Fallon speaks on WEMU this morning

EMU president John Fallon was on WEMU this morning, talking about a whole bunch of the ways that EMU has found itself in the news lately. I actually recorded it, but I didn’t think it was necessarily cool to put the whole thing up on this site. Hopefully, WEMU will post it sometime soon since Fallon does say a lot here that’s important. But here’s a bit of a recap of what I heard:

• About fact-finding, Fallon said repeatedly “I’ve read the report and embrace it… it was done thoughtfully… I continue the process of consulting with others…I’m optimistic, and I feel good about where this is moving” etc. But when David Fair asked flat-out “Is there any reason now why we couldn’t get it (a contract, that is) done on Friday?” Fallon waffled. He said “Well, ah, I don’t see– I see this as a very auspicious development and, uh, I embrace it, I’m in the process of consulting with others, and, uh, I’m prepared to get this behind us and move forward.” So positive, but not exactly a “yes.” Oh, and it’s worth noting here that this is, as far as I can tell, the first public statement from anyone in the EMU administration about the fact finding report– well, beyond the first email that Fallon sent out.
• He talked about working more with the faculty, etc., and then they talked about funding to EMU from the state. There’s going to a state legislature (the senate?) hearing on campus on April 23. Unsolicited piece of advice: schedule the meeting for some place in Pray-Harrold.  Pick any room you want, maybe a lecture hall.  DO NOT schedule it in the shiny-new Student Center or the not surprisingly well-kept chambers in Welch. Let the legislators see first hand what a dump much of this place is due to (in part) their unwillingness to fund improvements.
• On the Laura Dickinson murder: when Fair asked if the university has been as open about the investigation as they should have been, Fallon began with “There are questions about this, and those questions have lead in fact toward the Butzel-Long investigation and now the DOE investigation.”  And he went on to point out that he’s all for the investigation, it’s the Board of Regents investigation, etc., etc.  Fair asked Fallon point-blank if he has been honest about all this and that he has not withheld information, and Fallon answered very quickly “Absolutely, without equivocation.”  Fair followed this up with questions about why Vick was on leave, and Fallon got a little more “no comment”-like, pointing that this was under investigation, some of the questions that needed to be addressed, etc., etc.  He also said that “I have been interviewed by a couple of different folks associated with this investigation.”  So, from my hearing of this, it seems that the story that Fallon is sticking to here is that he didn’t know what was going on with the Dickinson case until very late into the process.   It’ll be interesting to see how this investigation plays out, indeed.  Oh, btw– no apologies, as far as I can tell.
• Fair wrapped up by asking Fallon to respond to the calls for him to be fired; not surprisingly, Fallon didn’t exactly have a stellar response to that:  “I want to focus on doing the right thing, that hasn’t changed, I want to be open and transparent,” etc., etc.

So, mark your calendars:  this Friday, we’ll find out just how serious the administration is (or isn’t) about settling the contract; April 23 there will be a hearing on campus about funding for higher ed in Michigan (a great picketing opportunity if the contract isn’t settled, in my opinion); and sometime in the near future, a series of investigations about the Dickinson murder will shed some light on what went wrong there, and also what the president knew and when did he know it.