Via Inside Higher Ed, we learn this fine summer morning that Baylor President John Lilley, who merrily tried to fire so many junior faculty this year (and disproportionately women faculty, natch!), was himself $hitcanned yesterday. It so rarely happens that we get to see an administrator so destructive of faculty hopes and dreams get his comeuppance–so let’s savor the moment. (See these old posts on Baylor, for more background.)
IHE reports that “the regents had offered Lilley the opportunity to serve out his five-year contract as the board began a search for a new president. He rejected that offer.” Well, good on all of them for not prolonging the misery. But, check this out: “Lilley, 69, said he was retired ‘as of this morning’ and returning to his home in Reno, Nev. Prior to coming to Baylor, Lilley had spent four years as president of the University of Nevada at Reno.” Hmmm…remember all of those lawsuits by current and former staff and faculty at at UNR I told you about a few weeks ago? Well, let’s hope he stays good and retired as of now.
Time’s up, cowboy. You fell off the bull. No points for you. (But welcome new readers from Inside Higher Ed!)
Historiann 
Just what are the criteria for hiring university presidents these days?
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Do you want the job at Baylor, GayProf?
I think it mostly has to do with fundraising and bitch-slapping the faculty. While Lilley excelled at the latter, I heard he was pretty bad at the former (angering the alumni by making pointless changes, etc.) Lilley’s mistake was in trying to fire people AFTER their departments had recommended them for tenure and promotion. That way, he made not just enemies of the people he tried to fire, but enemies of whole departments who resented that their procedures and judgment were being peed on from above.
Way to go, John. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
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I don’t think he was a great, even a good president, but I believe that infighting amongst the ID crazies for control of Baylor as a Baptist mission has a lot to do with it, too.
I’m pretty sure that if they hire someone to match with their new vision of Baylor’s mission, we won’t see much friendliness to junior faculty who aren’t toeing the line.
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Check out the comments now at IHE–some insiders (well, anonymous people claiming to be insiders) are backing up the impression from the news reports that he rode roughshod over shared governance, university procedures, and anyone or anything that got in his way.
Janice, I hadn’t heard that there were problems with Darwinists versus ID people–yikes. But, that’s an issue for only a few departments, not a university-wide issue, right?
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Historiann, sorry to go off topic. If you have not yet seen this article, you might find it of interest: “Blogging’s Glass Ceiling” — http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/fashion/27blogher.html.
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Thanks, Ortho–I’m glad that BlogHer is getting more political in their analysis of gender and blogging!
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Ditto to Ortho’s point. It was a very stressful article to read, in ways that I couldn’t entirely identify or pin down, not being a blogger, only a consumer. Would probably be worth an entire post of its own to sort out.
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