College president channels corporate brethren sans zeros
by Miki SaxonFall semester started and CandidProf is buried, but he’ll return next week with more (horror?) stories from the trenches of higher education.
The headline read Iowa Central president receives $400K for resignation, complete with picture.
At a glance, the most noticeable thing was the low number; it needed a few more zeroes to pass as par-for-the-course business practice.
Otherwise, the story follows a familiar pattern
- Prez in office for 13 years;
- Prez does unprez-like stuff—picture sent to newspaper;
- Board member knows about picture, but says Prez “…had done nothing improper and the matter wasn’t deserving of the board’s attention;”
- Prez “initially denied knowing anything about the photo or any recent boat outings with young people.”
- When told a Board member already knew, Prez changes his tune and “acknowledged the photo’s authenticity. He said he had done nothing illegal or improper.”
- Board “met for eight minutes and agreed, without discussion…” to pony up “$200,000 in January 2009 and $200,000 in January 2010.”
- When asked why there was no discussion, a trustee said, “It wasn’t like he killed somebody or stole money, so where we’d end up court was ‘who knows.”’
Three days before the picture was taken Prez signed a new contract including “a 33 percent increase in his annual retention bonus, raising it to $15,000 per year; $156,000 annual salary; a $27,960 stipend toward the purchase of an annuity; a $13,200 annual car allowance in addition to mileage payments; and an expense account worth $7,250.”
Not the first time Prez was in trouble, he was indicted in 2002 “on charges of felonious misconduct in office, falsification of public records and tampering with public records. The charges grew out of an investigation into student athletes being awarded false grades… The charges were deferred under an agreement in which he accepted responsibility for the transcript fraud.” Three other men involved wee found guilty, but kept their jobs.”
What are the take-away lessons here?
- When stuff surfaces say it doesn’t really matter.
- Lie. When asked about stuff deny it happened.
- When faced with irrefutable proof say nothing illegal happened and/or it doesn’t matter.
- Accept responsibility, but never admit guilt.
- Take the buyout (someone else will hire you).
BTW, the school in the article is Iowa Central Community College—a school very similar to the one at which CandidProf teaches.
Last week CandidProf talked about the difficulties teaching students with disabilities and what he and other Profs do with no additional remuneration. J
Is something out of kilter here or is it just me?
(Hat tip to Biz Levity for the lead to this story.)
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Image credit: grceva CC license
September 5th, 2008 at 6:11 am
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