Board/prez war heats up again at Hocking

In a bold and unusual move, Hocking College President Ron Erickson has made a direct appeal to the media and the public to help him stave off what he calls a plot by members of his Board of Trustees to replace him as president.

In a "special edition" of a college newsletter sent out via e-mail shortly after noon Tuesday, Erickson – who has been in the running for jobs at other colleges recently – blasted his board for, in his view, having reneged on promises made after a meeting last June, to try to work harder to make the president/board relationship work.

"I am sorry to report that the promises made at that meeting by the board have not been kept, and that their inappropriate interference with this administration continues," Erickson wrote in the newsletter, under the headline, "The Rest of the Story."

Erickson acknowledged in the message that he has been looking into other employment possibilities, but said he is willing to consider signing another contract with Hocking when his current one ends June 30, 2012, "if a board that trusts and supports me could be established."

Among other allegations aired in the message, Erickson claims, "Word has now reached me that a new plan is underway to remove me from my current position as president, reassign me to the role of 'consultant,' and to appoint an internal, interim president for the remainder of my current contract."

Erickson said he believes the plan may be discussed at a special board meeting set for this Friday, whose stated purpose is to discuss Erickson's performance evaluation.

Board Chair Joe Murtha said Tuesday that he doesn't know what Erickson is talking about, and doesn't much like the way the president chose to publicize his concerns.

"I'm not aware of anything like that," Murtha said when asked about an alleged plan to oust Erickson. "My God – you're telling me (about this) for the first time. He certainly hasn't tried to talk to me about anything like that."

Murtha would not totally rule out the possibility, however, that the issue of Erickson's continued employment would come up at Friday's meeting.

"The purpose of Friday's meeting is to finish the evaluation," he noted. "I have no idea how that will play out, and I'm not going to get caught in that corner."

Asked about the unusual route Erickson has chosen to make his case directly to the public over the heads of his board, Murtha said, "I think it's very unprofessional."

Hocking spokeswoman Laura Alloway, however, said the special message is a reflection of the seriousness of the threat perceived by Erickson.

"I think it is," Alloway said. "Dr. Erickson regrets that he had to go about handling it this way, but he said he could think of no other way to remain in office than to share this with the campus and the community."

Alloway added that Erickson has authorized her to comment on the issue, but has said that his own comments are essentially contained in the newsletter article.

Another trustee, Van Cardaras, said he was "really surprised" when he read the newsletter article. "I would have thought that he would have talked to the board before he did that," Cardaras said.

Like Murtha, Cardaras questioned Erickson's perception of a plot to get rid of him.

"I found that surprising also," he said. Cardaras said individual board members have filled out evaluation forms on Erickson, and that Friday's meeting will be the first time those are all put together to create a complete evaluation.

"We don't even know the outcome of his evaluation at this point," he maintained. "That's what our meeting is for. It might be positive, it might not. We don't know at this point."

Cardaras shared Murtha's dubious view of Erickson's use of the newsletter to plead his cause. 

"That's not cool," he suggested.

Last summer, rumors began circulating around Hocking that Erickson who began as president in mid-2009 was already facing friction with his board, with Erickson feeling that the board was trying to micro-manage his administration, particularly in the area of hiring and firing decisions, and mounting what he called in an e-mail a "relentless challenge" to his authority.

At a packed board meeting in June 2010 that included a lengthy closed-door executive session, the president and board tried to come up with a plan to work out their differences, and announced at the end of the meeting that they were committing to doing so.

According to Erickson's latest message, however, that hasn't happened. After the June 2010 meeting, he claims, a board member produced a rough draft of "communication guidelines" for the president's dealings with the board.

These proposed guidelines, Erickson wrote, "dictated sweeping powers" to the board in day-to-day decision-making, and put "stringent restrictions on my decision-making authority."

In order to avoid more bad publicity for the college, according to Erickson, he didn't publicly oppose the guidelines, which remain in place today, and "have led to the need for four separate subcommittee meetings each month, consuming hours of time for me and members of my leadership team."

Earlier this year, Erickson wrote, he decided not to seek a contract renewal in 2012, and began looking at other job options. In March, for example, news media out of Minnesota reported that he was one of five semi-finalists for the position of president at Anoka-Ramsey Community and Anoka Technical College.

As mentioned, however, Erickson now claims he would be willing to re-up at Hocking if the board starts treating him better.

Erickson notes that he's not invited to attend Friday's meeting at which the board will discuss his evaluation.

"You may be asking the same question I have asked myself many times: Why has the partnership between the board and its chief executive officer failed so terribly?" Erickson writes. "My only conclusion is that change itself has been an intolerable outcome of my arrival here, and that the long-standing relationships between the board and officers of the former administration outweighed the undeniable need for change to occur. It would appear that in the minds of some trustees, a change in leadership was never intended to create change throughout the institution."

Erickson who in his previous clashes with the board has generally enjoyed the support of both students and the faculty union ends his message by urging those who support him to lobby on his behalf with the trustees, state officials including the chancellor and the governor, and to attend Friday's meeting.