Asbury 'correction' continues -- 2d VP quits
Posted March 31, 2007
A second Asbury Seminary vice president has resigned -- effective immediately.
The memo I was forwarded gave no explanation for VP of advancement Larry Brook's sudden exit. Five weeks ago, vice president of finance and administration Peter Cates also stepped down "for the sake of his family and his physical and spiritual health" according to an e-mailed memo from acting president J. Ellsworth Kalas.
Despite a reported decline of as much as 33 percent in giving, Asbury Seminary trustees chairman Jim Smith is downplaying the problems at the school. In an interview with the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader this week, he stated: "This is kind of a correction period. It is not a crisis."
Asbury, one of the nation's largest seminaries, is independent of any denomination, but produces more United Methodist pastors than any other school.
To read an e-mail about Brooks' resignation, click below.
From: Communications Office
To: Announcements
March 30, 2007 5:44PM
Dr. Kalas has accepted the resignation of Dr. Larry Brooks, vice president of advancement effective immediately. Dr. Brooks has served in this position since January 1, 2005. Dr. Kalas states, "In the months that I have worked with him, I have appreciated Larry’s dedication, his love for the seminary, and his desire to serve as a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Rev. Ronnie Jones, our Regional Representative for several southeastern states, will serve as the executive director of advancement beginning April 2, 2007, with full oversight of the advancement program. Ronnie is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary (MA in Biblical Studies, 2000), and is well known to the advancement staff as well as within the larger seminary community. Ronnie will continue to minister to a large body of Asbury supporters, who know him both as a representative of the seminary and also as a friend. Although Ronnie will continue to maintain residence in Dalton, GA, he will be on the Wilmore campus for regular and extended periods in order to guide the advancement program.
Comments
What is advancement? Is that like a director of institutional fund-raising?
The remark about a cancerous tumor . . . may I add the words "growing out of control." When will the accrediting agencies wake up to what has been going on at Asbury and start cutting out the cause(s) of the cancerous tumor?.
Jack, my poor understanding of academic speak would indicate that any word not otherwise readily understood to relate to a legitimate activity of a college is to be interpreted as "fundraising."
Typically fund rasiers are in a department called Development. For that is what I do.
I haven't heard it called advancement but I am sure that is what it is.
No matter what you call it is still the same thing. It's what I like to refer to it as:
Executive Pan-handling.
I have expressed on this blog a number of times my disdain for the inability of either side in this dispute to explain what the argument is about.
Okay, Rev. Greenway, I assume you know what is going on (and I know that I don't), so please tell us what the causes of that cancer are and what needs to be cut out.
I say this not as any form of challenge or to express any disbelief that there is indeed a "cancer" (as in the famous cancer on the presidency of our last Quaker president), but simply because, despite having read every word written on this blog about the seminary's problems, I still don't have the vaugest idea why they fired the old president or what is really going on.
And, if we're making lists of what I don't know, what was contained in those hundreds of documents that the lawyers reviewed before the last president left office? Were they financial documents? Whad did they show or not show?
There appears to me to be a lot going on here that is beneath the surface and not being discussed.
And no one from either side seems to want to tell the story.
The real "cancer" had nothing to do with Greenway. As the crisis consultant said (as posted on this blog) - whenever there is a presidential crisis it usually has nothing to do with the president, but instead the president reveals dysfunction that was at the institution long before he came on the scene.
Here is what the dispute was over: "MICROMANAGEMENT” The board was consistently overstepping its bounds and micromanaging. The dispute occurred because they underestimated Greenway and they thought they could treat him like a puppet. When Greenway didn’t bend over and take it, he got fired.
We can analyze all the other bad stuff and secondary motivators, but in the end, the above is the most deep down motivation.
The Asbury presidency is even less desirable now than the position of basketball coach at UK!
What high quality candidate in his right mind is going to consider a position where the Board of Trustees might stab him in the back?
Right now, Jack, though I've not yet been approached about either position, I'd probably become UK basketball coach before I'd try being president of Asbury right now. They need to issue him a flak jacket at the front door.
Anybody Methodist educational leader interested in the job should insist on the resignation of everyone from the BOT who was instrumental in the forced ouster of Greenway, as a prerequisite for considering the job.
Dr Brooks is a fine, decent, talented administrator who was brought into the Asbury Seminary fold by Dr Jeff Greenway.
He has apparently been given his walking papers. (I am reading between the lines as one must with all of these mentally insulting press releases).
This situation is like watching a cancerous tumor grow.