Transparency State University

Looks like the BOR has cancelled their June 5-6 retreat but surprisingly has called for a special remote teleconference meeting on Monday, June 1, 2020.  What could the meeting be about?  According to the agenda online looks like it comes down to 3 agenda items: https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicItemDownload.aspx?mk=50378537&fn=agenda.pdf 1) Fall admissions update (will we be increasing our GPA and deleting the SAT/ACT requirement as posted in the Houston Chronicle to boost enrollment?) https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/Texas-Southern-board-to-discuss-upping-GPA-15303928.php 2) Final Internal Audit report delivered to the BOR: What could be in the report that hasn't already been splashed across the local news in Texas?  https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/Texas-Southern-University-admitted-4-000-students-15302088.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/28/texas-southern-university-gave-2...

Transparency State has confirmation that the tenured professor in SOPA who was accused of writing "mass emails" and "insubordination" has been terminated by TSU.  Recall our post on June 16, 2019: https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/06/another-long-time-debuted-professor.html To take away our right for shared governance through frank and open dialogue will contribute to a harmful and toxic work environment. This decision to terminate may also have severe repercussions for our university’s reputation and character both locally and nationally.  This decision may bring more negative publicity and likely one more lawsuit to TSU. We are deeply disappointed by TSU's administrators decision to curtail and tear away our First Amendment right and strongly urge the Board of Regents to reverse this terrible decision. More than ever now, especially at an HBCU such as ours with a proud and distinguished legacy of civil rights and civil discourse, our faculty mus...

Rumors are stronger each day that the Provost will be replaced at the Board of Regents meeting in June.  The Provost seemed to have been caught up in King Lane's web of lies and deceit, even getting directly involved with admitting a student into an online program without any due process of being admitted through a graduate admissions committee or even the graduate school, a highly unethical and erroneous decision especially with our SACS upcoming accreditation: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/TSU-officials-say-student-who-sparked-admissions-15105559.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/bombshells-tsu-admissions-scandal-texas-southern-15124140.php See page 5: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6808138-Texas-Southern-University-investigation.html Also, it looks like our law school is still in trouble with the ABA even as recently as May 21, 2020 which was supposed to be the Provost's responsibil...

Why are we hiring a highly paid job position in a pandemic?  Below is an email from Provost Harris that appears to show that this would be a good decision for position of “ Executive Director of Curriculum & Graduation Initiative Position” .  But is it really such a good decision especially when we still do not know when TSU will open for the fall semester?  We have no idea what our enrollment will even be.  And finally, since when has this past administration even seemed to care about our students’ graduation?  Last president who appeared to care was President Rudley and that was 4 years ago.  King Lane came in with 9500 students but the rumors are that we are down to under 7000 and maybe even less now with the pandemic.  Need we forget our graduating students’ GIANT student loan debt as reported by the New York Times in 2012?  It could not have gotten any better especially with this pandemic even 8 years later.  (See below weblink- ...

In a Facebook post, Dr. Michael Adams (Interim Chair of the Political Science Department/Public Administration) and Professor Carroll Robinson (Political Science/Public Administration) published a new and more radical, yet much better plan for a re-alignment of schools and departments for the future of TSU.  We at Transparency State find their model very inspiring and have republished it below.  Hopefully the Huewitt administration and the BOR also find their plan incredibly worthy of further discussion and moving forward over the summer.  We have an international crisis at work and now is the best time to make YUUUGE changes.  As Rahm Emmanuel once said: “ You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before .”  Now is the time for TSU to do truly wonderful things with ideas from our dedicated and loyal staff, faculty, alumni and students…..for all our future.  Than...

Looks like the meeting on Tuesday was all about Regent Price, seems he's been caught on a recording saying some very nasty things to someone who dropped the recording publicly: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/texas-southern-university-tsu-regent-racist-rant-15231796.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HC_MorningReport&utm_term=news&utm_content=briefing&fbclid=IwAR07k8XH29P98eG0K4hZ7k2TxqMio9Lrud5FGJF9a_AZ7ks4SGcmcOPAtvg Regent Price was also removed from all his board committees as well as Secretary position, yet has been able to cling onto the BOR.....for now.  But what these changes means is that the Provost now has a new boss on the committees he's directly reporting to: the committees of Admissions and Academics.  This will be interesting to see how the Provost will or will not adapt successfully to whichever board member is his new boss.  And perhaps for TSU's post-pandemic future this new boss w...

A Special called remote teleconference BOR meeting has been called for Tuesday morning.  Speculation is ripe as to what this meeting could be about.....the BOR just had a meeting on April 16, 2020.  So what's the emergency 12 days later? The theory most prominent seems to be that we may have a new Provost on Wednesday morning.  The reason being the agenda seems to be hinting at some changes in personnel: Item D- appointment, evaluation or dismissal of personnel. But it could also be that Internal Audit may be dropping some fresh and soft doo-doo bombs due to the Lane investigation which is rumored to be ongoing.  And their investigation may have uncovered more and newer reasons to terminate employment for certain individuals before the summer starts.  With pandemic furloughs, cuts and freezes extremely likely, maybe cleaning house before summer starts is a good idea.    I. Call to Order Presenter: Regent Albert H. Myres, Chair II. Roll Call ...

At the latest BOR meeting on April 16, 2020, towards the end of the meeting a short discussion brewed about possible “re-alignment of schools.”  There was also a campus-wide email from President Kenny regarding the re-alignment.  Quote : “Additionally, I will re-align colleges and departments to implement new process improvement strategies.”  What could this mysterious statement mean?  Well for starters, for years now there have been rumors that some schools in particular are vulnerable to become merged and consolidated with other schools including breaking up departments.  There are valid and legitimate reasons for doing this most notably, the cost savings associated with one less Dean and less Chairs which would save TSU a ton of money.  And there would be other benefits most likely.  Some departments have so much rancor and office politics that they’ve had a new Chair almost every 2-3 years and that can drain and destroy the...

It's a big day for King Lane.....we wish him much luck. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/Former-TSU-president-a-chancellor-finalist-at-15213981.php https://chancellor.siu.edu/search/#survey

What’s going on with the Houston Housing Authority and our own Mr. Lawerence Snowden?  Seems like he got caught up with a very wet scandal involving a destination wedding and a potentially lucrative consulting kickback gig.  We can only speculate if the BOR knows about yet another embarrassing story involving an employee of TSU.  As the reporter says, it is nice to have good friends.   https://dolcefino.com/2020/04/05/a-little-help-from-my-friends/

Looks like King Lane is a finalist at SIU for the Chancellor job.  We guess there is life after "career death"…..We will be interested in seeing if they hire him without a Ph.D. and no publications.  Hope no one asks him about his time at TSU.   https://thesouthern.com/news/local/siu/siu-carbondale-announces-3-chancellor-finalists-dates-for-virtual-public-forums/article_6f12b029-dcb6-58d6-ba84-fa1fa1b8828d.html https://chancellor.siu.edu/search/chancellor/applications/Lane.Austin-CV.pdf

                                  TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY Office of the Board of Regents                                                       3100 Cleburne Street ♦ Houston, TX 77004 ♦ 713.313.7011 March 16 , 2020 Dear Members of the TSU Community , We are working with Acting President Ken Huewitt and the administration to ensure all members of the TSU family are safe during this time in our nation as we are all impacted by COVID-19 (coronavirus). As we continue with the business of Texas Southern University, the Board of Regents would like to keep you i...

In light of the law school admissions scandal, should we be worried about our law school accreditation status with the ABA?  According to the Houston Chronicle and The Texas Tribune maybe we should be: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/TSU-law-school-still-out-of-compliance-with-15109322.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/TSU-officials-say-student-who-sparked-admissions-15105559.php   https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/11/admission-bribes-kickbacks-heart-texas-southern-university-turmoil/?fbclid=IwAR3Lv-LjiV3DKk5rqk8G5NRYgyTCk1mmEakPYXsPBxFibqBIk8ufDzQZ2qI

We kept waiting and waiting.....and we have to thank the Houston Chronicle for their Open Records request and publishing the report.  Lot of very interesting revelations and we hope now that all has been revealed, King Lane's supporters will significantly diminish and a new day on campus will finally come to light.  Let's see how the Huewitt administration handles the best opportunity to bring about real change at TSU.  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6808138-Texas-Southern-University-investigation.html

Eyewitnesses and other reliable sources at TSU inform us that the FBI was on campus and were interviewing people in conjunction with their investigation or investigations (we have no clue how many are ongoing). But we have now confirmation that there has definitely been some type of really serious criminal investigation ongoing at TSU, likely connected with the law school admissions scandal and very likely much, much more. This could be the reason the BOR is not releasing the investigation documents despite Open Records requests and the AG office weighing in.  More to come? 

One issue which has caused a great deal of curiousity has been that Provost Harris was not named Interim President once King Lane was shown the exit door.  We wonder why.   Speculation and rumors on our campus has been that Provost Harris has a formal complaint lodged against him, possibly a Title IX sexual harassment complaint.   There is unfortunately past legal precedence for us to be concerned and to take this rumored complaint seriously.  Provost Harris was sued along with his former employer PVAMU in the past-  https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txsdce/4:2013cv03606/1139251/50/ Curiously enough, when Wendell Williams was fired from TSU, he was the Title IX coordinator for TSU.  More curiously, the individual to be promoted and become the latest Title IX coordinator has prior connections with Provost Harris- Ms. Toni Gray used to work at PVAMU in their HR department. We are not aware how well Ms. Gray and...

Looks like one of our predictions is already coming true- on Monday night, rumors on Twitter  surfaced that King Lane and his lawyer are secretly conducting negotiations through mediation to buyout and cashout the remainder of the King's contract with TSU. As we predicted, King Lane finally woke up and smelled the coffee- you really cannot work with people you picked a fight with, lied to, complained to the media and tried to bully them into doing things which are unethical and possibly illegal, i.e. the BOR and others (tenured faculty, staff) who have been at TSU much, much longer than 3.5 years. Going to the media or trolling on social media clearly doesn't work either especially when you have a 4 page detailed termination letter.  Rumors are adrift that the BOR must be sitting on a ton of very incriminating evidence that they are not going to release until they absolutely need to and will likely devastate any case going to court.  King Lane must be very aware of gian...

So now we know the reasons why King Lane has been removed by the BOR.  In a 4 page termination letter posted on TSU's website the BOR lists a series of very disturbing and damaging items which likely has already harmed our university's reputation and brand image.   http://www.tsu.edu/about/board-of-regents/pdf/final-termination-letter-02042020.pdf We turn now to the future- what will the rest of 2020 look like for our university?  We anticipate several predictions in the coming months:  1) King Lane will either go away quietly with a severance package or he will fight it out in civil court which could take years and years and years.....rumors are that King Lane and his Queen own 2 houses and have 2 mortgages which doesn't seem like a very stable financial situation especially when you just got terminated.  We suggest King Lane take the money and run . 2) The 30 day appeal process for King Lane will not be successful for him .   No one ...

Need we say more?  Thanks for your service Austin.    TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY 3100 Cleburne Street, Ste. HH115 | Houston, Texas 77004 | (713) 313-7992 BoardofRegents@TSU.edu 2/5/2020 Board of Regents Dear Texas Southern University Family, As you know, TSU’s vision is to become one of the nation’s pre-eminent comprehensive metropolitan universities, recognized by our program excellence, our quality instruction, our innovative research, and our desire to make an impact on our community, state, nation and world. It is in that spirit that we must continue to work together as a Tiger community, even as we address challenges brought on by a change in our leadership. Last night, the TSU Board of Regents, the governing body that holds itself and the University’s leadership to the highest standards, voted 6-1 to propose the termination of Dr. Austin A. Lane. As previously announced, Kenneth Huewitt will serve as acting president....