Transparency State University

No one seems to have an idea what is going on with the School of Public Affairs (SOPA) Dean search process.  The last news was that in late November 2017, the former Provost Dr. Bobby Wilson chose Interim Dean, Dr. Michael Adams as the new permanent Dean after a yearlong search process.  Yet somehow President Lane did not agree with his recommendation and never provided any reason for his refusal to accept the Provost's recommendation. Strange indeed.....and yet things became even stranger.....in January 2018 with the new Provost, Dr. Kendall Harris, arriving on campus he sent out a mass email to the SOPA faculty and staff informing them that the search would continue but offering no reason as to why Dr. Adams was denied the permanent dean position. In April 2018, it was announced that Dr. Adams would step down from his Interim Dean position and return back to his Interim Chair position of the Department of Political Science.  Stranger still...the old, ret...

Today at our board meeting we were joined by the father in law of the President's Chief of Staff who put on a very impressive dog and pony show with Powerpoint and informed everyone how TSU spending another $11,000 a month on Lane's proposed mansion would be an asset and definitely not a liability, an estimated total of $132,000 a year.  We beg to disagree.   When we have students and possibly even staff and faculty who are either homeless or one paycheck away from being homeless, why on earth should our President be allowed to spend $2.5 million of our taxpayers money on a mansion when he already gets almost $80,000 a year as a stipend for living accommodations?  Isn't that enough money? The arguments made by Senor Smith was that:  A) Other colleges have presidential residences, B) We used to have a TSU presidential residence (why was it sold off? he didn't get into that and there were probably good reasons why he decided not to do that),  C)...

At the July 2018 Board of Regents meeting, the rumor is that President Lane asked the BOR (in closed session and as a vague description on the agenda for "property") to buy him and his family a $2 million mansion to be used by himself and owned by TSU as an official Presidential residence. Many universities have formal and legitimate Presidential residences, useful for both a residential dwelling but also used as a place to entertain and solicit donations and host events from alumni, boosters and other legitimate uses.  Fair enough, but with so many of our current students sleeping in cars, on people's couches and even some students who are actually homeless, isn't there a better use of $2 million perhaps as a series of microgrants to our students or perhaps as a raise to our hardworking faculty and staff who have not had a raise since 2014?  Additionally, President Lane has only been at TSU for about 2 years; is this enough time to measure his worth for an ...

Looks like another Dean has been mysteriously removed.  Rumor has it that the Dean of Communications who was hired in Fall 2017 was suddenly removed from his office by TSU police and escorted out of the building.  If this is true, this is now the 2nd time in 1 semester that a Dean has been removed/resigned or terminated after a very short period of time. 

Some years ago our law school and several law school faculty were sued by two former TSU law students who flunked out of the law school.  This case made local and state news.  Now it seems that recently our law school was in the news again with an issue of gender equity payments whereby certain female professors were paid less than male professors with similar rank.  It also appears that our TSU law school was having some serious problems with ABA accreditation and Dr. Douglas, the Interim Dean appointed by President Lane was doing a great job but suddenly he resigned.  What exactly is going on at our university with all these deans being removed or pressured to resign?  

After a yearlong exhaustive and expensive search by TSU, the School of Business had a new Dean officially appointed in August.   However, just 7 weeks later, he was mysteriously and suddenly terminated and removed by the administration.   No one has any idea what happened and where he is now.   We guess that TSU will now spend another X amount of taxpayers money for yet another business school dean search.   If anyone has any idea what happened, inquiring minds want to know.We have several other dean searches going on concurrently.  More on that as the year progresses.