Port: NDSU alumni should start being honest about their bias for athletics
MINOT, N.D. — John Glover, the president and CEO of the North Dakota State University Alumni Association, takes exception to a recent column in which I write about the toxicity of NDSU’s alumni network.
But then, in his letter to the editor, he does nothing to address the toxicity in question, which is that the taxpayers had to dole out for a golden parachute for former NDSU President Dean Bresciani, who left a fiscal disaster behind for his successor, in order to placate certain donors and alumni.
Bresciani, despite his myriad faults as a steward of NDSU’s academic mission, was popular with the football crowd, and thus the alumni, and so when it came time to send him packing, he had to be given a cushy six-figure gift job as a tenured professor teaching courses of dubious utility for college students.
“The board was trying to transition to be sure the Alumni Association was happy and key donors were happy,” NDUS Chancellor Mark Hagerott told the committee members . “We had to thread the needle, or the board did, on honoring the former president.”
Glover doesn’t mention this at all. Instead, he juggles some numbers around so he can claim that his foundation prioritizes academics at NDSU over athletics.
