“Forums on Nov. 20 to meet finalists for position of chief of governmental and community relations”

I’ve gotta say: this is starting to look a little fishy.

Geoff Larcom sent around this email this afternoon at about 1:30 announcing the opportunities for faculty and staff to meet and greet the finalists for the chief governmental and community relations job:

Faculty, staff and students are invited to open forums to meet the two finalists for the position of chief of governmental and community relations. (The third finalist has withdrawn from consideration.) Both forums will be Friday, Nov. 20 in 205 Welch Hall. The open forum with Jon Cool, chief of staff for Michigan Sen. Jud Gilbert, will be at noon. The open forum with Felicia Wasson, associate state director for government affairs for the American Association of Retired Persons Michigan, will be at 1 p.m.

For more information about the search, go to www.emich.edu/univcomm/releases/111309govrelations.html

So, just to be clear about this:

• We’re getting notice of the one and only opportunity for anyone beyond the search committee to meet these folks with less than 24 hours notice.
• One of the candidates– Brian O’Connell– dropped out of the search, which suggests that he knew something that perhaps the rest of us don’t know yet, that the “fix is in,” that the choice is just obvious, I don’t know.

Hmmmm….

Interestingly enough, I could go to these sessions and it would be a nice break in my day which is going to mostly involve grading. If I make it, I’ll blog about it here; if I don’t, maybe someone else here can pass along their wisdom and/or impressions?