The less than ideal but necessary outcome for Dixie State University

The less than ideal but necessary outcome for Dixie State University

Someone recently posed a very good question on the Full Disclosure DSU Facebook page. They asked what the ideal outcome would be. Presumably, the comment referred to the unrest and uproar over the recent terminations of Dixie State University professors Glen Webb and Ken Peterson, and by default Varlo Davenport.

At the outset, one might think that the desired outcome is the reinstatement of these people as they were clearly terminated on incredulous and perhaps illegal grounds.

I would assert that that horse has already left the barn and did so a long time ago. While unjust and tragic, their firings are but a footnote in what is becoming a pattern of abuse committed by the university dating back years, perhaps even decades.

However, the problem, pandemic as it is, has seemed to compound significantly since Biff Williams became president as well as since the subsequent hirings of a notably incompetent general and assistant counsel and possibly the provost as well (among others).

Since Biff came on board, over 50 people have been fired or resigned their positions at the school. Several clearly avoidable civil litigations have been started with the eminent possibility of even more coming. Enrollment is demonstrably down, and in a recent publication of a job interview, Doajo Hicks even notes that he predicts it will go down after this year’s graduation.

Additionally, the funding for Legend Solar Stadium has dried up with the inauspicious failing of the company whose namesake is on the stadium. Prevalent among faculty, staff, and students is an outright atmosphere of fear and intimidation being directly perpetrated by the administration as noted in the transcripts of a faculty meeting last month whereby DSU’s counsel quite literally pontificated a loose and inaccurate interpretation of several laws in the state.

This is presumably to silence the growing outrage at distrust the administration has created.

Valid criticism does not deal in categorical approvals or condemnations but rather seeks a just description of what is happening, which is to say that dismissing the school outright goes too far, albeit not by much. But just the little bit being outlined here is indicative that there is something demonstrably wrong and placations about all the good that is done, true that it may be, cannot assuage the growing unrest at the school or in the community at large.

The firings and resignations as well as the demonstrably low enrollment and exiting of key donors is indicative of much. Any person with a hint of managerial savvy knows that high turnover and low retention is a leadership problem almost everyday and twice on Sunday. And likened to a metaphorical cancer, simply addressing isolated areas of the problem all but guarantees not only the absence of a cure but the assurance of a remission being short lived. 

It is time to once and for all find the cancer and deal with it, which means a thorough and scrupulous look at the institution and its affiliates as a whole, not just the current situation. Because with each new abuse in which the school engages, the argument for its credibility and integrity is diminished, and the proclivity to look on the bright side and have hope becomes more difficult. And the tone of surprise and outraged innocence perpetrated by those who are either culpable by direct action or by irresponsible indifference to the checks and balances they are bound by position or law to implement is indicative of a larger scale of corruption.

Their apparent willingness to almost whimsically destroy anyone standing between them and their plans reveals not just a lack of moral standing but something uglier: the treatment of people as disposable.

It is simply not possible to sustain such a mindset, because in the long haul, what is unjustly done to one of us is done to all of us.

Yet as with almost every instance of abuse of power, those like Biff Williams seem almost infallible to the consequences of such recklessness. I would assert here that the reason for this has implications that are broadly reaching in this community as well as this state.

I am afraid the answers to the begging questions being raised about why things are happening as they are will be hard to hear, not just from those in power but those who have naively trusted them. Their solution is far from ideal.

See you out there.

Articles related to “The less than ideal but necessary outcome for Dixie State University”

Petition to reinstate terminated Dixie State University professors circulating online

Dixie State University is firing people, again — a suggestion on how to respond

Dear Dixie State University and Legend Solar: Show me the money