Posts Tagged ‘The Bruce Files’
Saturday, February 19th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
This is likely the final post in a series exploring e-mails sent in the last six months by Western President Bruce Shepard.
This is also an especially sensitive post. I don’t want to take anything out of context, so I encourage you to read the e-mail conversation in full. There is a link at the bottom of this post.
If you read Thursday’s entry, you might remember a thing or two from the correspondence between Shepard and UPRC Chair Jeff Newcomer.
But you would need a photographic memory to remember that Scott Pearce, president of Western’s faculty senate, was cc:-ed in Shepard’s second-to-last e-mail.
Pearce responded with a head turner.
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Tags: Scott Pearce, state budget cuts, The Bruce Files, UPRC
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Friday, February 18th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
I think this one wins the prize for lengthiest e-mail.
So here’s a quick timeline:
First: President Bruce Shepard sends out a 1200-word message to campus staff on Aug. 18. It’s bad news from Olympia about the budget. Western must act quickly to make cuts.
“Given the truncated time period, though, there must be adjustments to our usual processes,” Shepard says. “We will need to find other ways to assure full communication, transparency, and openness.”
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Tags: Jeff Newcomer, state budget cuts, The Bruce Files, UPRC
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Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
Monday’s entry to this series gets a clarification today, thanks to fellow reporter Brianna Gibbs. She talked with Susan Banton yesterday while working on another story.
Banton, an employee who e-mailed President Bruce Shepard on behalf of Western’s classified staff in September, confirmed that her reference to “golden parachutes” was about ex-president Karen Morse, ex-provost Dennis Murphy, ex-vice president for Business and Financial Affairs George Pierce and tenured professor Doug Nord.
The anonymous suggestion — to reconsider whether these employees should remain on payroll — was made by classified staff. Banton then relayed the suggestion to Shepard.
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Tags: Dennis Murphy, Doug Nord, George Pierce, Golden parachutes, karen morse, Susan Banton, The Bruce Files
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Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
This is another e-mail from September. It appears that Susan Banton, whose work is mostly about making sure Western is stocked with classroom and office materials (chairs, etc.), decided to offer some advice to President Bruce Shepard about how to make the most of the school’s money.
It’s unclear whose idea it was — Shepard’s, classified staff’s or Banton’s alone. But Banton seems to have offered a wide spectrum of thoughts on where the school could cut costs.
The way the president clears up a couple of what he calls misunderstandings is noteworthy: “There are no golden parachutes anywhere in this university!” he says. “The mere suggestion appeals to the prejudices of those who don’t know the facts.”
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Tags: classified staff, Doug Nord, expired leases, Golden parachutes, karen morse, retired and rehired, sabbaticals, The Bruce Files
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Friday, February 11th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
You could call this post a kind of miniature, Bizarro World version of WikiLeaks.
It’s also a huge entry, but hopefully you find the topic as fascinating as I do.
Of the 55 e-mails sent by President Bruce Shepard that I obtained in a public records request, nine were almost entirely redacted, or censored.
These redacted e-mails are revealing precisely because of what they leave hidden from public scrutiny. This might be a good time to debate whether all e-mails by university employees should be available to the public, and I encourage that kind of debate in the comments section.
Here, I’m going to show what these redacted documents actually look like, and then do a little speculation about what they might contain. No conspiracy theories, just what seems likely, with the few hints they give us.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, redactions, The Bruce Files
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Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
This next e-mail is a tricky one, the one that sparked this issue’s Frontline.
The entire conversation is barely two paragraphs long. But on first read, I thought we were about to break a big story.
Read the e-mail in pdf form here.
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Tags: alternative e-mail, Bruce Shepard, Public records, state laws, The Bruce Files
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Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
Here’s a short, snappy exchange between President Bruce Shepard and a psychology major.
In September, when a $3 million cut led to the elimination of 14 low-enrollment majors, one student decided to go straight to the top, demanding to know whether she would be affected. (The majors to be cut had already been posted elsewhere: in newspapers, on the university website, etc.)
Shepard obliged, even adding a personal note.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, budget cuts, psychology majors, The Bruce Files
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Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
This will be the first in a series of posts about e-mails sent by President Bruce Shepard in the past year. The e-mails were obtained in a public records request that I blogged about last week.
I’ll try to post a new one every weekday.
So here we go.
In October, as Western officials were debating whether to move the music library into the main library building, Shepard received an e-mail from State Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, budget cuts, music library, The Bruce Files
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