Spanky said:Grizzoola: If we always do a national search ( a real one ) for president, coach, athletic director and determine the local person is the best candidate, so be it..no problem. The Engstrom hire was a backroom Dennison deal and you know it. I will never be convinced that we couldn't have found a more qualified person with a properly conducted national search. You comment that Engstrom has done so many good things at UM. Please be so kind and enlighten the less informed. I'm not aware of your background, but let's say that you have had executive hiring experience. Does Engstrom demonstrate strong leadership qualities? Is he a person that should be the CEO?
Yes and Yes. He had an incredible Run in South Dakota which is large part why he brought up here and groomed to be president so he could hit the ground running. His excellence plan was just that.
In the course of preparing it he cleaned up some "problems in faculty communcation and function caused by Foley that were about to implode. We had already lost several excellent faculty/ department heads etc because of foleys meddling and near dismanteling of the faculty senate. He took a business department that had not only lost major donors, and leadership, and restored those donors (to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars) and got them a ten year accreditation.
Despite PR's denial Foley was demoted from Dennisons "gun" to "press secretary" (a job he also screwed up) Dennison admits it took him 6 mos longer to replace his "cabinet" than he wanted because of the rape thing. JOD was going to be gone anyway, his ability as a fund raiser was no longer enough to cover his shortcomings as an administrator. He unfortunately had to let Pflu go too when the football team the focus of the rape crisis.
But then he fired a football coach without consulting with the boosters, so off with his head. If you TRULY believe that the first time the U knew they had compliance problems with the NCAA was Jan. 30, keep believing it.