This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of Saint Louis University, and Thomas Brouster, head of the university's board of trustees, will not meet with the Faculty Senate as planned on Tuesday, senate president Mark Knuepfer said Saturday.
In a strongly worded statement, Knuepfer said the secretary of the SLU board had told him that the pair would not be attending the final senate meeting of the year, as agreed upon in a statement released after the board meeting in December.
"I hope that the President realizes that the University is far more important than his ego," the statement said. "It is clear that a graceful resignation would truly help solidify his legacy at St. Louis University; however, his blundering attempts to hold on to his eroding power base is making his exit less graceful and more disgraceful. There is a time for him to retire and it is now."
Knuepfer said that the reason given for Brouster's failure to keep the appointment is the fact that the board is seeking a replacement for him, because he has announced he will leave the presidency at the end of the school year, and the board is still going over results of a survey of the climate on the SLU campus as well as preparing for a board meeting next Saturday.
Knuepfer said the letter from the board secretary did not address why Biondi would cannot or will not attend the senate meeting.
"This change in plans is particularly disappointing to those of us who have worked so hard to improve shared governance at St. Louis University this past academic year," Knuepfer's statement said.
"President Biondi's last minute cancellation is not surprising as it represents yet another example in a series of missteps and errors in judgment on his part in the past several months, thereby adding momentum to the SLU community's campaign to replace him with a more suitable leader for the University."
Clayton Berry, spokesman for the university, said in an email Monday that efforts will be made to reschedule the meeting with the Faculty Senate once a new person is chosen to head the board of trustees.
"One of the six initiatives developed and endorsed by the Executive Committees of the Board of Trustees and the Faculty Senate was that 'representatives of the Board and the Administration will meet annually with the Senate to report on the state of the University,'" he said. "This was envisioned as a joint presentation to the Senate by both the Chairman of the Board and the President."
In a later statement, Berry added:
"... Some trustees have expressed concern over the statement that was issued by the President of the Faculty Senate regarding this matter. Moreover, any suggestion that this decision was made at any level other than the Board’s Executive Committee is not only wrong, but also an insult to the work of the Executive Committee of the Board.
"Furthermore, the personal attack against Father Biondi from the President of the Faculty Senate is disrespectful and shows the kind of unwarranted rhetoric that has been aimed at the president, the administration and now at the Board of Trustees."
Earlier this week, the senate and the Faculty Council of the SLU school of arts and sciences voted their displeasure at Biondi's request that faculty members be ejected from his meeting with the Student Government Association. At that meeting, he made opening comments, then answered pre-selected questions submitted by students.
In his statement, Knuepfer said that "it is implausible that President Biondi is too busy to spend 30 minutes addressing the Faculty Senate; rather, it appears that President Biondi has decided that this appearane would not serve him well in his desperate attempts to remain at the helm of the University until 2018."
That date is the school's 200th anniversary, and many members of the university community have speculated that Biondi wants to remain in his position until then, at least.
Tuesday's meeting was to mark the beginning of a climactic week at SLU. Next Saturday, the board is holding its last scheduled meeting of the school year; that night, a $1,000-a-plate gala honoring Biondi for his 25 years as president will be held at the Chaifetz Arena on campus.
Students and others who have called for his resignation plan a counter event, dubbed the Alternative Gala, dubbed as an event "for those of us who cannot afford a ticket to Fr. Biondi's 25 year celebration. We are celebrating the NEXT 25 years and raising funds for student scholarship by taking donations."
When word of the decision by Biondi and Brouster not to attend the Faculty Senate meeting spread across campus, the reaction was quick. On the Facebook page established by those working to see him ousted from the presidency, commenters criticized the move.
Our earlier story:
In a strongly worded statement, leaders of the Faculty Senate at Saint Louis University have asked the school’s trustees to censure the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, SLU president, for abusing his power by keeping faculty members out of a recent Student Government Association meeting.
The move – the latest in the ongoing standoff between professors and students who have called for Biondi to be fired and a board of trustees that has failed to remove him – says that Biondi’s actions at the meeting on Wednesday is “a violation of free speech and academic freedom at the university. It refutes his recent claim that he wishes to be conciliatory to the faculty.
“This abuse of power and show of intimidation [are] intolerable at an institution which professes a commitment to shared governance."
Biondi was scheduled to address the student meeting at Busch Center on the SLU campus at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Blake Exline, president of the SGA, had said that the meeting would be closed to reporters, but faculty members who have been active in the movement against Biondi showed up to observe.
When the president arrived, they say, he conferred with Exline, who then asked professors Kathryn Kuhn and Gregory Beabout to leave the meeting, saying that it was intended for students only. They then left.
After the meeting, several people pointed out that according to the constitution of the Student Government Association, all meetings are supposed to be open to the public.
Exline did not respond to email questions about the discrepancy. He did say that some non-students who were allowed to remain in the meeting serve the SGA in the capacity of an adviser or chaplain.
In addition to the letter approved by the executive committee of the Faculty Senate, the Faculty Council of the SLU school of Arts and Sciences unanimously approved a statement on Thursday that read:
"Whereas the constitution of the Student Government Association stipulates that SGA meetings are open to the public, and whereas openness and transparency are hallmarks of shared governance, the Faculty Council censures President Biondi for directing the SGA president to violate the SGA constitution by ejecting two faculty members from the SGA's April 24 meeting and for barring a member of the press from the meeting."
A statement from the university said:
“The meeting Wednesday night with Father Biondi was planned as a dialogue between the president and student government representatives only. That dialogue took place as agreed, and Father Biondi appreciated the opportunity to have a candid conversation with the student leaders.”
After the faculty members left the meeting, Biondi proceeded to answer questions from students that had been submitted and chosen in advance. According to several reports from those in attendance, he said that students had been manipulated by faculty members into supporting their protest against him, and that in some cases students may have even been trying to curry favor with their teachers in hopes of a better grade.
That statement brought strong condemnation from several commenters on the Facebook page that has been run by leaders of the student protest.
Bonnie Wilson, a professor in the economics department, wrote:
“An accusation that SLU students are corrupt -- trading protest participation for grades -- is unjust. Our SLU students are principled and honorable people.”
The latest controversy comes ahead of a meeting of the Faculty Senate scheduled for Tuesday where Biondi and Thomas Brouster, who will be head of the SLU board of trustees until the end of the academic year, are slated to attend.
Mark Knuepfer, the outgoing president of the Faculty Senate, said he expects Biondi and Brouster to keep the commitment and has not heard anything that would lead him to believe otherwise.
Brouster announced earlier this month he would be leaving his post as head of the board to devote more time to his family and his business.