(Bumped - promoted by Charley on the MTA)
AP reports on today's faculty senate meeting in Amherst with UMass President Jack Wilson. Sen. Rosenberg thinks the fix was in against popular UMass Amherst chancellor John Lombardi:
AMHERST, Mass.: The proposal to reorganize leadership at the University of Massachusetts came under harsh criticism Thursday, with a state lawmaker calling it a plot by trustees to oust John Lombardi, chancellor of the flagship campus.
"We believe there's been a steady effort to undermine his administration and his status here," Sen. Stanley Rosenberg said during a meeting of faculty members at the Amherst campus. The Amherst Democrat said he was referring to himself and some colleagues in the Legislature.
"We believe he's been forced out because he's a strong leader, an intelligent leader," he said. "And the leadership in Boston can't deal with that."
I am told that Rosenberg got a standing ovation.
UMass President Jack Wilson was at this meeting, and says it was all just a misunderstanding, saying (paraphrasing): Actually, it's a year-long review process, you see, and faculty, staff and students will have their chance to look at it. And Lombardi agreed to the basic outline! Uh ... Lombardi wasn't there today -- a conspicuous absence, no? -- and I gather that the audience wasn't buying it.
So here's what I don't know yet: What's Wilson's motivation in sacking Lombardi? In any event, it's obvious that a lot of people feel that UMass has been treated pretty shabbily by the state's political establishment, the latter treating the former as its political plaything. I wonder if this is the point at which the university system starts to fight back effectively.
Will they be strengthened by the Governor's new emphasis on public higher ed? Does the Governor need to step in and mediate this mess?
PS: That breeze, Jon? Backdraft. Doesn't that exchange sound a little different, knowing what went on in Amherst today? |
