Tag: csu chancellor search

In an outgoing op-ed last month, Former CSU Board Chairman Doug Jones said he learned a great deal this year from public response to...

The Colorado State University board of governors is moving to install its own former vice chairman, Joe Blake, as system chancellor this month after making little effort to directly address concerns about the lack of transparency that marred the chancellor search process this spring.

In recent years, colleges and universities have encountered increasing pressure to operate like businesses. As the logic goes, businesses must survive in a cutthroat climate of unfettered competition and, thus, their organizations need to be leaner, more efficient and more responsive to the needs of their customers than not-for-profit organizations, such as colleges and universities.

Colorado State University lawyers are attempting to regain control of recordings of a CSU board meeting held in secret last month where members decided to select their own vice chairman, Joe Blake, as sole finalist for the new university chancellorship. CSU is being sued by The Colorado Independent, the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Pubelo Chieftain for violating state open-meeting laws. Larimer County judge Stephen Schapanski earlier ordered CSU to turn over the meeting recordings so that he could review them in chambers to determine, in part, how the court should proceed.

The Denver Post celebrity sighting column caught soon-to-be Colorado State University Chancellor Joe Blake already beginning some of the work he has been hired to do for the school. According to the Post, 73-year-old Blake stepped out Tuesday night in Denver for cocktails and dinner with local movers and shakers -- exactly the kind of people the board at CSU is depending on Blake to summon out of the depths of his Rolodex and tap to help solve the ongoing funding crisis at the land-grant university.

In papers submitted to a Larimer court last night, Colorado State University attorneys argue that CSU board members did not break state transparency laws when they voted in private to make board Vice Chair Joe Blake CSU chancellor because Blake had recused himself as Vice Chair roughly a week before the vote.

Has something changed at Colorado State University in the wake of the secretive chancellor search that yielded one candidate and accusations of cronyism? The chancellor search that has so far generated campus protest petitions, a scotched state transparency law, an open-meetings lawsuit and an ethics-watchdog coalition backlash? Maybe. The university today announced three applicant finalists for CSU Chief of Police. Note that: three finalists; not one. And that's not all. The university has made the names of the applicants public so you can look into their background and qualifications. Also, the applicants are going to be asked to come to campus to meet with the CSU "campus and larger community" before any of the three of them are named Chief.

The Coloradoan reports today on the latest round of job cuts announced at Colorado State University. The university's engineering department plans to slash 5 percent of its budget this year, or roughly $700,000. Among the cost-cutting measures, the department would eliminate six existing jobs and significantly shrink the rolls of teaching assistants, who conduct the lion's share of lab sections at the school. Today's announcement won't be the last of its kind from CSU. The university's departments will be posting plans in waves over the next month as the university wrestles with record budget shortfalls.

Three Colorado watchdog groups have joined together to demand Colorado State University rescind its decision to hire Denver Chamber of Commerce President Joe Blake as the university's new standalone chancellor.

Larimer County Judge Stephen Schapanski this morning agreed with attorneys for three media outlets suing Colorado State University, saying that in light of the evidence so far presented there is sufficient reason to believe the CSU Board violated state open-meeting laws when it selected Board Vice Chairman Joe Blake as the only finalist for the new university chancellor position.