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October 29, 2009, 03:00 PM ET
Aiming High?
What do fallen university leaders and felines have in common? Apparently, they both land on their feet. One need look no further than James L. Oblinger, the ex-chancellor of North Carolina State who resigned over the Mary Easley hiring scandal, and Richard Herman, the ex-chancellor of the University of Illinois whose fall resulted from an admissions scandal. Both are finalists in the search for a new president of New Mexico State University, Lesboprof observes in her latest post.
She notes, however, that fallen female university chiefs may be less fortunate than their male counterparts: "While the boys may move laterally or even move up, looks like the women might have to take a little step down," she writes, citing the case of the controversial ex-president of the University of Colorado, Elizabeth Hoffman, as an example (Hoffman became the provost at Iowa State University after her departure from CU).
Still, Lesboprof takes comfort in the knowledge that the bar for leadership jobs in academe seems to be lower than she thought:
Yep, in some cynical way, I am encouraged by the lower bar these stories suggest. It becomes a little more feasible for me to become a President or Chancellor. Obviously, I would aim to be better than these feckless few, but it is good to know a mistake or two wouldn't cost me a future in academic leadership. And thanks to these stories, I know behaviors I want to avoid. ...
Categories: Administrative-hiring
Comments
1. samueloulrey - November 05, 2009 at 03:00 pm
OTOH, I've seen university management blatantly guilty of long-running federal felony violations of the Privacy Act "voluntarily resign" and land as university president elsewhere within the week, i.e. they failed upward.
The impression I get is that as long as you commit your felonies within a certain subset of the forms of courtesy the boundaries of which the rest of the world is not privy to (as opposed to, e.g. going postal on the quad), once you're in the university or government executive club you've got immunity. Your ill-gotten gains will not be forfeited, and you will not spend a single minute in a holding room, let alone behind the defense table in court, or face actual time in prison. If anything, the prosecutors will zip into action to defend you against any action by the grand jury.
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