Thursday, October 29, 2009

I make the papers...

... in my alter-ego secret identity as DSU faculty union chair, commenting on the loooooonnnnnggggg wait between the on-campus interviews for new Presidential candidates and action by the Board of Trustees.

Thanks, Rachel.


Nancy Willing said...

I missed your name when I scanned it earlier. I called my DSU alum friend and we both like Leon.
Friend said that Harry still hasn't moved his family to DE in over a year and that he's threatened to pick up stakes and quit if he isn't chosen.
What's up with that? That means that you'll need to search for a provost right away if you pick Leon. Maybe that's not a bad thing.

Steve Newton said...

I need to correct two inaccuracies in your comment.

1) Harry's family hasn't moved to Delaware because at virtually the same time he was appointed Provost his wife (who has her own career) accepted an Asst. VP position at a college in NC which would allow their son to continue in his same middle school to the end of the 8th Grade.

2) Harry has NEVER threatened to pull up stakes and quit if he isn't chosen. This is pure and utter bullshit, and I challenge you to provide a source for that or take back the comment. What he did say is that he has focused his career on eventually becoming a university president, and that if it doesn't happen here it will happen somewhere else.

I work with Harry on a daily basis and whether or not he deserves to be president he damn sure doesn't deserve this sort of slander.

As for Nunery, why don't you dig into his quickly canceled no-bid $95,000 consulting contract he received from the Phila School District after not being selected as the new superintendent or his actual role in the Edison Schools debacle between 2005-2008?

Nancy Willing said...

I won't provide the source of my 'information' but I certainly will forward the corrections.

Look at it this way, Steve. Without this exchange, the truth would have had only one 'face' that of my alum friend.

I don't have a dog in this fight.

Steve Newton said...

You're right and I'm sorry if I sounded too brusque.

I'm tired of the fact that I usually cannot say anything when good people get smeared.

Thank you for being willing to go back and tell the alum what's up--but I will be you that he or she brushes it off.

Nancy Willing said...

I have every intention of reporting back to you what reactions I get. I sent an email last night.

These are serious differences of view and need to be cleared up ASAP.

Nancy Willing said...

FTR, my alum friend forwarded to me his email to Steve that was in response to having emailed him this blog post commentary. Whatever discussion was forthcoming between them hasn't been relayed to me.

Steve Newton said...

Like you I have not been given permission to publish the name of your contact.

That said, we did speak (and you have a point I should have mentioned it last week; sorry).

I confronted the allegations directly, pointed out that they were based on rumor, incompletely/inaccurately reported statements to which this person was not a witness (and to which I was), and that they contradicted everything Dr Williams has said in 16 months here.

I asked the person to stop spreading this interpretation, not because of support for Dr Williams, but because it amounts to a lie.

I have received no assurances that these rumors will cease.

If they do not, I will continue to contradict them with the truth, because they are pernicious--having already reached the ears of members of the Board because that person placed them there without verifying them.