It's time to clean house at Hocking College

Dump them all. The only way to wash away all the malice and ugliness at Hocking College is to wipe the slate clean and start afresh with a new president and new trustees.The events of the past year at Hocking, which culminated in the board essentially firing embattled President Ron J. Erickson on Friday, are an embarrassment to all parties involved.

Trustee Alan Geiger, longtime aide-de-camp to presidents and trustees at Ohio University, had the right idea on Friday, when, out of disgust at what was transpiring, he resigned his post.

The remaining trustees at Hocking, with the possible exception of Mike Brooks, have lost all credibility with students, staff and the public.

They inappropriately micro-managed their president's job, apparently resisting his efforts to remove the many holdover administrators from longtime President John Light's tenure. A set of "communication guidelines" forced on Erickson last July crippled his independent hiring ability, and required him to give the trustee board weekly briefings. That frequency of board-president meetings at the college level is unheard of. In contrast, OU's trustee board meets with its president five or six times a year.

It also appears that at least two of the Hocking trustees weren't telling the truth when asked last week whether any plan had been discussed to remove Erickson on Friday, and replace him on a short-term basis with Provost Molly Weiland.

Before Friday's meeting, both Trustee Van Cardaras and board Chair Joe Murtha denied allegations that a plan to remove Erickson had been discussed among them and other trustees. They went as far as to say they weren't aware of any such plan.

Odd then that this supposedly unheard-of plan is exactly what took place on Friday.

It's also exceedingly strange in that such a plan fire Erickson, replace him on an interim basis with Weiland has been common knowledge for more than a month among Hocking College staff, faculty and students. One staffer mentioned the plan to me, accurate in almost every detail, over a month ago, noting that it was common scuttlebutt at the college.

Perhaps the Hocking Board of Trustees' worst decision, however, was in hiring Erickson in the first place. It doesn't reflect well on a board when they do such a poor job of screening and hiring that less than a year after their carefully considered choice as president starts working, they're already on nearly non-speaking terms with him.

Erickson, for his part, has shown poor judgment in waging a public war on his trustee board, almost daring them to follow through and fire him. He apparently passed the point of no return a year ago when he publicly aired his grievances against the board. You can't do that with the people at whose pleasure you serve, and then expect that everything's going to turn out rosy.

Of less consequence was Erickson's public newsletter last week that reiterated his micromanagement allegations, and claimed the trustees had a plan to remove him. Since the latter appears to have been true before his newsletter, it's not likely that it made his situation any worse. In any event, Erickson has been looking for work elsewhere, and may have just decided to leave Hocking in a blaze of glory.

His newsletter's main function, as far as I can tell, was to burn the last bridge between himself and his trustee board. Even if they had no plans to remove him, which, again, seems highly doubtful, there's no way they could continue to work together after his latest broadside.

Much of the support for Erickson on campus appears to be centered among his staff and students. Faculty seems less enamored with him, as suggested in quotes a faculty union head gave The Chronicle of Higher Education for an article last week. Cheryl Mansky, president of the Hocking Education Association's professional staff unit, told The Chronicle, "He (Erickson) seems to be expecting some kind of outpouring of support from faculty and employees of the school. I can't say this for sure, but I believe he'll be very disappointed."

She also described Erickson's newsletter as "very unprofessional."

Whatever happens with the Board of Trustees, Erickson is history at Hocking College, and the trustees should follow him out the door. They've lost the trust and respect of students, faculty, professional staff and administrators, and any replacement for Erickson would have to be crazy to take the job, knowing the ugly recent history of board-president relations.

Hocking College is a quality institution with a lot going for it, in curriculum, faculty, academic mission and close ties to the community it serves. What's missing is professional governance, and that deficit lamentably corrupts everything. If the college's trustees don't do the right thing and resign, the Ohio Board of Regents should dissolve the board and start with a clean slate.