After a marathon nine hour meeting. the Board of Trustees removed President Ladner from office Monday. This was the end of months of investigation and came after increased student protest.
Also leaving with Ladner were board chairman Leslie Bains and board member Paul Wolff. It is disheartening that Bains was forced to resign after much of the board made her the focus of its ire, rather than Mr. Ladner, whose poor judgement plunged the school into this debacle in the first place.
By all accounts the meeting was filled with vitriol and unfortunately little was accomplished in the way of working on AU's future. A severance package for Ladner still remains to be finalized, and now a search for a new president will be underway. We fear that the lack of word on a severance package for Ladner means that he has a large one in the works. If so, it would be a disgrace.
While he will no longer serve as president, it remains to be seen whether Ladner will return as a tenured professor, as did his predecessor.
With Ben Ladner out of the picture so to speak, the board of trustees is now center stage. It has a lot of reforming to do, and it is time that the members start living up to what they have promised. Students and faculty should be given more of a say in their university, and should not be ushered in the door one minute, and kicked out the next.
The board has established three committees, one to search for a president, to replace the chairman, and to clean up board operations. The latter committee is the most important, and early signs show the board is not moving forwrd in a proactive manner.
Appointing people from within to investigate themselves will not streamline or make transparent the workings of the board. it will only result in a whitewash, enable them to continue to horde power, and could result in the hiring of another Ladner.
What is needed is a true oustide body of people to look at what the board has done, what it needs to do, and how it can best accomplish its goals. After the board's dismal performance in overseeing President Ladner it owes it to the students who pay 90 percent of AU's bills, and the faculty and stuff that keep the school climbing in the rankings, to get it right from this day forward.
