Notes on a Scandal, Part III: Why This Matters

If I were a journalist or a scholar who studies higher education (as boy-Chancellor and former Goodwin roommate Brian Noland claims to be), I’d write a piece on this, and make a couple points. First:

This is probably the first time that a high-profile university presidency has been converted into a political patronage job. This is the second consecutive hiring of WVU’s president based on politics instead of merit. Hardesty’s and Garrison’s partisans claim otherwise, of course, but everyone in the national higher-education community and in the state’s political circles knows the truth of the matter. So, the next time WVU is looking for a president, everyone will simply assume that Garrison’s successor will also be a political pick — and that assumption will likely be self-fulfilling.

Oh, come on HK, why is this such a big deal? Well, this phenomenon is worth writing about because it’s fundamentally different from the way the rest of the world selects its academic leaders. Most of the time, major schools look for people who have already established themselves at the top of higher ed. Occasionally, they depart from that model and choose people who have superstar records of leadership and achievement in other areas. But to my knowledge, no significant university has ever made such a plain declaration that its presidency is just one more political plum.

In other words, WVU’s presidency has moved out of the category of positions that includes, say, the presidency of Pitt or Rutgers, and into the “Commissioner” class of jobs — e.g., Commissioner of Highways, Commissioner of Racing, Public Service Commissioner (no offense to the fine, politically connected people who currently hold those titles). That’s unprecedented. We’re now the only state in the country that routinely fills its top university presidency just like any other state government job.

What are the consequences of that shift? Well, for one, we’re going to have a hard time from now on getting good candidates to apply for WVU’s top job. No hot prospect on the national college-president market is going to damage his reputation by playing punching-bag for the next David Hardesty or Mike Garrison.

And next time around, potential candidates will know that’s exactly what they’d be doing.

Notes on a Scandal, Part II: See No Evil

This really bears repeating: so much for investigative reporting. Or reporting at all. The Gazette really let us down.

Since Ned Chilton’s day, the Gazette has been the one voice in the state that could be counted on to speak truth to power. I guess it was too much to expect that noble tradition to continue when a Chilton is in on the scam. Betty just wasn’t going to have the integrity of a board she sits on questioned in her own paper — even if that board was enabling a scam the likes of which West Virginia hasn’t seen since the Arch Moore days.

All you crooked political operators take note: If you want foolproof insurance against a Gazette expose, just put Betty on your board. That was the hope when she was appointed, and it worked to perfection.

Notes on a Scandal, Part I

To no one’s surprise (not even the commenters who feigned shock when I said the search was rigged), Mike Garrison’s coronation last month went off with barely a hitch. I say “barely” because there was that three-hour secret session before the Board voted publicly. I don’t think that was part of the plan. The emergency HEPC meeting (scheduled so the Commission could rubber-stamp the Garrison selection before anyone could raise a fuss with them) was set for 11:00, and the Board ended up not voting until around 12:30. I imagine we’ll never find out what took so long.

Who came up with the euphemism “executive session” as a polite term for “secret meeting”?

The so-called “vote” played out exactly like the rest of the search: The real decision was made in complete secrecy. But because Steve Goodwin came out in public to tell us what he’d decided, we were supposed to marvel at how open and transparent the process was. Well glory.

If you watched the live webcast of the Board meeting, you saw how perfect the imagery was. The session started off in a big meeting room with cameras and lots of spectator seats and a pretty board table at the front. But when it came time to actually make the decision, the Board got up and went into the back room. Literally. Behind the board table was a door, and behind the door was the back room. And it was in that back room where the Board went to spend three hours preparing for a five-minute public session and a 16-1 vote. So when we people who aren’t afraid to call a spade a fucking shovel say this thing was all back-room politics, we’re right in more ways than one.

Say it with me:

Picking a president in secret is no way to run a taxpayer-funded university.

Picking a president in secret is no way to run a taxpayer-funded university.

Picking a president in secret is no way to run a taxpayer-funded university.

Especially a university that, according to Garrison, is going to be a lot more taxpayer-funded in the near future.