The West Virginia University Presidency of Mike Garrison ended shortly after three o’clock Wednesday afternoon.
It ended not with his resignation, which now must only be a matter of time, but with an overwhelming vote by 565 WVU faculty members.
The faculty gathered at the Creative Arts Center for the historic meeting voted 565 to 39 with 11 abstentions in support of a motion expressing “no confidence” in Garrison and calling for him to resign or for the Board of Governors to require his resignation over the Heather Bresch scandal.
True, the faculty fell short of the 900 needed to constitute 50 percent of the faculty and thus a quorum, but it doesn’t really matter. A large and vocal segment of the WVU faculty is speaking in a unified voice rarely heard within earshot of Woodburn Circle.
Prof. Katy Ryan, who introduced the “no confidence” motion, crystallized the issue when she said, “Regardless of the extent of his direct involvement, the highly publicized award of an unearned eMBA under his watch has damaged his effectiveness and his credibility as President.”
“We doubt that WVU will be able to restore its reputation and its academic integrity under his leadership,” Ryan said.
In short, an overwhelming majority interested enough in their University to show up at the faculty meeting Wednesday believes WVU has been badly damaged and the restoration cannot happen under Garrison, no matter how badly he wants to make it so.
Where is there for Garrison to go?
The faculty, which accepted him cautiously because of his thin academic resume and the belief that he got the job only because of his political connections, has made it clear that Garrison must now resign.
Faculty votes of no confidence are not that uncommon at colleges and universties. College Presidents survive them all the time.
But the situation at WVU is different. This controversy has tapped into a frustration that has been building at WVU since the selection of the previous President David Hardesty. It's a belief that the political elite of West Virginia will pick who they damn well please as WVU's President and the faculty can lump it if they don't like it.
There is nothing imaginable that Garrison can do to restore confidence with the faculty and angered alumni. He could hang on, but there’s no point now. What’s left is for Garrison to plan a way out, some way that he can do the right thing while keeping his dignity.
I imagine Garrison took the job at WVU believing he would always try to make decisions in the best interest of the school he loves. Certainly he never considered that one of those decisions would be whether to step down, but that’s where he is now.
What’s required of Garrison is to commit a truly selfless act of resignation. This will be personally difficult for him and his family, but it will be one that should be heralded as courageous and altruistic.
This should also be a wake-up call to the Board of Governors. Yes, it may run the University, but it doesn't mean people are going to fall in lockstep. The board's engineered hiring of Garrison has backfired...big time.
The faculty minds, often scattered in hundreds of directions, have become largely one on this.
