As Adele Says: Rumor Has It

Word on the street is that Sherri MacCheyne is looking for a new job. She just graduated with some sort of degree, so maybe it’s time for her to move on. Or, maybe it’s just difficult for her to walk around a campus filled with people who know that she would sell them out sooner than look at them. I’ve always believed in the possibility of a fresh start. I’m sure there are any number of people who would be willing to give her a recommendation – I would hope after all she’s done for Paul Mason he at least has the dignity to serve as a reference.

It is going to have an impact on the shape of leadership at UNCG, however because Sherri was selected to participate in UNCG’s LeadershipInstitute, something others had wanted to have the benefit of but were told they couldn’t because of their SPA status, and now, she might not even be around to finish it. Sherri is an SPA employee as well, but, as we all know by now, she’s special.

Brady’s take on the Leadership Institute is that its purpose is, “to promote a culture of excellence and inclusion.” I think we can all get behind those values and I’d suggest that maybe Brady should consider going through the program during her year off with full pay. I don’t think she’ll be doing any more leading anytime soon, but it might help her to understand so much of what she has been experiencing over the last six years at UNCG. Her final project could be a letter of apology.

It’s not all bad news though, Brady has promised that there will be a letter indicating that no further property acquisition outside of the boundaries outlined in the 2010 Revised Vision Plan.

Although I know it can be a bit difficult to get excited about the promise of a forthcoming letter indicating that UNCG might not do any more damage than it already planned to do, but we have to consider how low the bar has been set. Brady also will most likely not kill or eat anybody prior to her retirement either. So, there’s that.

On another note, I sent my previous post regarding Funk’s contact with two hiring scandals on to his offices. Several hours later a comment appeared suggesting that I had mischaracterized the issue at FSU and that the piece I wrote did not constitute particularly stellar journalism. So as to not misrepresent what the commenter wrote, I reproduce it here in its entirety:

As far as the FSU search, a pretty gross mischaracterization. Funk emailed the board warning them they were conducting a "sham" search and urged them to vote yes or no on Thrasher without the façade of a search. And to compare the impact of a firm that just placed the President at Ohio State to that of Katrina..... Frankly it makes me curious to know whether your efforts are directed at riling up a faculty and poisoning the well or even anything close to a legitimate effort at journalism of any sort. Solid selective headline reading research, though! 
Hopefully this isn't representative of all your work.

I do respect the sarcasm (there’s everything but a smiley face emoticon at the end of the first paragraph!) A closer reading of my post would reveal that I had not compared the firm to Katrina but rather had suggested that vague language such as “enormous impact” does not necessarily indicated “positive impact.”

I also do have to admit that I did not read every single article ever written about both searches. Instead, I read many of them, found that after a while apparently different sources simply reprint verbatim what was written elsewhere, and so spoke directly to the people who I know at FSU and WVU about the circumstances and drew my conclusions. I have known about both of these issues, since they occurred and the only surprise to me when I first started investigating R. William Funk was that his was the firm that brought the universities these treasures.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge that I am not a journalist. If I were, this would be a newspaper or some other form of news media. This is a blog and I am an advocate. I have a great deal of respect for journalists and do not want it to be thought that because I write a blog I fancy myself to be among them. That being said, I will issue one amendment to my previous post. I should have indicated that it was possible that Funk’s firm wasn’t guilty of back room dealings in bringing Thrasher to FSU, he might also have simply been a tool.

I’ll leave it up to him to decide which characterization he prefers and hope that he can prove himself to be neither in the search for UNCG’s new chancellor.