Monthly Archives: June 2007

I had planned on waiting until I finished reading the complete Butzel Long report before commenting more on the whole Dickinson case, but I decided to write this post before finishing my reading for three reasons.  First, I still have too much to do in this last week and a half of school, so while I’ve made it almost 40 pages into it, I have a couple sets of student projects to read first.  Second, I have yet to come across anything that’s changed my mind about anything.  And third, since the Board of Regents is meeting tomorrow, the time to talk seems to be now.

Now, I’m not all that interested in speculating on what’s in this report and who ought to be fired and all of that.  Though I will say this:

• I cannot imagine a scenario in which Vick and Hall are not fired.  Quite frankly, if these people actually did care about EMU, they should resign.  And if they don’t lose their jobs, then students, staff, and faculty ought to organize protests outside of these people offices.
• As far as Fallon goes:  while the report suggests that there is not evidence that he knew that murder was a distinct possibility in December, it strikes me as difficult to believe that he was that out of the loop.
• The levels of miscommunication and mismanagement conveyed in the report among the highest levels of the EMU administrations is rather staggering.  As far as I can tell, no one seems to know where this phrase “no foul play” came from.

But like I said, I don’t want to dwell on what we all already know.  I want to think forward.  Besides firing people and apologizing and the like, what should the BoR and the rest of the EMU community do next?

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