I taught at the University of Virginia for 25 years. During my time at UVA, I had three deans, and one of them was a black woman and an affirmative action hire. She turned out to be a disaster. Although the president made a mistake when he hired her, the full professors in my school made up their minds to do their best to help her out because it was in our school's interest for her to succeed. Regrettably, we couldn't help her because she wouldn't listen.
Consider this example: in her first year as dean, I chaired the Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) Committee. The committee's chairmanship rotated among the full professors, and as fate would have it, it was my turn to chair the committee during her first year. Our new dean arrived in July, a couple of months before school started, and she called me at home one evening in August to tell me that she wanted to promote a particular female associate professor to full professor. The candidate she had in mind wasn't ready for promotion because her academic record wasn't good enough. That's exactly what I told the dean, but it didn't matter. She had made up her mind, and she naively expected me to follow orders. If she had had experience in academia, she would not have been so foolish.
Read more at: American Thinker
Read more at: American Thinker
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