The News & Record has run its obligatory whitewash of
Brady’s ‘legacy’ at UNCG. I was disappointed to read it, but maybe John Newsome
had to write it…and anybody who knows the story at all can understand the lack
of effusive praise exactly as it’s meant to read. As a blogger, however, I’m
not beholden the politics of the city newspaper.
I think we can all definitely agree that Brady’s legacy has
profoundly impacted Lee street. It’s whether or not that legacy requires a
positive or a negative qualifier that matters. After all, the mere
acknowledgement of an impact should be the very lowest bar to set on any human
existence. Basically, Newsome has acknowledged that Brady existed. I don’t
disagree.
While it is a tradition to name campus buildings after their
leaders, I think Newsome’s suggestion that should the Board of Trustees ever
consider such an act (doubtful at best) they would be well served to name
something off campus since her ‘legacy’ at UNCG is one that, at best, we will
shake off, at worst, has damaged us for years to come.
Some faculty are critical of Newsome’s piece, and I
understand why (and will address those points in more detail in another post), however, what comes through loud and clear, through nothing more than a recitation of the facts, is the lackluster quality of Brady’s
unfortunate tenure at UNCG. Many things were in the works before she got here,
some things were accomplished because of others, and everything that she directly
initiated resulted in gridlock at best (fill in your own at worst).
It was also interesting to note that she has clearly not
learned anything about communication from any part of her experience at UNCG as
her only response to the N&R request was another highly polished ‘no
comment’ delivered by Joe ‘tight lips’ Gallehugh.
Susan Safran, the equally unresponsive – thought
uncommunicative – chairperson of the Board of Trustees said (and I am not
making this up):
“We wouldn’t be in the shape we are in without Linda Brady.”
I couldn’t agree more.
The article was rich with potential gems, but my personal favorite occurs toward the very end of the piece:
ReplyDelete"In an April interview with The Carolinian, UNCG’s student newspaper, Brady said she took responsibility for this disconnect.
“An area where I believe I just was not able to be successful was to convince the campus, particularly faculty, of the need to make changes,” Brady told the newspaper."
How very revealing! In this singular case of Dr. Brady taking responsibility for something, the responsibility that she takes was for her failure to have convinced the obstinate change-phobic faculty that her way is always the right way. And now the university as a whole will be paying, for many years, for the failure of the faculty to unquestionably accept our former leader's wisdom, and all because Dr. Brady was (in her own mind) simply an insufficiently skillful persuader.