Skip to main contentTrustees and administration at Lewis & Clark College have gotten an earful since WW reported two weeks ago that former president Michael Mooney plans to return to the Southwest Portland campus in the fall.
Mooney resigned last June after 14 years at the college when WW reported that he had agreed in March 2001 to loan $10.5 million of Lewis & Clark's money without authorization or approval to a company that subsequently declared bankruptcy. The college's board of trustees learned about the loan in May 2002; it chose not to discuss the matter with anybody--faculty, students or administration--for another year.
Early last week, student government leaders delivered a letter to Interim President Paul Bragdon and other administrators. "Parents, alumni and students were angered by what many saw as an arrogant attitude and insufficient recognition of wrongdoing from Dr. Mooney," the letter says. "We feel strongly that President Emeritus Mooney's decision to return is inappropriate."
A letter from faculty members, delivered on Friday to a meeting of the board, was even blunter. "An overwhelming majority of the faculty who have communicated with us believe that Dr. Mooney's presence on campus would be extraordinarily and dangerously divisive," the letter says, adding, "Dr. Mooney's return will make it difficult for the college to attract and retain a high quality President."
Eban Goodstein, a faculty representative to the board, says that trustees were sympathetic but told him that getting rid of Mooney--a tenured professor--now would be prohibitively expensive. "In order to have him not come back, it would cost a very substantial amount of money at a time when the college is financially strapped," Goodstein says. (Goodstein declined to share the faculty letter with WW; it was obtained elsewhere.)
College officials concede, however, that they do have the ability to fire a tenured professor such as Mooney "for cause."
The board's behavior is puzzling to at least one former trustee. Columbia Sportswear co-founder Gert Boyle, who resigned last year to protest the board's failure to hold Mooney accountable, says she agrees with the substance of the letters sent last week. Boyle is incredulous that Lewis & Clark would allow Mooney back on campus. "I wouldn't put up with that in my business," she says. "There are rules, and he broke them."
As for the college's leadership, both Bragdon and Board President Fred Fields refused repeated requests for comment.
WWeek 2015