STABEN: Move on, Chuck

That Chuck Staben is even allowed on the University of Idaho campus is a fundamental violation of sound organizational principle. When it is known that an upper management employee is actively seeking other employment, the employee must be terminated immediately (for reasons that should be obvious). If there is an employment contract, then the organization pays the employee to stay home. As a matter of record, Staben is seeking other employment. When your spouse is openly dating someone else, the marriage is clearly over. His future and that of the University of Idaho are mutually exclusive.

The U of I must immediately appoint an interim president and begin the process of searching for a permanent replacement. Staben is the fifth U of I president in the last 10 years and the lack of stability and continuity at the top is causing lasting damage to an institution that many of us love. When Staben took the job as U of I president, he said the fact that his wife was moving to Moscow was irrefutable evidence of his intention to stay on the job for a long time. She barely got off the airplane before she got a job in Boise and bought a house there. No matter how many words Staben throws at it, his wife does not live anywhere near Moscow and never has.

His stated primary goal at the U of I is to increase enrollment. This week, he claimed that enrollment is up, but that is true only by counting high school kids who are taking dual credit classes. When asked about the retention rates of those kids, Staben said, in effect, that isn’t a fair question since they’re not U of I students. Staben obviously thinks us Idahoans are hicks dumb enough to swallow that nonsense. The fact that he is still on campus is clear evidence that he may be correct.

GERARD CONNELLY

Moscow