07-24-2008, 04:39 AM
Followup: Four VCU leaders resign key posts
Quote:...The university also confirmed yesterday that Michael D. Pratt, another vocal critic of the investigation into Monroe's degree, had resigned as interim director of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and as director of the VCU Center for Public Policy. He will remain as a professor of economics.
Pratt said yesterday he had resigned for personal reasons. He would not discuss the letter that he wrote with Deborah M. Brock, associate director of operations at the Wilder School, to the university's president, provost and faculty senate president earlier this year.
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, they denounced the investigation as threatening and unethical, and they called for a new investigation "by an organization outside of VCU that can be trusted by the faculty, staff, and administration."
Pratt and Dan Ream, the faculty senate president, referred questions to provost Stephen Gottfredson, who did not return phone calls yesterday.
The investigation was conducted by the VCU Department of Assurance Services at the direction of the Board of Visitors' Academic and Health Affairs Policy Committee.
[Resigning Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences Robert D.] Holsworth, in a three-page letter to internal auditor Richard O. Bunce on June 25, challenged the investigation's tactics and its objectivity. Holsworth's letter also was obtained by The Times-Dispatch.
He said investigators had told one faculty member, Public Safety Institute Director Robyn Lacks, that her chances of receiving job tenure this year would depend on her cooperation with the board's investigation.
"In my 30 years as a faculty member and administrator, I have never heard of an individual investigator from an audit department becoming involved in a discussion about an upcoming tenure case in what was clearly perceived as an implied threat," Holsworth wrote.
He also accused investigators of assuming that he and other VCU officials had engaged in a conspiracy, as alleged by an anonymous source within the university, because Holsworth and others generally supported helping Monroe earn his bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies.
"As far as I can tell, at no point did anyone try to cover up anything that had occurred," Holsworth wrote, citing a detailed story in The Times-Dispatch about the work Monroe had done to receive the degree.
Holsworth stood by his letter yesterday.
"I am certainly proud to stand up for . . . good people who were doing a good job for the university and who were treated unfairly in the investigation," he said.
