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Of Human Bondage

University Diaries has already written about the outrageously mismanaged Chicago State University, with its thieving presidents and desperate faculty and students.

Really desperate faculty. They recently begged the governor to fire the school’s entire board of trustees, in order to stop the trustees from appointing another putrid president. The governor ignored them.

But whatever else might be wrong with the new guy, he did do some auditing.

*******************************

He found out that a local politician has run off with one of CSU’s statues.

Officials from Chicago State University stopped just short of accusing State Representative Monique Davis of statue theft.

Davis, who recently made headlines because she allegedly owes $500,000 in back rent to the Chicago Board of Education, has in her possession a $25,000 statue of an African slave that belongs to Chicago State University.

And she’s refusing to give back the artwork, the Sun-Times’ Michael Sneed reports.

Chicago State University Police Chief Ronnie Watson tried to collect the 400-pound bronze entitled “Defiance,” but, perhaps poetically, Davis refused to relinquish the rendering of a slave girl in shackles with whip marks on her back.

… CSU originally purchased the statue to adorn its financial aid center. They used state funds that were set aside for the school.

But that doesn’t explain how Davis ended up with the bronze. She can’t explain it either, or, rather, she declined to explain it to Sneed.

… Newly installed president Wayne Watson, who is trying to revamp the school’s management procedures, uncovered the missing statue during a financial audit.

As far as UD can make out from reading a variety of accounts of this matter, Davis simply loves the statue. She loves it madly. She loves to look at it in her office. She has bonded with it and feels it belongs to her.

Margaret Soltan, January 23, 2010 9:46AM
Posted in: kind of a little weird

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2 Responses to “Of Human Bondage”

  1. Alex TB Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 8:44AM

    What a weird, twisted story. I hope that statue gets brought back to its rightful place; thanks for the info.

  2. University Diaries » I say shut the accreditors down. Says:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 6:15PM

    […] covered scads of scandals at two of them: Chicago State and Texas Southern. … Nearly everyone considers it scandalous when poor kids are shunted into […]

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