AT ISSUE: Ball State is withholding information about the president’s resignation.
For a university that labels itself as “student-centered,” Ball State has again missed the mark on keeping members of the campus community informed.
President Paul W. Ferguson’s resignation can be described with one word: surprising.
See the rest of our coverage of Ferguson's resignation here.
The Board of Trustees announced his resignation in an email to students, but they left out an important detail — his reason for leaving.
In an interview with the Daily News, Board of Trustees Chairman Rick Hall wouldn’t elaborate on the reason, instead saying that it was a “mutual decision.”
After head football coach Pete Lembo resigned last month, Ferguson became the highest paid employee at Ball State, earning nearly half a million dollars each year — yet students aren’t able to get the full story, or even a part of a story, of his resignation.
He also is leaving a year and a half into his five-year contract. Ferguson made big changes to Ball State, like removing “education redefined” from university material and focusing on entrepreneurial learning. He wasn’t meant to be just a temporary president.
The university seems to be purposely hiding information about the real reason for his departure. When the Daily News reached out to Joan Todd, the university spokesperson, she directed the Daily News to Myra Borshoff, a Ball State alumna who is known for her work in crisis communication.
Borshoff said Hall had reached out to her. However, Todd said, Borshoff “offered her assistance to the board and they accepted.”
The university’s refusal to release information is just a recent example of their inability to communicate with students and taxpayers.
After Jennifer Jones-Hall, former director of student life, resigned last spring, the university never released a clear reason for her departure. Her resignation was soon after she told student groups to “be careful to not bite the hand that feeds them.”
Students were quick to assume that this comment was the real reason for her departure. The university fed those rumors by failing to make any definitive statements.
As students, we can understand bad news. Withholding facts from us is the real problem.
Likewise, students, alumni and faculty can only guess at Ferguson’s reason for leaving the university.
In addition to an uproar of speculation on social media, faculty members, like telecommunications professor Dom Caristi, even called for more information to quell the rumors.
Hopefully as President Ferguson’s (brief) era comes to a close, so will the university’s tendency to withhold information.
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