The new UO Board of Trustees doesn’t have authority to fire President Gottfredson until July 1st. But they can certainly talk to OUS and Kitzhaber about it, and you can be sure those conversations have started. Latest story here:
“Sorry. Don’t buy it.”
Fortunately we have a respected, experienced, and well liked Provost in Scott Coltrane, ready to take charge. UO needs to get back to work. Just do it.
Meek asks: were they co-conspirators or poor communicators? (How about both?) Either answer results in the need to fire all three — Altman, Mullens and Gottfredson.
If they are co-conspirators then the reason for firing is obvious. If they are *just* poor communicators, which insults the thinking and communicating among us, then they are incapable of performing their jobs at UO at the level which should be required.
If the Prez truly did not tell Mullens, which is what he said , he made a gross error of judgement that does irreparable harm to the school. He chose expediency and laying down over the better choice – telling EPD the UO had a moral obligation to protect its students and yes it ‘s brand, to take action. Even beyond that if this timetable is correct why the UO did not have a full proactive communication plan ready to go is gross misconduct. Fire Gotfredson now.
Yes, all three heads must roll in this case. I know I’m not buying that the coach and AD didn’t know — not for a minute. When Mullens admitted “he’d heard something”, there is no way I’m buying that he didn’t immediately find out what that “something” was. There are millions of dollars on the line for the UO in TV contracts, a national media spotlight on its sports programs, but we’re supposed to believe that the AD doesn’t care whether or not there’s some spectacular scandal waiting to break while the team is at the NIT? That defies credulity on every level.
What we’re waiting for here, I don’t know. They should have all realized that their resignations are a done deal at this point, and if they insist on being fired, I’m sure that can be arranged as well. The article nails it — either Gott suspected they would not handle the information properly — in other words, that they would cover it up and not suspend the players until after the tournament — or he knew they would do precisely that (which I’m not buying, by the way), and didn’t want them to do so. Either way spells O-U-T.
Gone has it right. Gott has demonstrated to the world, the state, the Board of the UO, the faculty and the students that he has no ability to lead. In a moment of crisis an institution needs leadership that will be the voice of calm, reason, and confidence. He has none of the above — well, ok, he has calm, to the point of irrelevance. He demonstrated no ability to mobilize the resources within the University to do the right thing and thus must go.
And Ms. Holmes. She should go as #2. She also has demonstrated an inability to think forward about what happens when these things get on the front page — and they always do. She has shown she does not have the substantive knowledge to get the lines of communication in her office and throughout the UO to work effectively on these kinds of issues — and this was not the first time something happened. She has demonstrated no sense of urgency despite the drum beat of campus, local, state and national attention on these issues. She hides behind the artificial artifice of FERPA and thus does it a disservice.
For head of communications within the University — you might want to polish off your resume as well as you need to go as well. If you were consulted on this, which I sure hope you were, you did an abominable job of preparing the communications, setting the schedule and getting out ahead of this thing. Completely inept.
As for Altman and Mullens, not asking the hard questions is the easy way out. They definitely should have done more. Should they be fired? Perhaps Mullens. He was brought in early and should also have had enough good sense to ask more questions, argue that what Gott was saying to do was dangerous to the university at the least. Torn on Altman, Altman is far enough down the food chain he might be able to have plausible deniability about how he handled the incident. (He really does not seem credible about the Austin transfer though. A casual online search indicates some articles with enough hints of trouble that he should have steered away from this kid.)
Honestly do not think we have to worry about firing Altman and Mullens, however. If Gott is the leadership to which they report and that leadership clearly put them in an untenable position. Who wants to work for that? I would have no confidence in them. I would be getting ready to listen to any position that came along.
I know this is getting long, but here is to the new UO Board demonstrating the leadership that our hopes have put on you. So far I have been heartened by the hard questions that group has been asking about finances, mission, place in the national rankings. I would like to hear from the Board as to what it intends to do. This is not up to Gott anymore.
“Altman is far enough down the food chain he might be able to have plausible deniability about how he handled the incident.”
Please. He recruited these guys. Don’t let the fake, quiet-for-the-presser demeanor fool you.
Think about it: whom would MG have consulted before deciding not to relay the names of the accused to Mullens and Altman? And whose head would then roll, several weeks later — roundabout late April — when that turned out to be a disastrous decision? The General Counsel’s.
That’s too easy and convenient.
For god’s sake, he found another job and resigned. He didn’t get fired. Also, have any of you run a university? Held a major job in administration in a large organization? Can’t any of you give anyone in JH a break? It is so easy to sit on the sidelines and throw stones. My wish for you is to become a University president and have Bill Harbaugh on your faculty.
There are enough people that have first hand experience with JH mismanagement on so many levels that it is extremely difficult not to entertain alternative explanations (that to most people make more sense; such as head on chopping block-secure new job). Especially when previous experience is illustrated with ham-handed, sometimes illegal, typically ignorant decisions emanating from the U of O[rgasm] athletics plantation manor.
Where’s Geller’s new job? I wonder if he signed the contract before the cover-up broke, and what sort of ethics clause was in it.
There it is, the obligatory “you try to do their oh so tough job.” argument. It’s a tired argument and without merit.
Whenever the administration has been asked why faculty salaries are at the bottom of the list of our comparators, and admin salaries are at the top of the list of our comparators, the argument is usually about needing to pay more to attract top tier administrators (forget for a moment that many of those top paid admins were internal hires). So, the claim is that we are getting top tier administrators. When they fail to act as such, it is fair game to challenge their competence and/or ethics.
Geller has demonstrated pettiness, arrogance, and incompetence on several occasions. That he announced his resignation amidst an institutional crisis he was certainly in the middle of is fishy and should be questioned. That he defensively predicted people would question his reasons for leaving before the fact is also fishy. I also don’t recall him saying he got another job.
The fact is only a few folks are paid top tier money to provide top tier leadership. It is their constituents’ right and duty to question them when they so obviously fail.
Now we look to the Board to live up to their promise and conduct their own independent investigation – with Gott’s actions at the center.
The GC’s resignation is announced to the UO community hours before the police report becomes public. How can people (who get paid so much too!) be so deeply stupid?
BTW. How’s the IAC looking now? If I ever questioned the conduct before, I am surely not doubting now. The AD should clearly be under closer scrutiny.
Thanks to those who have been putting up with the athletic department for so long.
Mark your calendars – May 29 is published meeting of the Board’s Academic and Student Affairs Committee. When will there be an agenda published? Will any part of that be public?
For a guy whose living depends on AD accessibility, Meeks shows some character in not buying the message. Kudos….