Category: Education

Breaking Information:

The Governor’s office released today Governor Bevin’s list of 10 appointments to a replacement Board of Trustees for the University of Louisville.  With a single exception, all 10 are the same as the Board he appointed earlier in 2016.

Newly appointed Trustees:
J. David Grissom, of Louisville, until Jan. 13, 2023.
John H. Schnatter, of Louisville, until Jan. 13, 2022.
Sandra Frazier, of Louisville, until Jan. 13, 2021.
Nitin Sahney, of Prospect, until Jan. 13, 2021.
Bonita K. Black, of Crestwood, until Jan. 13, 2020.
Brian A. Cromer, of Louisville, until Jan. 13, 2020.
Ulysses Lee Bridgeman, Jr., of Louisville, until Jan. 13, 2019.
Ronald L. Wright, MD, of Prospect, until Jan. 13, 2019.
James M. Rogers, of Prospect, until Jan. 13, 2018.
Diane B. Medley, of Ekron, until Jan. 13, 2018.

The exceptions are that James Rodgers is appointed instead of Dale Boden.    In the first set, Douglas Cobb was appointed, but resigned shortly afterwards to be replaced by Brian Cromer who is on the list above.

I have commented on all of these at length, including an analysis of the application documents used for the first appointment process.  It is difficult for me to believe that the Nominating Committee that met last week, with 3 of its 7 members on that day new to the committee, had any meaningful independent influence on this intensely political appointment process.  Surely this was a done-deal from the start.

Peter Hasselbacher, MD
President, KHPI.
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
3:10 pm, Jan 17,  2017

Major twist in the story line!

The Governor’s Postsecondary Education Nominating Committee is presently in Executive Session in Frankfort selecting candidates to present to the governor for appointment to the University of Louisville Board of Trustees as described by new legislation passed by the Kentucky Legislature earlier this week.  Thirty names will be presented to  Gov. Bevin from which he is entitled to select 10, subject to approval by the Kentucky Senate.  This is a brand new process that is different from the previously uniform statutory requirement for Board appointment at Kentucky’s other major state universities.  I was told that the names of these candidates will not be released to those of us waiting in the hall when the Committee leaves its executive session. I suspect that the names that have been selected will come from the same binders used to appoint the first 10-person Board of Trustees last Spring. It remains to be seen to what extent the statutory protocols or actions of the nominating committee are different in any other way from the tightly controlled political processes used in the past by this governor or others. For example, it is not at all obvious that Governor Bevin elicited recommendations for his new Nominating Committee as required by statute.

What is newsworthy at the moment is the major change the Governor has made in the composition of his Nominating Committee. Announced just today is the replacement of three Committee members by new ones who are now in their first meeting ever.  To inspection, the new appointments to the Nominating Committee go a long way towards repairing a committee which was by statute illegally constituted by almost every parameter. There are now three women and two racial minorities on the 7-member Committee.  At least one of these is a Democrat, but the political party affiliation of all the rest is not yet known to me.

Obviously the Governor has been sensitive to criticism by me and others that his own committee was more “illegally” constituted than the UofL Board he sought to replace for the same reason.  That contradictory logic belied any other motives that might have been or still are operational.  Nonetheless, what is going on now represents a major deviation from past practices, and the product of the committee meeting remains to be analyzed.

This article has been amended.

Peter Hasselbacher, MD
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
January 13, 2017.  12:55 pm

New University and Foundation leadership a breath of fresh air.

I went to Frankfort today for an early look at the long-awaited result of Kentucky’s Auditor of Public Accounts of the relationship between the University of Louisville and its investment arm, the University of Louisville Foundation.  Alas, even before the press conference began, most of the major news outlets in Louisville had already published in-depth reports of the Auditor’s findings.  [Their reporters had access to an embargoed early release of the full report. My request for that opportunity went unanswered.]  My observations of those who spoke or asked questions at the session interpreted the report as highly critical of how the University and Foundation interacted under the administration of Former President James Ramsey– except for Dr. Ramsey’s attorney who termed the report a disservice to the community.  I will not duplicate the reports of  Chris Otts of WDRB, Tom Loftus of the Courier Journal, Kate Howard of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, Joe Sonka of Insider Louisville, Kyeland Jackson of the Louisville Cardinal,  or whatever other entity picks up this important story; but I encourage my readers to read some of these reports yourselves.  You can read a summary handed out at the session here, and a rebuttal offered by Dr. Ramsey’s attorney, Steve Pence.  The full report is available on the Auditor’s website.  It contains  responses by current leadership of the University and Foundation, a response by Former President Ramsey, and a rebuttal to that response by the Auditor’s office.  A video of the conference is also available. I have just begun to analyze the full report myself. At least read its Executive Summary, duplicated here, which contains specific recommendations. The summaries look rather damming to me, as was in my opinion the whole presentation by Auditor Mike Harmon. Continue reading “State Auditor’s Report On Governance of UofL and Its Foundation Relationship Highly Critical.”