strange day

The day started out with an email with documents about the special board of trustees’ meeting – and the resignation of the university’s president.

It was a surprise – but not really a surprise. He made a number of unpopular and mostly terrible decisions over time and had a lot of distracting controversy.  Many of those decisions had been reversed – but the controversy remained.

The announcement swept campus even before the rest of the official notes came out and was all over social media in a heartbeat. Over the course of the day, I saw more and more notes online from people and a general sense of relief.

A couple of offices had cake.

I was concerned about the recovery in the long term and the short term transition.

Most troubling – beyond how long it took to get to this point and the damage already done – was a “golden parachute”.

Full salary and benefits for the next 120 days while he makes a decision on what he wants to do next. Then it’s either a year’s salary payout – nearly 1/2 million dollars – or a 5 year teaching position in the college of business. Oh, and moving expenses for when he moves out of the university-provided mansion.  Nice if you can get it.

He resigned/got fired because he didn’t do a good job and things got worse under his tenure. And even in failure, he’s treated like a departing king.

A far cry from those that were part of the cuts last fall. Some of those folks got nothing other that an escort off the campus. No free housing or months for a decision. And no job lined up and waiting for them.

It’s not isolated to UA or higher education or even America. Old rich white guys helping keep other old rich white guys… rich. Some weird kind of status quo – once you get there, systems are in place to keep you there. No matter how badly you screw up.

Disappointing, but not surprising.

In the meantime, I’m feeling a little more secure in my job – if only because more layoffs at this point would be devastating and everyone is going to be too distracted for quite a while to do anything that major.

The summer will likely prove busy and strange as the university tries to figure out what’s next.