People HATE Penny Kyle. If she ended up suddenly missing, foul play would be immediately suspected and there would be a thousand worthy suspects.
Most of the people I know who despise Kyle are longtime RU staff displaced or adversely affected by her tenure as head of RU. Apparently now the student body is joining the ranks of those in less than love with Kyle.
Our boy Stephen Schmidt, Coffee Mill's Monday Night man for the last year or so, is a leader a group of students called SALA - Students Advocating Liberal Arts.
They're not happy about the new direction of RU that is cutting a lot of the liberal arts programs.
There was an open forum to discuss the budget and issues that concerned the university community last night, and it ended with a significant number of students marching out in protest.
I liked this part of the story:
An early hint of the discontent in the crowd was evident when Kyle, answering a question from a longtime staff member and single mother worried about her job security, said that the difficult economy had affected everyone.
"I'm personally not living like I used to live," she said, as members of the audience laughed out loud and groaned. Kyle's annual salary is $359,256.
The piece went on:
Several of the students at the forum are members of Students Advocating the Liberal Arts. Radford students Emily Walker and Stephen Schmidt started the group last week to voice concern about the impact budget cuts and the university's strategic "Radford 7-17" plan will have on educational quality at Radford. More than 700 students have joined the group on Facebook.
[snip]
A chaotic back and forth ensued as Lerch, Kyle and Stanton tried to calm the students by referring to the volume of questions and telling them that there is an established process for program review.
"Why do you get to choose?" one student shouted. "This is an open forum."
Kyle said Stanton would set up a separate forum to discuss questions about program review. Kyle added later that the university could not discuss it publicly now because it could taint the process.
"Why was anthropology cut without the program review?" another student shouted.
Kyle repeated that no program review questions would be answered at the forum and most of the students got up and walked out.
Schmidt said he was not surprised by the outcome of the forum and said the program review has "everything to do with the budget."
"I wanted them to be honest and I wanted them to be straightforward in their answers," he said. "What this school has needed and what it needs now is a watchdog."
3 comments:
That part about her not being able to live on $360K was hilarious. The whole debacle was both ridiculous and very sad.
RU is now run by nothing but bean-counters. They are out to cut any program that doesn't have a name like BUS-451 on it. On the block is Appalachian Studies, which is near and dear to my heart. Who wants to study something that might have a tie to the region and local community? Most of the kids who have come to record the jam or interview us have been involved in the Appy Studies program.
This is what happens when your BOV is run by a billionaire. If they succeed with the slash-and-burn, I assume they'll one day change the name of the university to the Randal J. Kirk School For Future Hedge Fund Managers.
I wasn't a true backer of old Pres. Donald Dedmon. Thought he was aloof and didn't have the best interests of the students in mind all of the time. He now looks like the best thing since sliced bread compared to Penny. I will only finish my grad degree there because I have started and won't quit. If I was looking to start now, I would not choose RU. She has ruined the whole image of the school.
I thought her comment was hilarious, too. She has asked for, and the BOV is considering an increase in her deferred pay. If she gets it, the place is liable to run amok. It's what you get when you hire a pres. with no real background in education. Her time with the lottery and its "ties" to education are supposedly her strengths. If true, she should be able to raise funds so that RU doesn't have to struggle. Instead, she only wants more for herself, while the rest of the school and its purpose can be damned.
It truly is a sad state of affairs for a school that has given a great many folks a good quality education for many years.......
I hadn't paid much attention to Radford, honestly. The stories drawing my attention have all been negative.
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