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DEAR EDITOR:
So where are we after several months of trying to ascertain how and / or why Bill Johnson has been appointed as president pro-tem of Youngstown State University?
Well, let me try and condense or recap the aftermath of this entire fiasco.
1. No public vetting of this unqualified candidate for a position in higher education.
2. A three-year contract of over $1 million, plus an alleged bonus of $102.000, if meeting the goals and metrics of the board of trustees -- whatever that means. Plus free housing at Pollock House on Wick Avenue, which includes property taxes, groundskeeping, utilities and insurance, car allowance, etc., and all being paid for by the university. In other words, on the backs of students, their families and donors.
3. In addition, Johnson will be riding in on his Trojan horse from Troy University in 'bama, which, upon arrival, has ejected three additional sidekicks: a hand-picked assistant and two staffers, whose collective yearly salaries will amount to $319,360 per year! What a coup!
And it gets better. Should the pro-tem president survive his three-year contract, he will have won the trifecta of retirements. Johnson's golden parachute will include his pension from the military-industrial complex, one from the dysfunctional Congressional swamp -- following a mediocre legislative career, I might add -- and whatever he gets from Ohio's PERS upon departure from YSU.
So, you may ask, moving ahead, what does all the above portend for YSU?
Well, given the Imminent passage of Ohio SB-83, and probable signing by Gov. DeWine, further gutting of curricular majors and programs, staff terminations and Johnson's promise to curtail lacademic "indoctrination" -- whatever that means. A reading of his crafty piece of legislation leaves little doubt that's what has been happening in Florida and other red states. Higher education, aka historical citadels of critical thinking, will be further corrupted and eroded.
TERRY CROGAN
Boardman