Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The Chancellor

Okay, so that's over.


I'm in the peanut gallery, so no more than a malign observer, but here's s lightly edited version of  an email I sent to a friend back east.

Oh, it's been a running sore for a couple of years, ever since that pepper spray business.    Of course the chancellor didn't personally pull the lever on the canister but she never seemed to get on top of the story, never came across as understanding that it was real (my stars, was it really five years ago?).  At long last, it has turned  into a war of the press releases.  The University President says:
... numerous instances where Chancellor Katehi was not candid, either with me, the press, or the public, that she exercised poor judgment, and violated multiple University policies...
And the Chancellor (or, her  highly skilled lawyer) gets to say: 

 CLEARED OF ALLEGATIONS OF NEPOTISM, CONFLICTS, FINANCIAL 
MISMANAGEMENT OR PERSONAL GAIN IN UC INVESTIGATION, 

You could say it is a Hillary problem.  The chancellor apparently not guilty of any felony but she has a colossally tin ear and she's greedy.  I mean, board of directors of a text book company?  Why wasn't that prohibited?  And paying to scrub Google?  How rookie is that?

OTOH, at least some of the opposition to her came from people who just thought it would be fun to destroy a chancellor.

I think she is unmarketable outside Davis now so Davis is stuck with her (i.e., as a faculty member .  Also her husband and her son and her DiL--four nice paycheck with bennies).

FWIW I think the president winds up with a bit of mud on her shirtwaist too.  I believe she had/has been hoping to join the Clinton administration .  She is probably not completely out of the running, but good managers don't let this kind of problem happen in the first place.    




2 comments:

The New York Crank said...

As who was it, George Bernard Shaw?, once said of university politics, The politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

Crankily,
The New York Crank

Anonymous said...

the chancellor also had a PR person who might have written her press release.

As one of your colleagues said the in private industry the chancellor would have been fired for NOT trying to scrub the internet.

One of her predecessors had an assistant whose only job seemed to be to say "we don't pay for first class tickets" Katehi's main sin in my mind is that acted like a business leader not a public university leader.

a major audit of the president's office has just been begun by the Calif legislature. It's awfully tempting to say that the president brought it on by making a fuss that brought the spotlights on her position and by slinging mud. just saying and probably wrong