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OSU board doesn’t have the stones to fire F. King Alexander for cause, pays him ~$700K to “resign”

Last updated on 03/23/2021

3/23/2021 updates on twitter:

Oregon State to buy out F. King Alexander for ~0.7 Gottfredsons, from “private funds”. Both sides to release all claims. No word on WittKiefer refund, no apparent recognition from Board that they got rolled and failed at due diligence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHyxpGxqrI

Heartfelt remarks from Trustee & former BB player Lamar Hurd on corruption in big-time college sports.

Other board members now saying how they share others pain, "may have been too cold" during public testimony.

Trustee Steve Clark wants to work on an "engagement strategy". Nothing yet on a transparent hiring policy.

Whoops, he's not a trustee, just the OSU PR flack. Sorry, rookie mistake.

Yup, now he's telling the board to be careful when they talk to the press.

Pres F. King Alexander now saying "it's all about the students" (and the $700K buyout he must have demanded). Board puts him on admin leave until April 1, with pay.

Board will empower Provost Ed Feser until Interim Pres is appointed. (Close call for @JonBoeckenstedt and @waynetinkle). Board Exec will meet in public tomorrow to consider process for appointment of interim Pres.

Trustees won't admit they blew it with secretive Alexander hiring process, but are promising transparency for interim Pres appointment process.

OSU Board Chair closes meeting with heartfelt thanks to UO Emerald alum & USAToday reporter @kennyjacoby for tirelessly pursuing the public records that led them to realize WittKiefer had tricked them, and Alexander needed to be fired.

Originally tweeted by UO Matters (@uomatters) on 03/23/2021.

3/22/2021: LSU Board tells OSU Board F. King Alexander is a liar:

Just in time for their 8:30 AM meeting Tu. I predict they pay him 0.5 Gottfredsons to leave. Maybe they’ll even ask WittKiefer’s Zachary Smith for their money back. Full letter here.

Alexander’s contract with OSU is here.

18 Comments

  1. honest Uncle Gangsta 03/22/2021

    Effin’ A! He’s worth at least 1 G!

  2. Anonymous 03/23/2021

    Resigned.

  3. Entourage 03/23/2021

    Why do the OSU general counsel and OSU PR people work to solve his personal problems at an institution 3000 miles from Oregon? Perhaps they should leave with their boss, as they don’t appear to be working for Oregon anyway.

    • Fishwrapper 03/23/2021

      Steve Clark should leave, too.

      • Anonymous 03/23/2021

        Second this motion!

  4. Anonymous 03/23/2021

    called it.

  5. Rainbow Pony 03/23/2021

    Riddle me this, without the athletic scandal, would the Oxford Symposiumzzzz have been enough to get rid of him?

    • uomatters Post author | 03/23/2021

      Standards have slipped. I’m not sure abuse of the Latin plural is cause for firing in presidential contracts these days.

      • Rainbow Pony 03/23/2021

        I’m not sure the abuse of the Latin plural was the most egregious issue with those conferences. They constitute intellectual fraud.

        • uomatters Post author | 03/23/2021

          Pony, isn’t your claim of “intellectual fraud” an indictment of our country’s entire system of higher education? On behalf of F. King Alexander, and the United States of America, I demand an immediate retraction of your comment. https://youtu.be/ROxvT8KKdFw?t=72

  6. Fishwrapper 03/23/2021

    “…doesn’t have the stones to fire…” Respectfully, I must disagree with the ease at which that assumption is made. Now that this is done, let’s look at the facts: He’s on administrative leave and he’s F.King Outta Here! on April 1 – a week from now, essentially. All this because he resigned, and they accepted the resignation, and, yes, the terms. Which, compared to my gig, is a pretty sweet deal.
    So what would those stones have cost to fire his ass? At the very least, the whole thing would cost at *least* a Gottfredson, and I suggest this because I can easily see him lawyering up. They would have to fire for cause, and that’s a litigious$ rabbit hole *worth* avoiding. Firing without cause would be even more expensive. Plus – he’s also tenured faculty, so they’d have that hanging around their neck and firing him for cause from that perch wouldn’t have been cheap stones, either.
    It’s a lot of money to you and me. But it’s also a clean break, a quick clean break, and both parties, but especially the institution, can now move on to the important work of finding someone who can actually lead a university.
    I, for one, am glad this part of the process won’t be dragged out any further. I, for one, am glad there will be no more empty words from that hollow shell of a man raining down from Kerr into my inbox trying to make up for his ways.
    All that said, I can understand how frustrating it might be to have to return to your normal programming…The satisfaction of hearing the board kick his ass out the door would not have match the actual co$t.

  7. honest Uncle Gangsta 03/23/2021

    Effin’ A! I overestimated our distinguished colleague at OSU. Only 0.67G, I thought surely 1.0. Our esteemed UOM twice as close to the mark at 0.5 estimate. The G is without peer. UO is still the flagship!

  8. Peter Keyes 03/24/2021

    I just revisited our own experience from ten years ago to see what it used to take to actually fire a president. If F.King Alexander had proposed giving faculty raises, they would have canned him immediately. Maybe Lariviere can sue for back pay. https://uomatters.com/2011/11/kitzhaber-fires-lariviere.html

  9. anon 03/25/2021

    perhaps the most interesting part of his contract [ from perspective of a professor] was that when his term as president was over and he became a regular prof, his academic salary was to be set at the average salary for the 3 highest paid full profs in his new department. This is quite different from UO where your Sr admins receive far more upon returning to the faculty ranks; I suspect they get ~ 3/4 of their Executive salary. Your recent provost certainly got this.

  10. Just classified. 03/27/2021

    Pfffft. If he was a classified employee, he’d get a big nothing and a boot on the toot besides.

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