Still reeling at the Alumni Board's ability to more effectively communicate than Robert Falls & Co and still smarting over the same body's no confidence vote, Dean Dobranski authored a scathing communication to all alumni on why he no longer attends Alumni Board meetings. To this alum, I find the letter comical in its assertion (multiple times) that some members of the Alumni Board are "subverting," "derailing," "undermining" (I think there are additional terms used) the Mission of the law school. The folks that I know on the Board are stand-up people who have not been shy about voicing their views on issues of the school's governance. It is amusing too that the issue of the evil blogs comes up again and again whenever the Administration communicates. At one point the Dean asserted that the blogs were negligible--apparently not. Now (from reports here and there) it is the blogs that are single-handedly destroying this institution. Wow! Such power. Taking down a millionaire, an experienced Dean and a law school! The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

Unfortunately, what the Dean writes is not entirely true. Rather, the members of the Alumni Board that the Dean apparently disparages are acting in good faith by all accounts--especially in light of an ongoing ABA investigation that may well determine the fate of the institution's accreditation. Of course, if the Dean and the Board of Governors believe the rabble-rousers are crimping their style and acting "in direct contravention of [the Alumni Association's] bylaws" then the Dean and the Board of Governors should take action and dissolve the Alumni Board. How about it esteemed Board of Governors members? FIRE THOSE PESKY ALUMS!

Nah, they don't have the balls. Poor Mr. Monaghan should have picked a tougher Dean, you know, an old school guy!

UPDATE: AveWatch has a link.

UPDATE II: Valjean makes an interesting observation:

In the interest of brevity here is a thought that is not original but which came from discussions with fellow alumni today:

1) To my knowledge the Dean stopped attending meetings long before the late February announcement. In fact, he attended just one meeting this school year, in September. His excuses are all the more disingenuous given this "inconsistency" in his story.

2) Perhaps the Dean forgot about the e-mail containing some reasons "why the Board of Governors believed it was in the long-term best interests of the Law School to relocate," that he sent to All Alumni on 02/20/2007, two hours prior to the Alumni Board's emergency meeting. In light of this e-mail, the Dean's statement, "So with absolutely no knowledge of what was to be communicated with respect to the relocation to Florida. . . the Alumni Board attempted to undermine the Law School with a public and pre-emptive 'condemnation' of the Governors' decision to relocate," seems inaccurate.

3) Based on my recollection of the Florida press conference, there was no additional substantive information regarding the BoG's released at press conference that was not mentioned in the prior e-mail communication.

I hope that all thinking alumni read the Dean's missive with appropriate skepticism. The scary thing is that, were it not for "weblogs" such as Fumare, all we'd be getting is the smoke he's blowing...with nowhere to compare notes and get the facts!

* Sorry...Dean Dobranski taught me to count!

Valjean 06.04.07 - 10:51 pm #

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