Chancellor Potts faces firing

[star2city]

Take a look at this story [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=124284

[Bison Dan]

Take a look at this story [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=124284

[PhillySioux]

[star2city]

[ScottM]

[tony]

What's not to like?

It's pretty clear that Rep. Holmberg wants people to think that Chapman is having Potts removed. He's the one who contacted the Forum, for example. Apparently, we've got board members conducting public business in private, and doing it without the knowledge of the board President, the student advisor, the faculty advisor and at least two two board members. We've also got board members and "people familiar with the board" making anonymous comments, most of them spectacularly inane.

Good grief, it's time to get the Attorney General involved. Find out if these conversations between Holmberg, the Fargo Forum reporter, and the anonymous board member(s) are subject to open records laws. After that, find out if there were any off-the-record meetings and, if so, find out what was discussed. After that, clean out the Board.

BTW, Rep. Holmberg should really get his story straight before he runs to the press next time - the guy is a bag full of contradictions.

Forgot to answer the questions. One, I've never heard of this supposed animosity between Potts and Chapman. Assuming it really exists to the extent people are saying, it still doesn't have anything to do with Chapman and Wyoming (didn't they come to him?)

[WYOBISONMAN]

What's not to like?

It's pretty clear that Rep. Holmberg wants people to think that Chapman is having Potts removed. He contacted the Forum, for example. Apparently, we've got board members conducting public business in private, and doing it without the knowledge of the board President, the student advisor, the faculty advisor and at least two two board members. We've also got board members and "people familiar with the board" making anonymous comments, most of them spectacularly inane.

Good grief, it's time to get the Attorney General involved. Find out if these conversations between Holmberg, the Fargo Forum reporter, and the anonymous board member(s) are subject to open records laws. After that, find out if there were any off-the-record meetings and, if so, find out what was discussed. After that, fire anybody who violated the public trust.

BTW, Rep. Holmberg should really get his story straight before he runs to the press next time - the guy is a bag full of contradictions.

I think that under ND law personnel issues are not covered by the open meeting law. However, Holmberg is really being out of line by throwing this into the media. Who knows what the truth is.....I would have guessed some of the UND folks were irritated with Potts after he told Kupp to shut down the Fargo operation. One thing for sure is that this kind of stuff isn't good for ND as I would suspect future candidates for Chancellor will look at how the Board treated previous Chancellors.....and this will look bad. All of ND Higher Ed. institutions benefit from a good Chancellor....

[tony]

Hehehe, well, if something is too delicate to be subject to open meeting laws, it can't be OK to comment on it anonymously. However, I really doubt it applies to this case... they still would have to conduct a normal meeting, but they'd close it to the public.

[redwing77]

If the Boss doesn't get along with the subordinate and vice versa in the real world, how often is it that the boss is fired?

Seriously?

This whole Potts resigning thing is just a political strong arm move by Holmberg and his cronies to try to get control of the State Board. It's really nothing more than that.

I don't know if Potts has done a good job. I don't care. But smear campaigns based largely upon the independent actions of a university president and rumors of discord between the two is just wholly unprofessional. If Holmberg is behind this whole thing, I hope he's forced to resign as well.

[PCM]

This whole Potts resigning thing is just a political strong arm move by Holmberg and his cronies to try to get control of the State Board. It's really nothing more than that.

And you know this how?

[The Sicatoka]

Interesting. All of it, very interesting. And confusing.

So I'm going to follow my own rule:

When situations are confusing, just stop, rise above, look around, and follow the money. What's going on will soon become clear.

It'll be very interested to see how ND SBoHE school and overall budgets get reported in the coming days. Who looks good (balanced), who looks bad (red ink). What's going on will sort itself out then.

[Cratter]

If the Boss doesn't get along with the subordinate and vice versa in the real world, how often is it that the boss is fired?

Seriously?

Umm lets see: its called the "board of directors" and they hire and fire the CEO.

[The Sicatoka]

Nothing like a good soap-opera.

http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm...61&section=News

[tony]

Follow the money to where? What money stands to be gained by Potts getting forced out and by whom? That's complete BS.

Why not ask yourself this: Why would a board member (or is it two?) and Rep. Holmberg try to stir something up between Chapman and Potts? And this forced resignation - why does nobody on the board admit to having a clue that there is any such plan? Either Holmberg and his source are mistaken (at best) or at least three or more board members interviewed by the Forum flat out lied.

If the anonymous board member(s) were wrong or lying and that the Forum, Herald, and Tribune got suckered into printing gossip - gossip with a fairly obvious objective (going after Chapman) and it's gossip that Chapman can't even defend himself against.

BTW, why on earth should a board member be making anonymous comments in the first place, especially inaccurate ones?

IMO, The SBoHE is dysfunctional and at least two members should be cleared out immediately, but the Chancellor should stay. All indications are that he will be stay and that this whole thing was a bunch of malarkey peddled by Holmberg and his board member accomplice(s) in order to gain some political advantage.

Edit: I'm with redwing77 on this. However, Rep. Holmberg does not want to get control of the SBoHE (unless he and Governor Hoeven are in cahoots, he'd have no chance). I think he wants to put Higher Education back under the thumb of the Legislature.

[redwing77]

Follow the money to where? What money stands to be gained by Potts getting forced out and by whom? That's complete BS.

Why not ask yourself this: Why would a board member (or is it two?) and Rep. Holmberg try to stir something up between Chapman and Potts? And this forced resignation - why does nobody on the board admit to having a clue that there is any such plan? Either Holmberg and his source are mistaken (at best) or at least three or more board members interviewed by the Forum flat out lied.

If the anonymous board member(s) were wrong or lying and that the Forum, Herald, and Tribune got suckered into printing gossip - gossip with a fairly obvious objective (going after Chapman) and it's gossip that Chapman can't even defend himself against.

BTW, why on earth should a board member be making anonymous comments in the first place, especially inaccurate ones?

IMO, The SBoHE is dysfunctional and at least two members should be cleared out immediately, but the Chancellor should stay. All indications are that he will be stay and that this whole thing was a bunch of malarkey peddled by Holmberg and his board member accomplice(s) in order to gain some political advantage.

Edit: I'm with redwing77 on this. However, Rep. Holmberg does not want to get control of the SBoHE (unless he and Governor Hoeven are in cahoots, he'd have no chance). I think he wants to put Higher Education back under the thumb of the Legislature.

PCM- The bolded part is what I was trying to say. Maybe Holmberg himself won't be in charge, but people who believe the same as he does would basically be the same.

[PCM]

PCM- The bolded part is what I was trying to say. Maybe Holmberg himself won't be in charge, but people who believe the same as he does would basically be the same.

I understand your's and Tony's conspiracy theories. They make no sense.

The governor appoints the State Board of Higher Education, not the legislature. The legislature has quite a bit of control over higher education through the funding process. So it's not as if the legislators have no say in what happens in higher ed. Just ask Kendall Baker.

I don't doubt that the media is being used by someone in an attempt to gain a political advantage. That is quite clear. Unfortunately, based on what's been published, I don't think any of us knows enough about who's doing this for what reason to say with any certainty why it's happening now.

So speculate all you want and throw out all the conspiracies you want. Until you can provide some evidence to back up your theories, I'll continue to ask: How do you know?

[star2city]

If Holmberg is after Chapman, why would he attempt to take out Potts too? Potts is the one who's character is being assassinated, not Chapman's. Tony's and Redwing's conspiracy theories are loony just based on that.

Agree with Sicatoka and PCM that not all the information is in.

So where is John Q. Paulsen's voice in all this? He and Chapman are known to be tight, but no official word in the press out of Paulsen. Why would this issue come to a head shortly after Chapman removes himself from consideration from the Wyoming job? (Belive me, this is a key question.)

Redwing, you seemingly reflexively defend Chapman because your parents and Chapman are buddies, but yet accusing Holmberg of creating bad blood is perfectly acceptable. Having known Holmberg when he was a High School history and civics teacher as well as legislator, there are few people that are as passionate about good clean governement as Holmberg.

[tony]

Hey, some you guys were eager to speculate that all the allegations made by an anonymous board member were true. Well, it sure looks like they weren't. Three members (Christianson, Kosteleckey, Smith) said that they had no idea there was any plan to get rid of Potts and were pretty effusive with their praise for him. That means that for this anonymous board member and Holmberg to be right, either Kunkel, Clayburg, Paulsen, and Andrews have all met in violation of open meeting laws and decided to oust Potts -or- it means that some of the board members are lying to the press. Let me see, who is more credible: Those three board members who made their statements on the record or the one who only whispered from the shadows?

It seems pretty clear that this "anonymous board member" got their facts wrong, possibly deliberately. They should explain themselves on the record. Then if it does turn out that board members have been meeting privately, those should be forced out too. That's what an advocate of clean government would want.

The anonymous sources and Holmberg specifically targetted Chapman and implied that board members were breaking state law. If Holmberg can weaken the SBoHE and get some of the power back to the Legislature, the committee he chairs will wield enormous influence over issues like funding - something he seems eager to dabble in since it was he who ran to the press with the consultance's preliminary funding report (the one that would have, if ran through, made NDSU students pay for all Ag research in the state). If that's clean government, I'd hate to see dirty government.

[star2city]

The anonymous sources and Holmberg specifically targetted Chapman and implied that board members were breaking state law. If Holmberg can weaken the SBoHE and get some of the power back to the Legislature, the committee he chairs will wield enormous influence over issues like funding - something he seems eager to dabble in since it was he who ran to the press with the consultance's preliminary funding report (the one that would have, if ran through, made NDSU students pay for all Ag research in the state). If that's clean government, I'd hate to see dirty government.

Potts is the one under attack here, not Chapman. How is it acceptable to ascribe to Holmberg or anonymous sources negative motives toward Chapamn but ignore negative motives toward Potts? Yet the complete silence of an NDSU SBoHE bootster like John Q. Paulsen seems to assure you that he his not actively after Potts. Typical double standard by you, Tony.

BTW, do you recall how Chapman and three JC presidents attempted to get a legislative bypass around the SBoHE for the funding allocation? Holmberg actively worked against that- seems he wants that authority to remain with the SBoHE and for the SBoHE to be a functioning body. Again, that flies in the face of your theory.

[tony]

Who is going after Potts and what is your proof?

As for Paulsen, he made no comment. If there were private meetings among board members, anybody who participated in them should be removed along with the anonymous source. I don't see the double standard there. Apparently you believe Paulsen was involved in secret meetings - again with your only proof being what? Even the anonymous board member didn't say anything about that, not that her/his allegations about that would be any more accurate that the clearly false ones already made (e.g. the votes being there to oust Potts).

The only people who have criticized Potts so far are Kunkel, Clayburgh, and the Governor's Chief of Staff.

[The Sicatoka]

Follow the money to where? What money stands to be gained by Potts getting forced out and by whom? That's complete BS.

The money in question is "equity funding" from ND SBoHE.

Based on history Potts supports something like the current system and Chapman supports something else (where NDSU presumably would get a bigger slice). If Potts were gone might Chapman and the (three?) others who support a different system stand to gain (at their institutions)?

That's the money. Watch (follow) that.

"BS" indeed.

[tony]

It is complete BS, like it or not, until the anonymous board member comes forward and explains how they got things so completely wrong and why (or maybe they have them right and board members are lying left and right).

BTW, Rep. Holmberg wasn't too happy with NDSU not having to count Ag research dollars toward their equity funding... why don't you try following that money trail for a while?

Seriously, if you want to see UND and NDSU cooperate rather than engage in this destructive zero-sum game we have going on, link funding at NDSU to UND's funding. Like it or not, NDSU and UND have a lot more in common than UND and whatever other peers they picked for UND. Make it a per student deal, agree on how to count students, and then give NDSU, say, x% of what UND gets per student (personally, I think it should be 100% but UND might have some expenses that NDSU does not). And make all this discussion part of the public record. I'm sick to death of anonymous sources and grandstanding legislators.

And, yeah, keep the Medical school funding separate (as long as money earmarked for the medical school isn't transferred to other parts of UND).

[The Sicatoka]

Try this:

Going "anonymously" to the papers with this --> BS. And we still don't know who did it (heck, it could even be Paulson crazy as that sounds). At least Holmberg was quoted on the record, not that he should have opened this up in this manner either.

The problems between Potts and some ND SBoHE schools on equity funding --> not BS, more likely the heart of the matter --> Follow the money.

If memory serves, each UND and NDSU was allowed to select (help select?) peer institutions based on set criteria (enrollments, programs offered, history ala "land grant", professional programs ala Med and Law). Should the "peers" be re-evaluated?

Then again, I agree with "ScottM" (in that we have too many schools under ND SBoHE).

[The Sicatoka]

Find the name of this person and you'll have the original source of the story.

A board member, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the timing and sensitivity of the issue, said it would be unfair to talk about asking Potts to resign without telling him the reasons first.

Isn't that special? This anonymous person is concerned about being fair to Potts by first letting him know the reasons the board wants him to resign.

But he/she isn't the least bit concerned about the fairness of anonymously leaking the information to the media, allowing Potts to twist in the wind without knowing why he's being attacked in public.

[tony]

Don't get me wrong - Paulsen could definitely have contacted Holmberg, but it's really unlikely that he is the anonymous board member quoted in the Forum story. I can't imagine why Paulsen would want to bluff like that, but who knows? It took the consultant all of five minutes to figure out that some board members spend more time sniping at each other than doing any good.

Any story that has three anonymous sources is BAD NEWS - especially when it looks like they chose anonymity in order to gossip and speculate without consequence.

And, yeah, peers and equity funding are complete garbage and if ConnectND wasn't a flop, it would be a relic of the past. Maybe the new system based on work load would be better than my poor solution, but until NDSU and UND are taken out of the position where their supporters feel forced to undercut the other, this sorry type of thing is bound to keep happening.