There Appears To Be A House Cleaning Underway In The University System

Fresh off the news of North Dakota University System auditor Bill Eggert resigning comes news that the University of North Dakota’s Chief Information Officer Joshua Riedy has also resigned.

UND’s Chief Information Officer has turned in his resignation. Joshua Riedy is leaving the university for a new position at a school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Riedy was one of five UND employees accused of conspiring to discredit University System Chancellor Hamid Shirvani. Shirvani has been accused of ignoring open meeting laws among other actions.

Riedy was pretty clearly in on the conspiracy to undermine Chancellor Shirvani’s leadership. It was an issue which came to light during a meeting of the House Appropriations Education Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Bob Skarphol, earlier this session (audio at the bottom of the post).

A centerpiece of that committee meeting was a phone call NDUS employee Linda Porter recorded between herself and Chancellor Shirvani, which supposedly proved that he asked for data to reported to legislators to be manipulated (it was a pretty weak accusation). At the beginning of that recording (you can hear it here) Porter can be heard to be conspiring with somebody else before making the call.

That may not have been Riedy – he claims to have been traveling when the call took place – but legislators referred to other emails making it clear that Porter saw Riedy as a confidant in her campaign against Shirvani.

I’m sure some will attribute this to the supposedly toxic environment, but given how awful things have been going in the university system it’s clear there was a need for a purge.

The only question is, when can we start firing university presidents?