If you’re a just-hired university president, you want to go easy on the confidentiality agreements. As the new leader of Virginia Commonwealth University is discovering, it makes people wonder what you’re hiding.
Remember the brief tenure of Brian Johnson at Maryland’s Montgomery College?
Faculty members allege that Johnson has directed administrators not to talk to college trustees and that information is “routinely censored.” Several employees say they believe that listening devices have been planted in offices and meeting rooms, according to the report.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:47AM
I have a problem with using university employees as babysitters, but as far as whether he wants a chief of staff or some other flunkie? Who cares? I also think that the whole charade of creating some make-work position for presidential spouses should end. If the first ladies or first dudes are willing to do the whole presidential spouse thing and attend scores of rubbery scrambled egg breakfasts and rubber chicken lunches, simply give them a salary of 1/3 of the president’s, up to some reasonable maximum.
November 25th, 2010 at 12:33AM
1) Theoretically, using university employees as babysitters should count as a perk. So is hiring a spouse as a university employee. All this should be reviewed and approved by the Board and officially reported somewhere.
2) The University may have a legal obligation to follow free-speech guidelines for students and employees. So confidentiality agreements should be reviewed by the University’s legal counsel and approved by the Board. Also, many nonprofits are subject to whistleblower laws (to protect whistleblowers), so this is another reason to get a legal opinion and Board approval.
Of course, just because something has been reviewed and approved by lawyers and the Board, and is legal, doesn’t necessarily make it right. It has to pass a smell test.
None of this passes the smell test for me.
Although it’s quaint to think that the actions of Presidents and Boards should be motivated by ethics or at least propriety, I don’t think there’s any reason to assume this, in real life. For instance, if a President does something wrong and is fired, he’ll get a small mountain of money. So his motivation is focused on legality. He doesn’t want to commit a felony, to land in jail and to forego the pot of gold waiting at the end of the firing rainbow.
The Board’s motivation is to avoid bad publicity. This is why they make vacuous announcements and have phoney investigations. The point of having an investigation is not to FIND something, but to COVER IT UP.