The recent leadership crisis at the University of Tennessee has been a great deal like the governance problems and financial excesses we've all read about in the corporate world.

I spent a good part of my professional life working on turnarounds of HMOs that were on the ropes. And in that kind of situation, the tendency is to want to go in and fire everybody. But I don't believe that's the answer in this case. The recent problems with UT were based on leadership and a culture of isolation that allowed unrestrained and inappropriate spending to go on unchecked.

Rather than spending time throwing rocks and casting blame, the UT Board of Trustees and I tried to come up with a sensible plan to restore public trust and improve accountability.

We've moved quickly to bring back retired former UT president Joe Johnson to help stabilize the UT system, and I'm grateful to have his commitment and stewardship at such a critical time. The Board of Trustees has also agreed to a completely open, public presidential search process, and is moving to reform its own governance structure to provide better oversight.

These moves, I think, are absolutely necessary to assure that UT can govern itself credibly and spend money wisely. But there's more to do at UT than simply to repair its fiscal image.

Tennessee needs to invest more in its higher education system, and I still have the goal of pushing UT into the top tier of public research and academic institutions in this country. I know that before I can convince anyone to do that, we will have to restore public confidence in the university and its leaders. We will have to restore the trust of faculty, staff, students and parents, alumni and potential private partners and donors. But then we have to move forward from there.

UT has a huge role to play in the state’s economic development. You only have to look as far as North Carolina to see what effect a top-flight research university can do for the state. I don't think anyone can say UT is a top-tier university now. But it could be, and it could do a lot for this state if it were.

Tennessee’s new lottery conceivably will help keep some of our brightest students here. But we will need to improve faculty salaries in order to attract and retain top academic staff. And we need to take advantage of the potential research partnerships that could push UT into the top tier of public universities in the country.

For example, we’ve got the largest science research experiment in the world going on in Tennessee - the Neutron Spallation Project - and we ought to parley that into some research and teaching partnerships in the sciences at UT. Those kinds of relationships create new technologies, new processes and, ultimately, new cutting-edge businesses.

As chairman of the UT Board of Trustees, I’m committed to assuring that UT gets back on a sound course in its management, its finances and in its pursuit of excellence, and I believe the rest of the Board is as well. I believe that an inclusive, public selection process for a new President, together with a better-informed and involved Board, will help restore confidence in the new leadership team there.

Yes, the past period of questionable spending will certainly put a short-term chill on donations to the university. A lot of donors will say ‘I’m going to take a pass on that until they get their act together.’ That’s understandable, but I think it will pass.

People want to invest in success, and when we have some successes to show, they’ll come back and this crisis will all seem like it was just a bad dream.