Pardon me while I bury the lede...
Charles Brown is FAU's vice president for Student Affairs. VPs serve at the pleasure of the president, and Brown believes Saunders isn't pleased with him.
At least, that's what student media director Marti Harvey reluctantly told three months ago.
On March 16, the UP profiled Saunders, who had just recently been chosen to replace the popular Frank Brogan – who had hired Brown after allegedly forcing the previous Student Affairs VP into retirement.
Here are two paragraphs from that story...
Mary Jane Saunders said she knows the importance of an on-campus [football] stadium. In fact, she was instrumental in helping University of South Florida build theirs when she was an administrator at the Tampa school 10 years ago.
“A stadium can drastically change the dynamic of the campus,” Saunders told the UP. “I’ve seen it happen first-hand, and it was a wonderful transformation.”
Marti insisted this was wrong. She said Brown had told her Saunders "had nothing to do with" the USF stadium. On March 19, she emailed the editor and me...
Please make sure to check out the correction I told you about yesterday and run it in this issue. Its about the new President and her involvement in the USF stadium.
Except there was nothing to correct. Saunders had been recorded saying this on at least two occasions, and the editors could find no evidence the woman was lying. I asked Marti where Brown got his information.
She hemmed and hawed. But I said I couldn't ask the students to chase ghosts – it's not like we have a huge staff just sitting around waiting for assignments. So she finally admitted Brown was making calls and digging up dirt on Saunders because he didn't like her. Marti said I should convince the staff to investigate her background.
While I'm all for verifying resumes – as the UP editors are doing now with Marti's – I said I was a little hinky about doing so on the orders of a VP who'd be feeding us information anonymously for his own greedy purposes.
I asked Marti why Brown hated Saunders – they could've only met a few times, at mixers and meetings during her interview process. "Because she's a she," Marti said with a snort.
Brown is notorious for his discomfort around women. Marti once remarked that she was better equipped to handle it than the other women in Student Affairs because she grew up in rural Texas. Even the Student Affairs secretaries joke about Brown's mildly sexist streak.
So it didn't surprise me that Brown would order me fired after the school year ended but before Saunders arrived on the scene.
I'm sure Brown figured if I was gone on May 28, there'd be a few days of student outrage, it would all blow over, and Saunders would stroll into town none the wiser.
Of course, this begs a big question: Why would Brown or Saunders care about the firing of a part-time newspaper adviser?
Brown is a micromanager. The UP's struggles with Student Affairs began when he arrived and tried to control the content through intimidation. (I'll regale you with more stories later.)
Nothing would horrify Brown more than a new president arriving to find local – and now national – media coverage about the student newspaper challenging his authority. Just yesterday, the Huffington Post and the respected journalism blogger Jim Romenesko linked to the local coverage of the mess.
I can think of no other reason to give me only three days' notice and not let me finish out the fiscal year. After all, there's money in the budget to pay me through July 1 – and after July 1, it all goes away. Yet my replacement will be hired next fiscal year. So why not spend the money and fire me at the end of the fiscal year? Why leave the paper without an adviser?
The only reason I can think of is that Mary Jane Saunders starts work on Monday.
TOMORROW: FAU crosses the line from autocratic to illegal.
