From the Chronicle of Higher Education “blog” of sorts: “Kent State U. Dean Resigns After Police Say She Defaced a Parking Sign.”
When the dean of Kent State University’s Stark campus resigned abruptly last week, a press release issued by the university, in Canton, Ohio, said she was leaving for personal reasons.
But according to local news reports, the dean, Betsy V. Boze, actually resigned after a police report identified her as the vandal who earlier last week used a can of spray paint to alter a parking sign at nearby Stark State College. No charges have been filed in the case.
This article and a related one linked to in the CHE piece from a Canton newspaper say that Boze’s excuse was that she was merely “correcting” a sign, and the Canton paper has a picture of the sign in question.
This probably isn’t the best way of handling parking problems of course, but I can actually sympathize with ex-dean Boze a bit. I have more than once been tempted to erect some sort of homemade sign at the entrance of the Pray-Harrold parking lot to remind would-be student parkers that this was a faculty/staff lot during the day. So obviously, it was a stupid move on Boze’s part, but I at least admire her follow-through.
This strange case from Kent State reminded me of one of the first conversations I ever had with Sam Kirkpatrick, when he was newly installed as EMU’s president. This was in 2001 or 2002. He showed up rather late for a department’s “honor” event for outstanding students, with his entourage with him, and a circle of people formed around him, to hear his sad tale…of being given a parking ticket for parking in a no parking zone on campus. Sympathy for his plight was forthcoming from various administrators who were there, and one said “DPS ought to know what car is yours.” Sam agreed, most emphatically, and said that he’d spent a lot of time “correcting” (I think that was his word) the relevant officials for allowing his valuable time to be wasted with a parking ticket. He of course got it fixed. Par for the course in those days. But to his credit, Kirkpatrick did not, as far as I know, spray paint a parking sign. His egotism knew no bounds, and all who served him played up to that egotism. Many were promoted as a result of their appeasing it.