Piedmont University is a private institution, and it therefore is not subject to the many public records requests that would be possible if it were a state school.
Those state schools are funded with taxpayer money and are, of course, accountable in every way to those taxpayers just as our federal, state and local governments are.
Piedmont is backed by private donors and grants, but additionally, the tuition payments of many students in our region and beyond.
As Piedmont is responsible for educating so many of our local young people, we believe the school has a responsibility for transparency during its recent leadership crisis.
We have done our best to report the goings-on among Piedmont’s fractured faculty and administration for months now, and much of that reporting was born from those who have the courage to speak out against a flawed leadership group that has worked against the university’s very mission.
“Piedmont University dedicates itself to the transformative power of education through reciprocal learning, the development of compassionate leaders, and the stewardship of our local and global communities,” the school’s mission statement reads.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the mission to read these days is the part about compassionate leaders. From whom are the students supposed to take their cues in this regard?
Piedmont has created a culture where the folks who are in with the right people gain favor, while others are punished or retaliated against. This is not teaching the students anything they will want to use in the real world.
President James Mellichamp has said he will retire, yet he has not vacated his position. Instead, he and the recently-resigned Special Projects Manager Dan Smith went off to France while the university tries to pick up the pieces of their regime.
The search committee charged with finding a new president was formed completely of members of the Board of Trustees, which was done largely to put an opaque shield over any possibility of transparency in the process.
Those committee members still answer to the same people who created this problem in the first place, and there is no guarantee they will come up with a solution that puts the university in any better position.
There should be transparency in this process for the good of those Piedmont University serves – its students, professors, our community and the surrounding region at large.
Piedmont Trustees, you can do better.