PSU President Rahmat Shoureshi gets Gottfredsonesque buy-out

Jeff Manning has the report in the Oregonian here. A snippet:

Shoureshi fired several high level employees. Others quit to get away from him. By last fall, trustees had heard enough complaints to convince them Shoureshi needed a wake-up call.

Castillo and two other trustees, Pete Nickerson and Hinkley, met with him last November and put him on notice that they weren’t happy with his performance as president.

In a follow-up letter dated Nov. 13, Castillo listed the reasons why:

• “Putting your financial self-interest ahead of the university’s.
• “Treating staff unprofessionally.
• “Not giving sufficient consideration to the views or your executive leaders.
• “Engaging in conduct that could seriously adversely affect the university’s reputation and standing among critical stakeholders and,
• “Misleading the board.”

In the letter, Castillo detailed one of Shoureshi’s attempts to deceive his own board. Between his salary, a housing stipend and a transportation stipend, the university was paying him about $750,000 a year. But after a year in the job, Shoureshi wanted more. He asked for a 4 percent pay hike, the same as the faculty got, he explained.

The board granted the raise only to later learn that the faculty did not get a 4 percent raise. They got 2.3 percent increases.

Seems a bit odd that PSU’s board didn’t know or care to find out how much the faculty were getting, but I’ve seen stranger things.

I have it from a generally reliable source that the newly appointed acting President, College of Urban and Public Affairs Dean Stephen Percy, is a great choice.