Davenport Fired

#277
#277
Behr said:
Seems she was in over her head.
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Agree with butchna's post.
Anyone they appointed would have made the Currie hire. Some would have done what she did following the chaos, some would've jus continued to do what they were told.

I have no idea if Bev "stood up" to them or just chose the course that she thought would lead to self preservation. I'm glad her decision worked in our favor, regardless of her motive.
 
#278
#278
butchna said:
As would have been anybody hand appointed by Haslam. She just made the mistake of sticking hers up. Anybody else would have complied with the marching orders to hire Reid Siggmon.
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Oh, well I didn't know all of that. Hell it makes perfect sense now.

Lulz.
 
#279
#279
Behr said:
Haslam told Bev to hire Currie. She did. Then the debacle and she fires him and hires Phil.

Why didn't she just hire Phil in the first place?

When she fired Currie and hired Phil, I assume she had support. Where is that support now?

Edit: I'm not trying to argue here or pretend I know more than anyone, I'm just trying to understand.
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I don't believe it's about the athletic debacle as much as it is exactly what Dipietro put in the letter. I'm posting the whole thing right here because it seems some haven't read the whole thing in the available links.



Here's the full text of the letter.

Dear Beverly:

I have decided that it is in the best interest of The University of Tennessee to change the leadership of our flagship campus and terminate your appointment as Chancellor of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Your performance evaluation for Calendar Year 2017, a copy of which is being provided to you under separate cover, describes numerous areas of unsatisfactory performance. In several areas, even after I raised concerns early in your tenure and addressed them multiple times since then, you have been either unwilling or unable to improve, including:

1. The relationship between us, as well as that between you (and some members of your cabinet) and some on my leadership team continues to be unsatisfactory. More times than I find acceptable, there has been a lack of trust, collaboration, communication, and transparency in these relationships, and it has been counterproductive to the collective success of the university.

2. You would have benefited from a professional coach, and your unwillingness to routinely engage one, despite my recommendation that you do so, has been frustrating.

3. You have not acclimated yourself to the UT system and still appear unwilling to try to understand or acknowledge the value of the UT system. I continue to detect that you (and some members of your cabinet) have an “us (UTK) vs. them (UT system and UT Board)” mentality.

4. Your one on one, small group, and business transactional communication skills are very poor. I have had multiple people on multiple occasions complain that you do not listen to the person talking to you or pay attention to the details of written communications you receive. I also have received multiple complaints from multiple people about your ability to communicate orally. These complaints are consistent with my personal experience.

5. Regularly, you have problems with lack of organization, attention to details, timely follow-up.

6. You have failed to accept ultimate responsibility in some cases where subordinates make mistakes or errors and publicly have blamed administrators who held positions before you or others in dealing with problems you inherited.

7. You have failed to communicate to the campus a defined strategic vision of where you want to take the institution and a plan for its implementation.

As I indicated to you last Tuesday, I do not think you can be successful as the leader of our flagship campus and have decided that it is best to move forward with a change in leadership rather than putting you on a formal performance improvement plan after considering: (1) the number, magnitude, and fundamental nature of the areas that need to be addressed; (2) the lack of trust in our relationship; (3) your unwillingness or inability to address many of the areas that I brought to your attention early in your tenure and multiple times since then, which leads me to conclude that a formal performance improvement plan would not lead to the required changes; and (4) the broad-based concerns and compelling lack of support from Board of Trustees members regarding your leadership, and my belief that you will have similar problems with the new Board.

Effective July 1, 2018, in accordance with the terms of your appointment letter dated December 6, 2016, your appointment will be converted from your current administrative appointment as Chancellor to your full-time faculty appointment as Professor, with tenure, in the School of Communication Studies. As approved by the Board of Trustees, your compensation as Professor will be $438,750.00 (which is 75% of your initial base salary as Chancellor of $585,000.00) for four years. Beginning with the fifth year, your compensation in your faculty appointment will be adjusted to the average base salary of full professors in the department. Effective immediately, and until June 30, 2018, you will be placed on administrative leave with pay.

Obviously, this is not where either of us hoped we would be when I hired you. Personally, I am disappointed that this action is necessary, but as President it is my duty to make decisions that are in the best interest of The University of Tennessee. I wish you the best as you return to the faculty.

Sincerely,

Joseph A. DiPietro

President
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What I find hilarious is he berates her on her "lack of trust, collaboration, communication, and transparency in these relationships". So since among other things her personal communication skills were so poor he had felt that she "would have benefited from a professional coach". Which she refused. And he continues on about her "transactional communication skills are very poor. "I have had multiple people on multiple occasions complain that you do not listen to the person talking to you or pay attention to the details of written communications you receive. I also have received multiple complaints from multiple people about your ability to communicate orally".

Then turns around and makes her a tenured professor of COMMUNICATION STUDIES.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
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#280
#280
VFL-82-JP said:
Heh, grats, man, on the 2-for-2 valid Victorians, that's awesome!

Maybe an Engineering school won't be so deep in the identity stuff....
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Thanks JP. Still some hope for my son... he's a good sort, and good that he'll be close to home while away at college. Proud of daughter too, but have to bite my tongue there; she's headed to Jordan in June and back there again for the Fall semester.

Keeping my options open that the son may some day take over my business... it's a helluva job running a lab-cum-warehouse growing steady over the 8 years since my "retirement" doing global distribution as an army of one...
 
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#282
#282
AM64 said:
Whether she was effective or not in her job, it sounds like DiPietro is a very petty micromanager. I personally would disagree with her liberal stances pointed out in the article, but that sounds like DiPietro didn't do his vetting properly. Also if he thought she wasn't capable and needed a coach, then why in the hell was she hired in the first place.

We need another Andy Holt.
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She was a political hire at the time. Given Tennessee’s title 9 troubles,or perception of them anyway, it was widely reported that they’d do themselves a very strong PR “favor” by hiring their, as the article title says, “first female Chancellor”. She had little discernible experience that recommended her for the job, besides her gender....iirc, she’d been a provost for a couple of years and the interim President at Cincy for a very brief time.

So while I agree that she wasn’t vetted properly and surely wasn’t the best candidate they could’ve hired, DiPietro had his hands tied a bit during that search.
 
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#283
#283
volfannbama said:
Dont acknowledge recruiting or just dont follow it?

Funny how its assumed that a guy that hasnt coached a game is better than two proven coach. So yeah, it would be safe to assume that i dont agree with what is more tham likely an incorrect statement.

Look at it this way, had we hired frost or kelly would you be upset that we didnt hire Pruitt? The answer is no and anyone who says yes is lying to themselves.

Oh and as far as recruiting goes, didnt we lose some to Nebraska?
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You mean like Adrian Martinez a dual threat qb when we needed pro style QBs? Also, we got a few JUCOs that Nebraska wanted. We definitely got more of the recruits that Nebraska wanted.
 
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#284
#284
volfannbama said:
Dont acknowledge recruiting or just dont follow it?

Funny how its assumed that a guy that hasnt coached a game is better than two proven coach. So yeah, it would be safe to assume that i dont agree with what is more tham likely an incorrect statement.

Look at it this way, had we hired frost or kelly would you be upset that we didnt hire Pruitt? The answer is no and anyone who says yes is lying to themselves.

Oh and as far as recruiting goes, didnt we lose some to Nebraska?
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You didn’t say Frost. He’s a hefty recruiter. Kelly and Mullen ain’t. You can’t build a premier program in the SEC without your HC being an alpha male in that department...and that’s why Kelly was your pipe dream. He was never going to take a SEC job. Not when his methods work in the Pac 12 (I called that by the way). Soon as Nebraska nosedived it was a foregone that Frost would go home. (Called that too as should anybody not self-deluded). And Mullen has ties to Florida where he can succeed at with his milquetoast recruiting chops...not at the top level but 8-10 during good years. We needed a recruiting grinder AND elite teacher...we hired one. No guarantee that he parlays that into success but it’s higher odds than anyone realistically. I do believe that. I have no reason to LIE to you since I hold zero value towards your opinion. :hi:

And since you have no clue and won’t verify? No we didn’t lose anybody to Nebraska. :)
 
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#285
#285
butchna said:
As would have been anybody hand appointed by Haslam. She just made the mistake of sticking hers up. Anybody else would have complied with the marching orders to hire Reid Siggmon.
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The conspiracy theory doesn't fly.

Dipietro hired Fulmer personally, in spite of the fact that he was passed over for AD, in favor of the Haslam candidate, and had a less than amicable relationship with Currie. I'd say Fulmer's hiring was a freebie from Joe.

My problem is that she is being paid $438k as a freaking communications professor and given tenure. WTF!
 
#286
#286
USMC-TNVOL said:
You mean like Adrian Martinez a dual threat qb when we needed pro style QBs? Also, we got a few JUCOs that Nebraska wanted. We definitely got more of the recruits that Nebraska wanted.
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Cool, as of now would you say Pruitt is a better hire than frost or kelly?
 
#287
#287
Behr said:
You guys hear..she was fired for poor communication skills and made a professor in the communications college with tenure?

Siap.
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Perhaps Joe's problem with her communication was all about her hearing and her failure to speak the right words after they were planted. It sounds like a micromanager, and an off the reservation puppet.
 
#288
#288
Roustabout said:
The conspiracy theory doesn't fly.

Dipietro hired Fulmer personally, in spite of the fact that he was passed over for AD, in favor of the Haslam candidate, and had a less than amicable relationship with Currie. I'd say Fulmer's hiring was a freebie from Joe.

My problem is that she is being paid $438k as a freaking communications professor and given tenure. WTF!
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I read that theory from the Vol Colonel. I don’t believe it. That’s where we’re at. :dunno:
 
#289
#289
VFL-82-JP said:
Thanks, Sam, I appreciate it, man.

And you're absolutely right, there's plenty of brainwashing ("mental conditioning") in militaries, world wide. I remember running down Ardennes street on Fort Bragg in the 80's, singing about how I want to kill Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua communist dictator) and Manuel Noreiga (Panama thug voodoo dictator). Which in retrospect is pretty macabre, but at the time made perfect sense to all of us in formation. :)

So when I tell the girls they were brainwashed, I literally mean it. Brainwashing is simple: teach someone an important idea, and then build a wall around that idea so that the person who's brainwashed will refuse to listen to criticism of the idea, or other perspectives.

As you point out, people get brainwashed all the time. You just don't normally expect universities to be in that business. They're supposed to be about freely questioning everything, always open to different ideas.

That's not where the girls are right now, unfortunately. They'll grow out of it, I think. It'll just take time.
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Thanks, JP. I taught English at UT Martin for 38 years. I never had an agenda to push any manner of viewing things on my students other than critical thinking and writing skills. I guess that's' because I am all over the spectrum when it comes to my politics.

Do university professors try to instill ideology into their students? In my experience, I never saw much of this happening. There would be an electric personality with rock star appeal end up on faculty from time to time, but that would run it's course pretty quickly.

We university and college professors take a lot of abuse on forums like this, but we don't deserve it. What we do is not a job you can do without passion.
 
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#293
#293
butchna said:
You didn’t say Frost. He’s a hefty recruiter. Kelly and Mullen ain’t. You can’t build a premier program in the SEC without your HC being an alpha male in that department...and that’s why Kelly was your pipe dream. He was never going to take a SEC job. Not when his methods work in the Pac 12 (I called that by the way). Soon as Nebraska nosedived it was a foregone that Frost would go home. (Called that too as should anybody not self-deluded). And Mullen has ties to Florida where he can succeed at with his milquetoast recruiting chops...not at the top level but 8-10 during good years. We needed a recruiting grinder AND elite teacher...we hired one. No guarantee that he parlays that into success but it’s higher odds than anyone realistically. I do believe that. I have no reason to LIE to you since I hold zero value towards your opinion. :hi:

And since you have no clue and won’t verify? No we didn’t lose anybody to Nebraska. :)
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Uhm....yeah i did say frost. Kelly was no pipe dream for me, still considered by everyone as a better hire than Pruitt.

And yes, we did lose someone to Nebraska. Didnt know the guys name, but heard the guys on knoxville radio talking about it.
 
#296
#296
volfannbama said:
Uhm....yeah i did say frost. Kelly was no pipe dream for me, still considered by everyone as a better hire than Pruitt.

And yes, we did lose someone to Nebraska. Didnt know the guys name, but heard the guys on knoxville radio talking about it.
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You skimmed past what you already responded to. It was humor. Sorry forgot my audience. :wink2:
 
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#297
#297
butchna said:
Yes. Oh you meant him? Frost got a QB that fits his system. Recruiting doesn’t matter, right? :)
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Not sure why you keep saying recruiting doesn't matter. Im not sure how i dont follow it translates to it doesnt matter. I dont follow means i dont know who the kids are or what they do in high school. I usually dont know many commits until nsd and even then the only things i learn about them is what i hear on the radio. So no, i dont follow it, doesnt mean it doesnt matter.

If thats your way of proving some point then great.
 
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#299
#299
butchna said:
You skimmed past what you already responded to. It was humor. Sorry forgot my audience. :wink2:
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Yeah, you lost me when you said i didnt say frost then you go on talking about mullen. Its cool, i get that admitting i was right will hurt your ecred. So we will just keep it between us
 
#300
#300
I will reserve judgement until the new chancellor is named and Davenport did a solid job although she was not a very good public speaker.

UT loves drama packed situations.
 
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