UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS UNDER FIRE IN 2006

Just as I was getting ready to post an article following up on Dr. Paddy Ladd’s comment that Nine University Presidents have been fired or resigned in 2006 following campus unrest, NO Confidence votes by Faculty, or financial misdealing, I discovered through DeafRead that one blogger had just followed up: TentCityUK
Therefore, I’ll just follow TentCity UK up with a brief update.

It turns out that there have been more than just these nine presidents so far in 2006 who have been removed or resigned from their positions.

Manny M. Aragon resigned as president of New Mexico Highlands University and Karl E. Burgher resigned as president of the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

Louis Caldera, a son of Mexican immigrants who rose to become U.S. secretary of the Army, has resigned as president of the University of New Mexico, amid apparent friction with its Board of Regents.

Western Michigan University’s Board of Trustees in august fired Judith I. Bailey, the university’s president since June 2003, for what it called a breach of contract and unsatisfactory performance. It cited her inability to correct dipping enrollment, budget deficits, and strained relations with the faculty and the local community. ….Ms. Bailey irked faculty members in recent months. She led a plan to reduce graduate programs that sparked widespread criticism by professors and students, who argued that she had acted without adequately consulting them. The resulting squabble led to the resignation of the university’s provost.

Of particular interest to me this morning was an article about the saga that ensued at Harvard University which lead to it’s President’s resignation. For those of you who doubt the power of a united faculty’s vote of NO CONFIDENCE, read on:

“The president managed to offend professors early on by suggesting that they spend more time on scholarly work and less on outside activities that he deemed frivolous. One of his targets was Cornel West, a prominent professor of Afro-American studies, who was so offended when the president questioned the wisdom of a hip-hop recording he had made that he left for Princeton University.

In January 2005, Mr. Summers outraged professors when he publicly posited that perhaps relatively few women worked in science and mathematics because women lack the innate ability to achieve in those fields. The remarks prompted the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to pass an unprecedented no-confidence vote in his leadership last March.

Mr. Summers apologized over and over for his remarks about women, and Harvard’s seven-member governing board stood by him throughout the controversy. He acknowledges now that he had hoped to repair the damage he had done.

“I worked very hard over the last year to build bridges to meet members of the faculty partway on issues of concern, on issues of control,” Mr. Summers told reporters last week.

But Mr. Summers had ruffled faculty feathers in other ways. He suggested that professors were giving students too many A’s, and he argued that Harvard should allow military recruiters onto the campus.

Then, in January, the faculty revolted again when William C. Kirby, the respected dean of arts and sciences, resigned after being criticized by Mr. Summers for the slow pace of curriculum reform at the university. Professors protested that the resignation indicated more about the president’s mismanagement than about any problems with Mr. Kirby’s performance.

Early in February, at a meeting of the Faculty Council, professors of arts and sciences told Mr. Summers that they planned to hold another no-confidence vote later in the month. At that meeting, professors say, no one spoke in support of the president.”

~ by Kenneth Samson on October 24, 2006.