself from them in recent years.
“I never had any illusions,” Genoways wrote, “about who Kevin was. He was prickly, mercurial, often brooding. As Kevin struggled through these issues,” Genoways continued, “particularly in the last year, his work suffered, and his demeanor, to my mind, was often unacceptable for the workplace.”
Genoways went on to accuse Morrissey’s siblings of “repeatedly calling and e-mailing” him since Morrissey’s death, personally threatening to end his career, and implying that he was responsible for their brother’s death.
“They tell me that the majority of the staff agrees with them,” wrote Genoways, who expressed resignation over the fact that his staff might hate him, adding “And perhaps they do.”
However, while Genoways admitted that office conflicts likely fueled Morrissey’s depression, he said he could not accept blame for his death. Genoways then asked the email’s recipients for help completing VQR’s fall issue.
A call to 911
“He was occasionally grumpy, no doubt,” said Sheila McMillen, VQR’s associate editor and circulation manager, during an August 6 memorial service, “but he was an honorable man— decent, generous, kind, and reliable as sunshine.”
“Kevin,” shown at age 10, “was probably the favorite of both parents,” says sister Maria Morrissey.
FAMILY PHOTO
Without a college degree, Morrissey had become the managing editor of one of the country’s leading literary journals. He lived alone, loved his work, enjoyed cooking, and considered his co-workers his friends. But they say he also suffered from depression, for which he was currently taking medication, nearly all his life.
VQR associate editor Molly Minturn told mourners at the ceremony held at Newcomb Hall that Morrissey had a sense of humor— even about the future of the publishing industry, which has been hammered in recent years by technological advances that have begun pushing the printed page toward obsolescence.
However, Morrissey, she said, expressed excitement about e-books, an excitement Minturn did not share.
“We often argued about this,” she said.
However, Minturn said Morrissey appeared to concede when he forwarded her a link to a New Yorker story about a burlesque show where dancers, dressed like librarians, slowly remove their clothes and suggestively rub their bodies with books.
“Could this be done with e-books?” wrote Morrissey.
Although friends and family say Morrissey could laugh hard enough to make his whole body shake, they were aware of the depression that could send him to particularly dark places.
“But he always got out of those,” recalled Morrissey’s friend and former lover, writer Gwenyth Swain, the person to whom he had addressed his farewell note. “I had such hope he would again.”
Unfortunately, Morrissey made other plans.
At 11:24am that Friday, the Charlottesville/Albemarle Emergency Communications Center received a 911 call from a man who said he wanted to report a shooting downtown near the old C&O coal tower. Police responded immediately, and when Charlottesville detective Lisa Reeves arrived just beyond the eastern terminus of Water Street she found a middle-aged white male with a fatal head wound. Beside him was everything police needed: a handgun, a driver’s license, and a will with contact numbers for family and University officials. The short typed note to Swain was attached.
The sole beneficiary of Morrissey’s will, Swain told a story that moved many mourners to tears.
“His life was going into such upheaval that week,” said Swain, “but he thought to send a card and a gift to my son for his birthday that arrived on Saturday.”
On Monday, August 2, the day after her son’s birthday, Charlottesville police called to give Swain the news while her son, she said, was on the floor beside her playing with Morrissey’s present. “It was my son’s favorite gift,” said Swain.
“He was very thoughtful and always planned things out thoroughly,” one friend said at the memorial. “Kevin never did anything by accident.”
Former UVA president John Casteen nurtured the VQR, but he has made no public statement about the death of its managing editor.FILE PHOTO BY DAN ADDISON
Missing mourners
Despite having enthusiastically endorsed Genoways’ hiring and having long allowed VQR to report directly to his office, former President Casteen did not attend the August 6 memorial. While attempts to reach Casteen were unsuccessful, UVA spokesperson Wood says Casteen was out of town that day. Meanwhile, incoming president Teresa A. Sullivan was busy giving her first press conference. And while the University covered the Morrissey family’s traveling expenses, lodging, and even catered the service in Newcomb Hall’s piano room, no University official spoke.
In a slideshow that played throughout the ceremony, photos showed Morrissey as a young man– he was a high school track star– as well as myriad images with other VQR staffers in the office and around town. There were no photos of Genoways.
Stranger still, Genoways, who had befriended Morrissey while the two worked together at the Minnesota Historical Society Press, and who would bring Morrissey to Virginia in 2004, was absent as well. In fact, during the two-hour funeral, Genoways’ name was never mentioned.
And while all current staff and several past VQR staffers and interns were there, the most controversial new VQR employee— a 24-year-old woman— was not.
A pattern of bullying?
According to sources close to VQR– and based on several emails that seem to document certain incidents— Genoways had a tendency to berate the person he hired as his right-hand man. But Genoways, who holds an untenured, general faculty post in the English Department, didn’t reserve his temper just for Morrissey.
“He also did this once to Jahan Ramazani, chair of the English Department, who had dropped by to tell Genoways that the English Department would not grant the tenure-track position he wanted,” says a source who allegedly heard the argument. “The door was closed,” says the source, “and he was roaring.”
The Hook attempted to contact Ramazani to confirm this, but he had not responded by press time.
“These are classic tactics employed by bullies,” says Gary Namie. “They are not completely unlike torture.”
WBI PHOTO
Last February, a Temple University professor and former literary journal editor, Don Lee, got a dose of Genoways’ wrath. On behalf of a student, Lee contacted Genoways to urge VQR’s consideration of a story the student had submitted a month earlier; but the following day, Lee informed Genoways that the student’s story had just been accepted elsewhere.
“What the f***, Don?,” Genoways scolded Lee. “I forwarded this message with instructions to read the story right away to one of our interns, the chair of our fiction board, and to one of our associate editors. You added hours of unnecessary work to an already overburdened staff.” Genoways informed Lee that he and his student were “tarnishing” their reputations.
“This behavior would piss me off no matter who perpetrated it, but I can’t believe it coming from you, Don. You were at this racket forever. You know better.”
Lee declines to comment on the exchange.
Away on a Guggenheim
As VQR grew from a slim black and white journal to a thicker, full-color magazine, it wasn’t just the printing bill that increased.
“We were overwhelmed by expenses,” says a former employee. “Ted was hired, I think, because Casteen wanted someone who could better promote the magazine and make it more prominent. But it was costing a small fortune.”
Following VQR’s success at the National Magazine Awards in 2006, UVA’s Board of Visitors approved a $117,000 operating budget increase. By 2009, the magazine, published four times a year, had two more such Awards and an annual operating budget of nearly $600,000, with about half the money from the state and the rest from various endowments and funds.
According to VQR’s website, circulation is 7,000, but sources indicate that subscriptions have fallen precipitously since the website was updated and that subscription revenue barely dents the overall budget. The Hook has filed a request for financial records.
In the Chronicle article, journalist Elliott Wood, a former VQR intern and recent contributor, defends Genoways by calling him the “creative genius responsible for the magazine’s success ” and the “fulcrum of the discussions” about the “future of VQR and, honestly, the future of journalism.”
However, Genoways also appears to have served as something of a financial fulcrum for Wood. In a June 22 email obtained by the Hook, Genoways asks staff to pay Wood $6,000 for an Afghanistan story and an advance on travel expenses, hefty pay by VQR’s historic standards.
According to a former VQR employee, the previous editor, Staige Blackford, typically limited compensation to just $10-$15 a page, no matter what the writer’s status, with travel expenses not covered, and advances unheard of.
“We never lacked in the number of manuscripts we received,” says the former employee. “People were submitting to Staige because they wanted to be in the magazine.”
It turns out that Genoways offers publication assistance in more than just a magazine. Two years ago, in his role as VQR editor, he organized a series of poetry books to be published by the University of Georgia Press and described on the VQR website as “some of the freshest, most accomplished poetry being written today.”
Surprisingly, among the first six titles was a book by the president’s son, John Casteen IV and a book each by two members of VQR’s own advisory boards. There was even a volume penned by Genoways himself. All these books have won praise from reviewers, with Genoways’ own title garnering Pulitzer Prize-winner Natasha Trethewey’s favor as a “beautiful book.”
And yet with Genoways himself noting that book publication is practically a prerequisite on the creative writing career ladder and with four of the six titles emerging from VQR family, he has faced allegations of self-promotion and presidential nepotism.
“My book had to be sent out to two anonymous outside readers and then approved by the press’s advisory board,” he maintains in a blog comment. That VQR paid a $2,000 per title subsidy (from a special $2,500 per year “discretionary fund” in his case), Genoways argues, shows there’s no conflict of interest in getting his or the president’s son’s poetry published.
Genoways himself earns a compensation package, including benefits, that now stands at $170,000, which is far more than UVA’s average pay for an associate professor and more than double what UVA typically pays an assistant professor, the lowest rung on the tenure track. In fact, in the English department, one of the most prominent faculty members, the former Poet Laureate of the United States, Rita Dove, earns about the same as Genoways.
Morrissey was earning around $70,000, and there was even a full-time online editor earning around $80,000 by the name of Waldo Jaquith, well known in Charlottesville as an avid blogger and political dabbler.
“We celebrate one another’s birthdays, have dinner at each other’s houses, and go out socially regularly,” Jaquith writes on his blog, noting that one employee’s young daughter knew Morrissey as “Uncle Kevin.”
Such an insular office would hit a major hurdle as communication breakdowns intensified as Genoways began spending large amounts of time outside the office over the past year, say sources. Besides attending publishing conferences, Genoways precipitously shrank his face time in June when he began a $35,000 Guggenheim fellowship. In his absence, according to UVA spokesperson Carol Wood, he put Morrissey firmly in charge. Or so it seemed.
Wealthy donor Alana Levinson-Labrosse, 24, arrived at VQR in November 2009.
CURRY SCHOOL PHOTO
An intern ascendant
In one of the most unusual aspects of Genoways’s management, he reportedly asked his staffers to read all his incoming emails and forward anything deemed pressing. His frequent absences drove this policy, he allegedly explained.
At least one staffer— concerned that reading someone else’s emails might violate University policy– refused to participate. And in the early days, the bizarre policy merely created embarrassing moments; however, the scheme appears to have eventually played a role in Morrissey’s fateful decision.
An already awkward atmosphere escalated last fall when Genoways inserted another factor into the office dynamic: a young woman whose previous experience seemed as geared to money as it was to publishing. Before long, she’d be convening meetings with staff about the future of their jobs.
The woman was a 2007 UVA graduate, Alana Levinson-LaBrosse, who studied under the prestigious Echols Scholarship program and then earned a masters in English education at UVA’s Curry School. After making a seven-figure donation to Curry, she was asked to join the Curry foundation’s board of directors as its youngest member.
Doors were also opening at VQR.
“Alana just showed up at the office one morning last November,” says a source, who points out that her title as assistant editor and development manager soon appeared on the magazine’s masthead. “Genoways told the staff she was going to be an intern, but she had business cards and was traveling on VQR dime.”
While some might consider hiring a donor as a development official to be a potential conflict, Levinson-LaBrosse was no ordinary donor. In addition to the $1.5 million she gave UVA’s Young Writer’s Program, her father (also holding two UVA degrees) is a Silicon Valley science business titan, who committed $20 million to UVA a decade ago.
The relationship between the boss and the young fundraiser raised eyebrows, particularly after Levinson-LaBrosse accompanied Genoways on business trips, says a source. Although the source asserts no evidence suggesting any improper behavior between Genoways and Levinson-LaBrosse, the source claims that office morale sank when Levinson-LaBrosse became the only staffer in regular contact with Genoways.
“Her desk was in his office, and they would often be in there with the door closed,” says the source. “They would discuss VQR business without involving Kevin.”
Another source claims the hiring of Levinson-LaBrosse occurred without the usual staff input. More seriously, says the source, it occurred without the usual advertisement and competition to ensure compliance with equal-opportunity law. Attempts to contact Levinson-LaBrosse resulted only in contact with an old family friend, a lawyer, who referred the question to UVA, which has declined to clarify the hire.
“Having a 24-year-old camped out in the private office of a manager would be dealt with just about instantly at any private company,” author John Bruce complains on his blog. “Not so with Genoways at UVA, apparently.”
However, according to various sources, Genoways had ample reasons to bring in a person with access to capital. Under his tenure, VQR had burned through most of its own rainy day fund. According to sources close to former editor Blackford, during his 28-year tenure, he had simply banked what he didn’t spend each year, creating a pool of money that stood, when he announced his retirement seven years ago, at approximately $800,000.
In June 2003, just a week before his planned retirement, the 72-year-old Blackford died after the Volvo station driven by his wife was struck by a Jeep on Emmet Street.
Through his lawyer, Genoways– asserting that president’s office accountants suggested a use-it-or-lose-it approach– concedes that he has drawn the fund down to $305,000. With the money that helped catapult VQR to such heights running out, Genoways had a good reason to feel anxious about a change at the top of the University.
“If excellence is no insurance, history no buffer,” Genoways wrote in a May 2009 essay on the future of university journals, “then our security lasts only as long as our current president.”
One month later, President Casteen would formally announce his retirement. And through his lawyer, Genoways concedes that he felt some anxiety when the president’s office notified him in May of this year that VQR would have to find a new home.
A close office unwinding
What happened with Morrissey began unfolding during a July 14 staff meeting. Genoways wasn’t there, but Jaquith (who declines to comment on the incident) made a wisecrack that may have offended Levinson-LaBrosse.
In a July 19 email obtained by the Hook, Genoways, who had put Morrissey in charge of the magazine during his Guggenheim leave, accused him of “unacceptable workplace behavior” and ordered him out of the office.
“If you are already at VQR office,” Genoways wrote in the emailed edict, “leave immediately and do not return to the office until July 26.”
The 800K rainy-day fund amassed by late editor Staige Blackford has been drawn down by half a million.
FAMILY PHOTO
Genoways, who didn’t specify what the unacceptable behavior was, also ordered Morrissey not to attend any meetings, perform any editorial tasks, or represent VQR in any way, or discuss the email. (Still, Genoways said he expected Morrissey to work normal hours from home.) Worst for someone who had considered his colleagues his family, Genoways told Morrissey not to talk to his co-workers.
“These are all classic tactics employed by bullies,” writes Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute, in an article on the VQR situation. “They are not completely unlike torture.”
Morrissey responded by pleading ignorance to any exile-worthy transgression. And, as instructed, he left the office.
During the week-long office ban July 19-23, sources say that he embarked on frequent communications with officials in UVA’s human resources, ombudsman’s, and president’s offices. His cell phone records, his sister says, show 18 such pleas for help.
On his blog, Jaquith explains that simply quitting wasn’t much of an option for a well-paid editor who had recently purchased a downtown condominium. More crucially, Jaquith emphasizes the emotional connection shared by staff.
“For any of us to quit our job,” Jaquith wrote, “we would also be giving up on spending forty hours a week with dear friends, friends who we would have been abandoning to a difficult working environment.”
Sources say the entire staff of VQR, minus Genoways, pleaded with officials at a meeting held in the president’s office for assistance over their work environment. A source close to VQR says that an HR official told them that VQR “had always been handled differently because it’s the president’s baby.”
Four years after its 1925 founding, UVA put VQR inside the prominent “Hotel A” on the West Range.PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER
According to a handwritten note found among Morrissey’s belongings, HR manager Angelee Godbold assured Morrissey that the stay-at-home edict violated UVA policy and that she would try to get him back in his office. His persistence was beginning to pay off.
On Monday morning, July 26, President Casteen’s chief of staff, Nancy Rivers, with Genoways in the room, met separately with Morrissey and Jaquith. A source says Jaquith asked Genoways to explain why he instituted the week-long ban. Unsatifisfied with Genoways’ answer, which included accusing Jaquith of “behaving in a unprofessional manner” toward Levinson-LaBrosse, Jaquith tendered his resignation on the spot.
That same Monday, sources say that Genoways was called to the President’s office, reprimanded for his treatment of his employees, and told not to retaliate. It turns out this wasn’t the first time that the President’s Office had to deal with abuse complaints in the VQR office.
Another time
“I can understand why Kevin did what he did,” says Candace Pugh, a former VQR employee who worked for the magazine for 32 years before, she says, she was “forced out” by Genoways in 2005. “That man should not be in charge of other people. He’s a danger,” she insists.
Pugh says she contacted officials in the President’s office and filed a harassment complaint against Genoways, who allegedly ordered her out of the office she had occupied for three decades and routinely reprimanded her for not doing her job.
“I was at the end of my rope,” says Pugh.
In an attempt to deal with the problem, the President’s office handed the responsibility of supervising VQR employees to Morrissey, says Pugh. However, she claims the harassment continued. In the end, after Pugh hired a lawyer, the University offered a one-year severance package under the condition that no lawsuit would be filed.
“Ted wanted his own staff, and wanted me out of there,” says Pugh. “I finally decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. And the President’s office just stood by and let it happen.”
UVA spokesperson Wood, asserting personnel confidentiality, points to the varied work between HR officials and staff as evidence that UVA was attempting to deal with personnel situations. “In the wake of Mr. Morrissey’s death,” Wood writes in an email, “the University continues to work with all members of VQR staff to address and resolve these issues.”
The final week
The last week of Morrissey’s life, HR officials informed VQR staff that they would invite in a mediator. Days before Morrissey’s death, one staff member allegedly informed an HR official that staff “feared that Kevin was suicidal.” And, according to someone close to Morrissey, during a lunch with an official from the president’s office on the Tuesday before he died, the exiled managing editor broke down and cried. According to another source, UVA’s Director of faculty and staff employee relations, Alan Cohn, told a staff member that he realized the situation called for “immediate intervention,” but added that, “it may take some time.”
“We were all really proud of how smart he was,” says sister Maria, “and what he accomplished without a college degree.”FAMILY PHOTO
On Wednesday, July 28, two days before Morrissey’s suicide, sources say that the president’s chief of staff Rivers finally informed VQR staff that “it would stop.” Apparently, she also pleaded with Jaquith to remain on board, but to no avail, as Jaquith had by then accepted a job at the Miller Center. (In the wake of Morrissey’s death, however, he agreed to help complete the fall issue.)
Sources say the staff, convinced that something was finally going to be done, expressed relief. Everyone except Morrissey. According to a source, he seemed glum, and when asked what the matter was, the response was simple: “When Ted retaliates for all this, it will come down on me.”
As Morrissey feared, he and another staff member, despite the University’s assurances, received angry emails from Genoways on Friday.
The email to associate editor Molly Minturn, sources say, so upset her that she took it directly to the president’s office and HR. Reportedly visibly shaken, she was unofficially diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress syndrome” by HR counselors, who suggested she go on medical leave. And that was before she heard the news about Morrissey.
The email sent to Morrissey may have been upsetting as well. Three days after Morrissey had asked Genoways if he wanted to respond to an email by a Mexican journalist covering that nation’s deadly drug wars, Genoways accused Morrissey, by not forwarding the email to Genoways sooner, of endangering the journalist’s life.
“I found that email open on Kevin’s iphone,” says Maria Morrissey. “It was sent from Ted at 9:47am. Kevin wrote his suicide note about an hour later.”
“Do you know what book he was reading?” asks Maria Morrissey. “We found it in on his desk in his apartment, covered with notes. He was reading a book called Working with the Self Absorbed: How to Handle Narcissistic Personalities on the Job.”
‘A gifted, charismatic editor’
“There is no doubt that Ted is a gifted, charismatic editor,” says Greg Britton, who worked with Genoways at the Minnesota Historical Society Press. “But that is not the same as being a good manager. Universities sometimes overlook that when they hire star scholars. They assume that if someone excels at one thing, they will be good at the other.”
UVA psychiatrist and suicide lecturer Bruce Cohen points out that suicide is a behavior, not a diagnosis, and that 90 percent of victims possess a psychiatric condition– most often depression. But Cohen adds that genetic background, limited family support, and workplace stress can definitely contribute.
“Often it’s a confluence of those factors,” says Cohen. “It’s important to look at the whole picture.”
“While it’s premature to make final judgments on what happened here,” says Professor David Yamada, Director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, “the basic scenario of workplace bullying, in an academic setting, targeting of a vulnerable individual, an employer ignoring pleas to intervene, with suicide as a consequence, is not over the top.”
Yamada points to the case of Jodie Zebell, a 31-year old health care worker who took her own life in 2008 after allegedly enduring months of workplace bullying. Her case was heard earlier this year when a Wisconsin state legislative committee deliberated a new law banning such treatment.
According to a 2007 Zogby poll, 37 percent of those surveyed said they had suffered on-the-job bullying. As Time magazine recently pointed out, workers who are abused due to specifics of race, nationality, religion, and sex are protected by certain laws but that few laws protect against “plain old viciousness.”
However, a bill moving its way through the New York state legislature seeks to address that. In May, the state senate passed the New York Healthy Workplace Bill, which would allow workers to sue over “physical, psychological or economic harm due to abusive treatment on the job.” If passed, worker’s rights advocates like Yamada say it could lead to more legislation across the country. And Yamada contends that bullying in an academic setting, where people are adept at intellectual analysis, manipulation, and argumentation, can be particularly vicious.
“Of course, exquisitely rationalized actions and explanations occur in many organizations,” says Yamada, “but in dysfunctional academic settings, they often rise to an art form.”
Epilogue
A reporter’s August 16 knock at the door of the VQR office, designed by Jefferson as a dining hall, finds all the surviving employees hard at work on the latest issue. Two employees, however, are missing: Genoways and Levinson-LaBrosse. Ensconced at a table in the center of the main room is UVA spokesperson Carol Wood. She offers a sandwich to a visiting journalist but declines to comment on Genoways employment status, other than to say he remains on his Guggenheim Fellowship leave. As for Levinson-LaBrosse, Wood says she’s on vacation.
Wood wrote the official UVA press release on Morrissey’s death, which includes no mention of or comment from Genoways. Asked why that was, and why he hadn’t attended the memorial service, Wood refers all questions back to Genoways, who, as already mentioned, is now speaking through a lawyer.
“He’s concerned about the allegations and the insinuations floating around,” says the lawyer, Lloyd Snook. “We haven’t seen the suicide note that apparently says nasty things about Ted,” says Snook, apparently unaware that such a note didn’t exist.
Snook says there’s “a natural impulse to want to blame someone or something when something like this happens,” and that Genoways has been wondering if there were any things he should have done differently. “But it’s clear that Kevin had been clinically depressed,” Snook emphasizes, “for many, many years.”
Unprompted, Snook mentions the financial audit that UVA has begun at VQR. “That will settle a lot of things,” says Snook. “You know, financial issues were Kevin’s responsibility.”
When the Hook asked Wood if Morrissey might have done anything improper concerning finances at VQR, she was emphatic.
“I want to make it very clear that any implication that Kevin was involved in any kind of improper conduct concerning VQR finances is totally untrue,” says Wood, noting that the audit is a standard procedure when the employee in charge of money isn’t available to transfer the data.
***
In 2006, with VQR riding high on its success at the National Magazine Awards, Genoways took time out to be the subject of a Hook HotSeat feature.
“The awards are a tremendous honor,” Genoways told the Hook. “That’s as high as it goes in the magazine world, our Pulitzers. Or as actress Meg Ryan said at the after-party, I guess every industry has its Oscars.”
Maria Morrissey, however, suggests that the University’s quest for success should include a new priority.
“I hope some good can come out of this,” she says. “That’s my new cause– that there’s some major policy change concerning workplace bullying at UVA.”
–with additional reporting by Hawes Spencer
#
GREAT article about a tragic situation.
As someone interviewed for this piece, I wanted to thank Dave McNair for his informative, detailed, and fair investigative reporting on this tragedy. It is required reading for anyone following the story.
For anyone who is facing a potential workplace bullying situation, this information from my blog, Minding the Workplace, may be helpful:
http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/need-help/
David Yamada
Professor of Law and Director, New Workplace Institute
Suffolk University Law School, Boston
A very interesting read. Before re-reading, let me ask: doesn’t the author of this fine article has a past association with the VQR? If so, that’s worth disclosing to readers.
I love how you quote “blogger” John Bruce. If you actually did any research to see what kind of person John Bruce is — a bitter, failed writer/academic who will rant and rave at anything and everything set before him, the subtext being that he’s a genius and everyone else is a fool — you’d realize that whatever he says should be dismissed out of hand. He is frequently chased off other people’s blogs for being a troll. Surely you could have found someone with a shred more credibility to say what John Bruce says. Surely.
In response to “jack M” or anyone else who might be interested,
Yes, I read fiction submissions for former editor Staige Blackford in 1992-93 while I was an MFA student at the University. In 1995 the VQR published a story of mine.
Dave McNair
Is Snook implying that something nefarious happened with the finances while under Morrisey’s control?
If this is the case, wouldn’t Snook likely have this information that due to his client having direct knowledge of the accounts?
If that’s the case, it seems pretty absurd to suggest that if anything turns out to be irregular, it’s all on Morrissey. Especially when there are e-mails where Genoways asks staff to pay a writer 6 grand, etc.
Hey, what do you know? ANOTHER one-sided article that excludes any effort to present the other side. Guilty until proven innocent, as always. Journalistic standards are in the toilet these days.
For once and for all…Kevin Morrissey was a truly lovely man with a disease. Severe and lifelong depression. That is what killed him.
Many people would probably disagree with you, Mr/Mrs/Miss Seriously. Even those with severe and lifelong depression eventually come across the final trigger, the straw that broke the camel’s back, etc… I sense that this newfangled Administration hiding behind closed doors was indeed the trigger for Morrisey.
To Seriously:
I agree with you that Kevin Morrissey was depressed and that Kevin killed Kevin.
There we are done with that.
Now, I don’t think that this article came across as one sided. And if you look at this piece in comparison to the other articles that have been written about this situation, it seems to have the most in-depth and fair analysis.
What would you want to see changed? An interview where someone calls Genoways a hell of a great guy? Forgive me if I am wrong, but it seems like you might be sympathetic to that point of view yet you instead chose to say that the article was one sided and that journalistic standards are “in the toilet these days.”
Maybe this one of those smoke and fire situations.
Incredible article, Mr McNair, well-written and balanced. I can’t begin to imagine the pain Mr Morrissey must have been feeling, especially in light of the callous way he was treated the final week of his life. Condolences to his family, friends and co-workers.
One thing in particular jumped out at me. How foolish must Genoways have been to install Ms Levinson-Brousse in the VQR office as an “intern” without even having the good sense to discuss it with staff first? It shows an incredible lack of respect for both longstanding staff and Levinson-Brousse herself. Creating this sort of potentially divisive and inflammatory situation at the VQR demonstrates that Mr Genoways lacks the leadership and managerial skills necessary to supervise employees.
Dave - EXCELLENT work! Great and objective reporting! Please stay in touch with this story and it’s eventual outcome.
“But Genoways, who holds an untenured, general faculty post in the English Department [...]”
I don’t believe this to be accurate. And it matters to this story.
I love writing a long comment only to click submit and have it dissappear for no apparent reason.
“As Morrissey feared, he and another staff member, despite the University’s assurances, received angry emails from Genoways on Friday.”
He just couldn’t help himself, or control himself, could he?
I feel deeply for Kevin and his family. The burden, the suffering he must have gone though is beyond most people’s comprehension. He felt he had no way out, obviously.
How many people that are working in our country, are in horrible jobs with the old style punitive management? There needs to be much better supervision of all supervisors and Administrators. Let’s face it many of you are a#@holes and UVA has its fair share. They need to be taught how to be supportive of their staff and watch their one ego.
This poor individual committed suicide and it is horrific that he made that choice. It was horrific that he did not reach out and contact someone else here. But everyone needs to calm down and stop making his boss out to sound responsible, at least that is the tone is here that I am reading. While he might be a $#%@& or whatever that is not something that can be placed on him. This person made a choice and wanted relief from his emotional pain, but he made a permanent choice.
Please if anyone feels like killing themselves contact someone there can be help for you.
Thank you for the best reporting on this tragedy since it happened.
I know both Kevin and Ted. I can say decisively, definitively, that Kevin Morrissey would never, ever engage in questionable budgetary practices. Ever. For Genoways’ aptly named attorney to suggest otherwise is quite a strong signal about their defense strategy.
I was a target in a hostile workplace situation just a year ago. Our (state) university’s HR department acted swiftly and decisively upon the evidence presented by 20% of our staff. The bully was removed permanently, and we are all the better for it.
My heart breaks that UVA did not choose to act in a similarly professional way–with the employees’ interests at the fore. Shame.
first rate reporting and writing from The Hook.
Why didn’t anyone scream nepotism in 2003 when Genoways hired a former coworker and buddy who had no college degree and brought him all the way from MN as his righthand man? How many academic literary rags are edited by people who never even took a BA or wrote a book, and how many literary editors make 70k? In many ways, Genoways and his intern seem like the only staffers with any real qualifications to run an academic literary rag–literary and scholarly background, publications, and financial savvy.
How likely is it that UVA would ever hire a literary magazine editor with no college degree; this fellow was working there by the grace of his patron, employed by the breath of princes.
If Genoways didn’t support his staff, he could’ve fired them; if they were uncomfortable with the way the office ran, they could have quit. Employment is not a right, neither is office niceness. Waldo was unhappy somehow, and he quit and didn’t make a fuss about it.
An unhappy guy prone to public weeping, estranged from his family, unsteady doing work for which he (on paper at least) was not qualified, evidently too much in debt to quit his job, separated from his girlfriend, and a sufferer from lifelong depression.
Tragic, but not surprising.
Where to start with the errors…
Let me start with the matters of which I have first hand information.
First, at no time did I insinuate that Kevin did anything wrong financially. Reporters calling me were asking me about the fact that the University was doing an audit, and in their questions they suggested that TED was involved in some financial impropriety. My comment at that time was that we welcomed the audit, that if there were any irregularities they would be at least as likely to reflect on Kevin, as managing editor, than on Ted, who did not have day-to-day control of finances, but that we were confident that the audit would show that nothing improper had occurred, either on the part of Ted or on the part of Kevin. In fact, the reason for the audit, as Carol Woods of the University has made clear, is that when control of accounts is being transferred to someone new, and the person who once had control is not available to explain things, an audit is done to be sure that there is nothing amiss. The person who was not available to explain things was Kevin Morrissey. The audit was necessary because Kevin killed himself. That is not the same thing as saying that Kevin did anything wrong either — simply that standard operating procedure is to conduct an audit under those circumstances.
I understand how the readers of this piece might think, given what was written, that I had implied that Kevin was up to no good; in fact, I have never said that.
Second, the inference from the epilogue is that Ted was somehow shirking his duties by not being in the VQR office on August 16 as the issue was going to press. In fact, he had long been scheduled to be on leave until August 20, and he had long been scheduled to be in Vermont at a writers’ conference (and he is there now). In fact, he has continued to be involved in putting this issue to press, albeit by e-mail, and has been helping Carol Wood nail down the last-minute details.
Third, if there was no “suicide note saying nasty things about Ted”, I apologize for the error. The immediate reports — confirmed here — were that Kevin had left a note by his side when he killed himself. We have never seen it, so we do not know what it says. We do know that within hours, Ted was confronted by Kevin’s sister, accusing him of being responsible for Kevin’s death. I may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion in saying that the note left by his side when he committed suicide was a “suicide note,” or that it made the allegations against Ted that Maria Morrissey was making hours later. If those conclusions were wrong, I apologize for the error.
Fourth, the article claims that it was “stranger still” that Ted Genoways was not at Kevin Morrissey’s funeral on August 6. Please remember that on July 30, Maria Morrissey had accused Ted of being responsible for Kevin’s death. On August 3, the blog posts from the Morrissey family began, going public with their accusation that “workplace bullying” by Ted was responsible for Kevin’s death. It would have been TRULY “stranger still” if, under the circumstances, Ted HAD gone to the funeral. It would have been terribly upsetting to the Morrissey family, and Ted had been asked NOT to come to the funeral. He abided by what he was told were the wishes of the family.
As to the allegations of workplace bullying, Ted has consistently said that he is not permitted to talk about internal UVA personnel matters. That is the University policy, and all involved here — Ted and the other VQR employees — are all supposed to be adhering to the policy. Ted has consistently said that he will address the merits of the allegations with the University, not with the media. He will adhere to the policy even when those on the other side are NOT adhering to the policy.
When the Chronicle of Higher Education ran their story last week, it was rife with errors. Carol Wood sent them a detailed response from the University, pointing out the errors; that response does not seem to have made it into the publication.
Without going into details, I will just say that the detailed descriptions of meetings in the week leading up to Kevin’s death contain many errors also. The meeting described on July 26 did not happen, at least not with Ted present. Because he wasn’t there, he cannot comment on what was said. The rest of the description of the week seems to have been taken from someone’s description of meetings at which Ted was not present, or communications not copied to Ted, so he cannot comment on those either.
It has been apparent since the very beginning that the media interest in this case is being driven — indeed, shopped — by people who are on a crusade to vilify Ted Genoways. When this story was being written, Ted got an e-mail from Hawes Spencer, asking for his comment on a series of allegations ranging from financial impropriety, self-publication, improper hiring, bullying, and whether he thought that Maria Morrissey thought that Kevin thought that Ted was a narcissist. (At least I think that’s what the question was getting at.) It was clear to us that Hawes’ e-mail was the product of having been fed a line of nonsense that represented every complaint that anyone had ever had against Ted Genoways.
Let there be no doubt — there is an organized group of people who are determined to shop this story to local and national media. I have spoken to reporters from publications across the country who tell me that they have had this controversy called to their attention — they won’t say by whom — to see if the publication will write a story. And the allegations are always the same. A national newspaper doesn’t pick up the story because its book editor reads the C-Ville Weekly. It picks up the story because someone who wants to vilify Ted Genoways calls them to try to interest them in the story.
I would disagree Mr. Snook. No one would need to shop this story for it to have national interest.
This involves a small publication that soared to national prominemce; a well known editor -Ted Genoway, who has also gained national prominence; and one of the top universities in the nation, which has been in the news all year for major tragedies on it’s grounds, and now involving it’s own faculty. No, this story will reach the masses without anyone’s help. This article is extremely well reserched and written. It will quickly be read nationwide for the above reasons.
“The meeting described on July 26 did not happen, at least not with Ted present.”
That’s a pretty significant discrepancy. I hope that the reporter will be able to confirm or correct.
“Let there be no doubt — there is an organized group of people who are determined to shop this story to local and national media….It picks up the story because someone who wants to vilify Ted Genoways calls them to try to interest them in the story.”
Rather hypocritical. Is there anyone out there who believes that Ted Genoways is not very, very busy behind the scenes trying to spin this story wherever he can?
The more I see, hear and read about this…. the more I wonder how a wrongful death suit against UVA and Genoway would turn out. Especially if fellow workers in the middle of this mess were called to testify on behalf of the plaintiff(s).
I wonder if anyone knows of a situation in which a boss has been charged with contributing to the death of an employee, due to bullying ?
I think Mr. Snook’s long response deserves a response in kind.
First, it’s not an “error” that, based on the quotation attributed to you, people assumed that you “insinuate(d) that Kevin did anything wrong financially.” In fact, it’s a reasonable interpretation of what you said, and because you haven’t claimed to have been misquoted, I think it continues to be reasonable. Still, I will accept your word that you had no intention of implicating Kevin Morrissey in any financial irregularities.
Second, you write that you “may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion in saying that the note left by his side when he committed suicide was a ’suicide note.’” I assume you’re being sarcastic here. No one is arguing that a note left by Kevin Morrissey is not a suicide note, only that said note — which I have seen — does not name or in any way implicate your client. It seems like a big mistake for you to make, and one that wouldn’t call for a sarcastic response, especially in the context of correcting other people’s so-called errors.
A related point: as I understand it, no one on the staff of VQR has ever accused your client of causing the death of Kevin Morrissey. That’s a strawman. The accusations seem to revolve around Genoways’s professional treatment of Morrissey and whether the university properly supervised and, when called upon, adequately intervened.
You write that “all involved here — Ted and the other VQR employees — are all supposed to be adhering” to a policy of confidentiality where the allegations of workplace bullying are concerned. I would simply ask you to double-check with the university on that. I’m not sure it’s true.
You write that “the meeting described on July 26 did not happen, at least not with Ted present”; here, I assume you mean the meeting in which your client allegedly was reprimanded by his superiors. I’ll take your word on that, but ask whether you can confirm that the meeting happened some other day. And why don’t you deny the Hook’s characterization of the meeting? You do deny the “description of the week” that followed, but not of that meeting.
Finally, you attack those who have spoken to the press as being “on a crusade to vilify Ted Genoways.” From my experience, that is not true. The sole motivation has been to tell the truth — a truth you hardly deny in your response.
@Lloyd Snook
“We do know that within hours, Ted was confronted by Kevin’s sister, accusing him of being responsible for Kevin’s death.”
No, Lloyd, you don’t know that. It never happened. I called Ted on the day of Kevin’s death to confirm for myself what I had been told when I called VQR–that Kevin had received an email from Ted that morning insinuating that he had nearly caused the death of a journaist in Mexico. I asked Ted, after introducing myself, if he had in fact sent such an email. Ted said he did, that this journalist had been emailing Kevin for 10 days asking for help (not true), and that “naturally” he “was enraged.” My response is already in the article. AT NO TIME DID I ACCUSE TED OF BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR KEVIN’S DEATH, and I am frankly sick and tired of this lie being repeated. I should think a lawyer might be more circumspect.
What I DID tell Ted is that he was NOT responsible, that Kevin pulled that trigger, but that he “might want to rethink his management style.” Not such an unreasonable request, given that I had been told that Kevin had been bullied at work for three years, had sought help for it for three years, and that the bullying had recently escalated. Ted’s response was that he “should be the least of my worries.” My response to that was that “Well, Kevin’s worries are over.”
And again, on the blog post you mentioned, I said I would like to turn the conversation to workplace bullying in the hope that Ted Genoways might reconsider his management style. Considering that he lost one employee to suicide, one by resignation, and one to medical leave for work-related PTSD in the space of one week, that does not seem like such an unreasonable request. Where do you think I got the idea that Ted is a workplace bully from, anyway? Do you think I just randomly made it up? It’s clear that Kevin was not the only target of Ted’s bullying behavior at VQR. So let’s stop talking about me. IT’S NOT ABOUT ME, Mr. Snook.
As to your claim that Ted was not at the meeting on the morning of July 26th, then why did Nancy Rivers tell me she was there as a third-party witness and describe the meeting to me?
Finally, for all your claims of your client being vilified in the press, you’re doing a fair job of vilifying me and my family with repeated lies and insinuations. Here’s yet another example: “there is an organized group of people who are determined to shop this story to local and national media.”…”A national newspaper doesn’t pick up the story because its book editor reads the C-Ville Weekly. It picks up the story because someone who wants to vilify Ted Genoways calls them to try to interest them in the story.” I have called exactly ZERO reporters. Every single one of them has called me. The Director of the Workplace Bullying Institute has called me. ABC News has called me. The Washington Post has called me. I could go on, but you get the point. This story has clearly touched a national nerve, that is why journalists are calling.
The point of the whole story is that no one should have to choose between a bully boss and being unemployed, especially if they are good at their job, especially if they love their job and (most of) their colleagues, especially in this economy. It’s time for the issue of workplace bullying to come to the attention of lawmakers. Workplace bullying is unjust and it has no place in a just society. And for all those anonymous commenters who say “It happens everywhere,” I can only say that that’s exactly what was said about sexual harassment in the workplace before laws were passed against that. For all those that want to blame the fact that Kevin struggled with depression, I can only say that that is all the more reason that his requests for help should have been responded to in a timely and effective manner.
not offhand, Nancy. but it’s certainly not clear that Genoways contributed to anything…other than to the departed having held for many years a 70k a year job at a top ranked university’s top rated publication without even a bachelor’s degree to qualify him for it.
most of the comments here seem to ignore that they are bullying Genoways…he just lost a friend of ten years or more, with whom he worked intimately and whom he clearly helped and favored, and half the comments are verging on calling him a murderer. do they hope to bully him to some brash act of self-loathing atonement?
at least one other factor more plausibly contributing is the endless morbidity recounted in every issue of VQR. how many stories about hands being chopped off and orphans crying in dyptherial gutters can any person read day in and out before thinking the world a grim place to be.
most appalling in this is the rush of social service suicide junkies hopping on here and posting links and phone numbers for helplines and counselling centers. the deceased was evidently a very smart guy and probably knew how to use a phone book. if those things would have helped him, he probably knew how to find them.
Hi there. I don’t know Ted personally, but I do work in the magazine business, and as an admirer of VQR under his tenure, I’ve been following this story with great interest. I gather that a few of the people who are reading and writing the comments here (and at the earlier C-Ville article) are people who know the principals in some way. You seem mostly to come down in the anti-Genoways camp. So mostly I just have some questions, as someone who lives a long way from Charlottesville.
(1) Were things always this sour between Genoways and the staff? I don’t mean with Morrissey in particular, but with the rest of the staff. When did things start going wrong, and why? Based on the quotes in these articles, one gets the impression that Ted Genoways doesn’t have a friend south of Staten Island. (Other than his solicitor!)
(2) Did Genoways’s attempts at outside fundraising, as embodied by the presence of the mysterious young Levinson-LaBrosse, really seem that problematic to the rest of the staff? Or was it just in the way Genoways handled it? I gathered from a different article that Genoways was genuinely worried (perhaps with good reason) that the changeover in the UVa president’s office would threaten the budget of the journal, and that he would need outside money in order to keep running it the way he had.
(3) When it comes down to it, did the rest of the staff agree with the professional-nonfiction publishing model that Genoways was pursuing at VQR? There’s an especially funny (to me) moment in this piece where the writer darkly compares a $6000 fee (including expenses! for a story from Afghanistan!) to the “$10-$15/page” that the previous editor paid all contributors without exception. As if one could get a story from Afghanistan for $10/page! Obviously the real question here is, should VQR even have been *assigning* stories from Afghanistan, with all the expenses and fees associated with such an enterprise, or should it run more like the traditional literary journal it used to be — a question, of course, that cuts back to the heart of Genoways’s whole tenure at the journal.
Just curious to get the thoughts of those who know.
Good question, NancyDrew. I have never heard of criminal charges being placed in an employer-employee relationship. There have however been criminal charges in the cases of juveniles who have committed suicide after being subjected to criminal harassment, civil rights violations, stalking and/or statutory rape.
These situations, in one form or another, exist everywhere. I once worked for a sheriff who bullied several people into resigning. In one particular case, the employee had become a workman’s compensation liability after being injured in a verious serious courtroom battle. They wanted him gone, the sooner the better. They made his life so miserable that he resigned just a few days before actually becoming vested in the city retirement program. He couldn’t even force himself to work that few extra days, that’s how bad the bullying was.
Is LLoyd Snook charging Ted Genoways for the time he spends commenting on internet threads?
Nice way to bill the hour.
” as someone who lives a long way from Charlottesville.” I guess Bill just proved my point Mr. Snook.
Fascinating, I’ve never seen a lawyer in a case comment like this, before long he is going to need a lawyer.
Just finished the article and believs this is probably one of the best pieces you have ever published. I hope someone in the UVa hierachy investigates the hiring of Alana Levinson-Labrosse. Can anyone on here explain what exactly qualified this 24 year old with a MA in education to go from an intern to a hired staffer with the job title “assistant editor and development manager”? If she were anyone else and went through UVa’s absurdly look application process, I doubt her qualifications would have even gotten her an interview with any of the development offices at UVa. Also, giving millions in donations herself hardly qualifies her to hold a position in development.
Oops, should have read “absurdly long application process” in my last post.
an MA is an advanced degree and generally means a BA also. the deceased didn’t even have a BA. how would he have done in the absurdly long application process. come to think of it, she may have been the only VQR staffer with an advanced degree of any kind. and this at a top ranked research oriented PhD English factory.
Does Genoways see any irony at all in his claim that Morrissey’s “demeanor, to my mind, was often unacceptable for the workplace” (from Genoways’ email) when apparently Genoways’s own demeanor (screaming at employees, inventing humiliating punishments that deviate from university policy) was unacceptable itself? Does he just not see that?
@after a many summer-”an MA is an advanced degree and generally means a BA also.” Ya know, I pretty sure most people on here knew that already, but thanks for clearing that up
Speaking as someone who holds an MA, does this mean that I am qualified for the job, too? You fail to explain to any degree how having an MA in education made her more qualified for this job than anyone else in this town with an advanced degree.
As far as the deceased goes, he had years of experience which the young woman does not appear to do so.
genoways’ making the magazine a national award winning publication also deviated from the university’s policy of VQR being, for 90 years prior to genoways’ management of it, a xerox and staples undergrad ‘zine read in bathroom stalls all over cville and not beyond. he must have been doing something right. maybe tougher and demanding and aggressive management meant a better product.
@after many a summer:
Genoways holds both an MA and an MFA (the latter considered a terminal degree in creative writing). So does associate editor Sheila McMillen. Associate editor Molly Minturn holds an MFA (not sure about an MA).
This is simply not true, Lloyd. We employees of VQR have been told repeatedly by Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs Carol Wood that there are no strictures whatsoever on our ability to speak freely. Although we have chosen not to avail ourselves fully of that right, we’ve been assured that we possess it. If you can cite any university policy to the contrary, I’m sure we’d all find that very interesting.
Most people I know who work at UVa including administration assistants and even a receptionist who works in the hospital hold advanced degrees. Therefore, I fail to see how Ms. Levinson-Labrosse’s MA in education makes her special or automatically qualifies her for the position she holds.
The important point is- did the University follow proper procedures when she was hired. Given the thoroughness of the Hook’s reporting I am sure they are checking into this. Another first rate piece of investigative journalism by Dave McNair and the Hook.
after many a summer writes, “maybe tougher and demanding and aggressive management meant a better product.”
maybe. or maybe spending the $800,000 kitty that the previous editor left the journal with down to $305,000 led to a “better product.” and since the rise in the quality of the journal seems to have had everything to do with the kinds of (expensive) material VQR began to publish, I think it would be hard, aftermanyasummer, to argue that the rise in quality had anything to do with an “aggressive” approach to office management.
merely suggesting that someone with an MA might be on paper more qualified than someone without even a BA. a lot of uva classifieds say simply ‘advanced degree required’. was the departed hired by proper procedures, and a waiver for the advanced degree. seems if genoways had latitude to make a good choice and hire the departed, uva would give him the same trust and latitude in hiring her.
you really are ganging up on genoways and his intern. seems they made a good magazine.
seems this terrible tragedy will put an end to VQR as he made it and as we now admire it.
i need to go back and re read murdock, luce, sulzberger bios and re watch citizen cane and devil wears prada before i reply. investment equals critical acclaim. got it.
@after many a summer: Your continual harping on paper degrees speaks volumes about your own personal insecurities, and doesn’t reflect on Morrissey one bit.
Everyone agrees that Morrissey was an extremely talented and dedicated editor. He was paid to do his job, not to hold a diploma. I’ve edited for an Ivy League journal, sans undergraduate degree.
“seems if genoways had latitude to make a good choice and hire the departed, uva would give him the same trust and latitude in hiring her.”
Did you read the article? It says, “[The hiring] occured without the usual advertisement and competition to ensure compliance with equal-opportunity law.”
BTW, how do you know that Morrissey’s position required an advanced degree or any degree at all, much less that said requirement was wavied?
after, you’re giving “the intern” a LOT of credit….”seems they made a good magazine”…THEY? she’s been with the journal for less than a year. why don’t you suggest that the ENTIRE STAFF made a good magazine, particularly the ones who’ve been there all along?
after, why do you keep bringing up that the deceased did not have a degree? Why are you suggesting that there is some sort of personal vendetta against Garroways or his intern when there are many (legitimate) unanswered questions as to way this woman was hired and if it even followed proper procedures?
FWIW, I don’t know any of these people, and I would be asking these questions of regardless who was involved.
he was awesome and a sweet and funny guy. i couldn’t care less about degree. but he got the job without it because genoways trusted him. and the intern, who had several degrees, is being slandered for being unqualified (by comparison?), even though she like most of the staff holds an MA. why is she not under the protective aegis/pass of genoways’ trust? most of the commenters here seem to just hate her because she’s pretty, young, rich, and a woman. waldo is handsome young rich and a guy, but i and everyone else here like him and his BA just fine.
of course edited-for is not the same as edited, just sayin’.
@hoolarious-Yeah, I noticed that. . . According to the article, she arrived in Nov. 2009.
I also don’t understand why the fact that the VQR won all these awards has to do with possible questions of mis-management and the claims that bullying may have taken place.
I don’t think UVA/Mr. Snook(unfortunate moniker for a lawyer, that - straight out of Dickens) will be able to whitewash this, try as they might.
I hope that something positive might come out of all of this - at least at UVA, if not on a wider scale. Respect for those lower on the totem-pole, perhaps - and an increased awareness of(and lower tolerance for) workplace bullying? As someone who once suffered from this(albeit on a lesser scale), I can tell you it’s extremely unpleasant and stressful.
Ted Genoways’ editing career is over - that much seems clear.
My sympathies to Kevin Morrissey and his family.
“and the intern, who had several degrees, is being slandered for being unqualified (by comparison?), even though she like most of the staff holds an MA. why is she not under the protective aegis/pass of genoways’ trust? ”
Are you not understanding? How does the fact that she has an MA in education make her any more qualified than anyone else who holds an MA- myself included? (BTW, asking these questions is not ’slandering’ her.) Her job title is ‘associate editor and development manager’. Isn’t it reasonable to ask WHAT exactly made her qualified for that position (besides her MA which you keep harping about] ESP. in light of the fact that per the article, “[The hiring] occured without the usual advertisement and competition to ensure compliance with equal-opportunity law.”
Waldo is rich? I think he’ll be elated to learn that. I’m not aware that he has personally made any 1.5 million dollar gifts to the university as a 23-year old. Yes, that’s right: a 23-year old donating 1.5 million of her own money to the university — that gift came from her, not from her daddy.
Whatever Waldo’s riches consist of, I don’t think they’re in the same ballpark as Ms. Levinson-Labrosse.
oh. just that VQR was canary-cage liner before genoways took it over, imported the departed, and started running it his way and winning national awards. that’s all for me. sorry to intrude. please give the intern a break.
‘please give the intern a break.’-If by give her a break you mean not asking questions about her hiring, then no, I won’t.
I want to make it clear again that I don’t know this woman. I have nothing personal against her. I (and others) are asking legitimate questions.
No one on here is making personal insults or catty suggestions. Pointing that she has only worked there since Nov. 2009 is not ’slandering’ her-it’s a fact.
I worked with Kevin Morrissey for many years in two different workplaces. He struggled with his own demons, but he was the most scrupulously honest person I have ever known. Period. He was also extremely intelligent, creative, and kind. To suggest that he wasn’t qualified to do his job because he lacked a degree is laughable. To suggest that his sad death involved his own financial impropriety is craven.
@aftermanyasummer– I think degrees are not so much the issue as experience in the field. Everyone else at the VQR had a track record of working in publishing. And it seems that Ms. Levinson-Labrosse did not have the equivalent experience.
Thank you, art. That was the point I was trying to make. FWIW, I have worked in both fields and in my experience at least, experience and a proven track record certainly does count over degrees.
It’s not unreasonable to ask these questions nor does it mean that there is a personal vendetta at work. Indeed, if ‘after’ truly feels that this woman is qualified, then what’s the problem with wanting answers to these questions?
after, maybe if your “intrusion” was in any way well-thought-out, you wouldn’t be getting so much pushback. after all, you wrote “Genoways and his intern seem like the only staffers with any real qualifications to run an academic literary rag–literary and scholarly background, publications, and financial savvy.”
you have yet to explain how Levinson-Labrosse, to whom you refer as “the intern” but who apparently had two titles at the journal, neither of which was “intern,” had “real qualifications” to run an academic journal and what her scholarly background was that qualified her, what publications she had that qualified her, and what her financial savvy consisted of (besides having a lot of money herself). you elevate her to Genoways’ level in terms of qualifications without providing any evidence for that elevation, beyond pointing out that she has an M.A. but omitting to acknowledge that it’s in English Ed, a field that, believe me, is NOT an asset for someone wanting to get into literary editing.
so, to recap, why exactly are you surprised that your arguments are not bowling us over?
And let’s not forget this gem, “most of the commenters here seem to just hate her because she’s pretty, young, rich, and a woman.”
People here are so funny to drag the “intern” into all this.
Frankly, it’s not even slightly different than what Genoways is being accused of.
Oh wait, it is different…he did it face-to-face…you cowards are sliming her anonomously on a comment board.
I don’t know any of these people, but I for sure don’t want to know any of you.
@nsj-Actually, the ‘intern’ was mentioned in the article so that’s why she is being discussed.
BTW, I don’t see you using your real name here, either.
“I don’t know any of these people, but I for sure don’t want to know any of you.”
Yeah, people that read an article and ask critical questions that were raised in it are really awful. . . If you don’t know any of these people, then why do the questions about the intern bother you so much? Also, while you are at it, please give an example where she is being ’slimed’ as you so eloquently put it.
After, an intern that donates 1.5 million then lands a job with a title, has an office in her bosses office and is ONLY 24 years old, doubtfully will be given any breaks unless you can prove she is a child prodigy…then we can all throw wide eye awe at the wonderful degrees she holds. “[The hiring] occured without the usual advertisement and competition to ensure compliance with equal-opportunity law.”
Snook, I have never seen a lawyer jump to the defense of a client on a blog. Trying to discredit the journalist or the article seems terribly unprofessional.
I encourage Maria Morrissey to continue her new work against workplace bullying and if she can make a dent at UVA, she will have cracked one of the toughest nuts in the United States. Bullying is commonplace there. That’s the culture and it starts at the top. I worked in two jobs at UVA, on both the academic and medical center sides, and observed first-hand the bullying. I experienced it myself in both positions, which is why I left Charlottesville, at great financial expense to myself, as well as leaving wonderful friendships.
Power is protected in this university that has such a high opinion of itself. Mistakes by people in power are never admitted and because there are so few professional jobs in Charlottesville outside the university, UVA can buy people off, as they did Ms. Pugh. While I use that term “buy people off,” I use it with compasson and understanding because the reality is, in a place as isolated as Charlottesville, where faculty spouses are part of a very rich pool of smart and talented Central Virginians, UVA can make a person’s life very difficult. I personally saw someone else who’d been bullied by someone at the top of one of UVA’s biggest organizations, be offered another job by the University — after threatening to sue. While this person was concerned that their children would think they didn’t have integrity if they didn’t fight, they also knew that they would be unemployed if they didn’t take the job UVA offered and promise not to sue. Particularly when you’re the family’s main breadwinner, reality has to take the front seat in these decisions.
UVA is also indirectly supported in its bullying workplace culture by Virginia’s “employment-at-will” laws. Another UVA colleague of mine was let go for no reason at all. A local attorney told this person that under Virginia law, UVA could legally fire an employee if they didn’t like that person’s hair color that day. Which makes it easy, if you’re an organization so inclined, to push those boundaries to the limit.
I implore the media, in looking at this story, to broaden the scope of investigation to exploring bullying at UVA. It is a brutal and cruel place to be a staff member. (I don’t know how it is for faculty.) For years, domination of the employment market has allowed it — ironically, an institution of higher learning, a proud product of the Enlightenment, which should be enlightened in its employment practices — to cover up the damage its culture does to the people in its employ.
After -”How likely is it that UVA would ever hire a literary magazine editor with no college degree; this fellow was working there by the grace of his patron, employed by the breath of princes.” Believe it or not, there are a great many TALENTED people out there that do not hold advanced degrees that are employed for their talents NOT “by the breath of princes.” That’s a class society statement at it’s best.
Just want to throw it out there but many people in publishing do not have college degrees. Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue-does not. Granted, Vogue is not a literary magazine but it is an important publication, and Wintour is one of the most important and influential people in the publishing world.
yes, but if uva charges a quarter of a million to grant a BA+MA, it has to at least pretend those degrees have market value. one of the ways it does this is by demanding degrees for a lot of positions that would seem not to need them. clerisy not aristocracy. this is a class society. all societies are class societies. if i weren’t rich and pretty i’d starve.
after, I truly don’t know what you mean by that post esp. that last sentence, “if i weren’t rich and pretty i’d starve.” (Seriously, what does this have to with the article?)
A lot of entry-level jobs require degrees. However, some positions, even senior positions, do not. All I did was mention that in the publishing world, there are examples of people at the top of their game without degrees esp. those aged 50 and over which is an age group Morrisey and Anna Wintour belong to.
After - “it has to at least pretend those degrees have market value” without pretending, the university couldn’t even substantiate it’s own existence. “if i weren’t rich and pretty i’d starve.” so are you saying that you have an intelligence level that could not land you a job? Glad to see that your education has given you what they were intended to do - LEARN TO THINK. I hope that you have either obtained that advanced degree or are currently working on one. You will need it after your looks fade and they all do with time…As far as all societies being a class system, I think that is something our forefathers fought against for our country.
better reread your Veblen, guy. think VQR or Vogue’s next editorial hire will be me and my GED, or a an out of work PhD. unemployment is 13% in publishing, BLS. i think you are all prejudging genoways and maligning the intern. i think you are mostly as bullying here as you say genoways was there.
@aftermanyasummer - are you the “intern”?
here at the quiet limit of the world…
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man–
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d
To his great heart none other than a God!
first thing i thought of when i heard about it; not those lines, but the rest.
I graduated from UVa in 2004 and am relatively active in alumni associations/circles, and I must say I have never heard of the VQR. The friends I have asked haven’t either. I doubt many have heard of it.
Excuse my ignorance, as I was not an English major…but what is it’s role in the University and what does it add to the educational experience of the students?
BTW, I recently finished my MA in Economics…does that mean I am qualified to be “Development Manager” of anything? Sadly, probably not, although that would probably change if I gave my employer millions of dollars.
@ roxyfan
just what I was wondering
@JJ Malloy - what’s “it’s” role? You just answered your own question - so I won’t. Fail.
@The dead swan - make me a deal, and make it straight. Bingo!
it adds clique-ish prestige, for those who care about highly political semi literary writing
sometimes it publishes faculty, helping them with their tenure committee
on occasion, professors assign articles from it to make student feel the world suffering out there
and sometimes it hires echols scholars and gives them a chance and some valuable work experience.
maybe we ’should ju’st ’simplify the rule ’so an apo’strophe always precede’s an s. might ’save ’some ca’sh otherwi’se blown on lit journal’s.
@Virginia Plain - Agreed that After = Intern. Glad someone else caught on to that.
If after is the intern, then she isn’t doing much to support her case that she was hired soley on merit and qualifications.
It has been known for a long time by many that Ted Genoways is merely an operator in charge of expanding the Ted Franchise, by any means necessary. It kind of boggles the mind that the franchise was taken as far as it did before the lid blew off - the cataclysmic event of Kevin Morrissey’s death. Until then he was given an inexplicable amount of leeway. Maybe because transgressive behavior was mistaken for some kind of genius? Or maybe because his ‘genius’ was his uncanny ability to return favors to the right people? A lot of money was thrown around to get the reporting from dangerous places that put VQR on the national award map. Maybe Mr. Genoways liked to live vicariously.
But the facts are the facts; this is not a ‘he says, she says’ scenario, despite feeble and unusual attempts by his lawyer to enter the public discussion and ’set the record straight’. While simultaneously admonishing everyone it is a “private employee issue”? Yeah right. This tragedy has become of public significance, because Ted Genoways is a high profile poster child for the kind of mismanagement and power abuse that occurs at institutions like UVA all the time; cronyism, conflicts of interest (like donors working at the very place they endowed), overpaid managers (denying pay raises to others), general faculty working half the time the staff does, unreasonable or inconsistent demand to staff, not giving credit or refusal to share in credit, etc. Let the last stone be overturned, we should and will demand profound changes in policy from UVA.
@ Kiki
Indeed.
truthwillhappen-Thanks for pointing out that having a donor work at the places they endow-esp. as a ‘development manager’ no less- is a major conflict of interest. (Indeed, even the article points this out.)
If pointing that out is anyone’s defination of ‘bullying’ then please explain how. . .