Depends on What You Measure

The Faculty Senate at Carolina State University, a historically black university in Orangeburg, South Carolina, recently gave president George Cooper a no confidence vote. And now some state legislators are saying Cooper should resign. Cooper doesn’t think so.

According to an article by Dale Linder-Altman in the Times and Democrat:

Last week, the Faculty Senate said Cooper should resign in part because of his failure to provide a compelling vision for the university; his failure to communicate with faculty representatives and share governance and his failure to properly oversee the university’s finances, including cash flow.

But then, not everyone thinks Cooper’s doing such a bad job.

S.C. State Board Chairman Jonathan Pinson said Cooper is a rather good leader: “We were ranked number one in social mobility and 14th overall by Washington Monthly,” said the State Board Chairman, Jonathan Pinson.

That’s right. It’s . SC State did rank 14th among national universities in our annual college guide.

That may not matter much for Cooper’s future, however. The faculty’s concern with the president wasn’t specifically about rankings; it had more to do with ambiguous things like his “failure to provide a compelling vision for the university.” Good luck trying to address that.