There’s the hokey-pokey, the jitterbug, and the two-step. Put them all together and what do you get?
The Dr. Dobelle Stomp.
As in stomp on recorded history, the facts of life, and start life anew. Evan Dobelle, the same Dr. Dobelle who once was the University of Hawaii President, got a new job as president of little Westfield State College in Massachusetts.
How did he do that?
Westfield is no UH, but still. Are they so desperate for a good resume up there that they don’t bother to check references and places of previous employment?
Dobelle was fired from his post by the UH Board of Regents ‘for cause’ back in 2004. ‘Cause he was a crummy UH president who alienated staff, students, regents, lawmakers, and locals? Whatever the ’cause,’ Dobelle and UH came to an understanding that he wasn’t really fired, so, he decided to resign and take $1.8-million taxpayer dollars with him.
For the moment, Dobelle is president of the New England Board of Higher Education, a post he’s likely to vacate once he starts his new job as head of Westfield. If you listen carefully, and tilt your ear toward Massachusetts, you’ll hear the sound of Horace Mann rolling over and over and over in his grave. Mann founded Westfield back in 1839.
Dobelle’s claim to employment fame, insofar as Hawaii is concerned, appeared to be a holier-than-thou administrative arrogance marked by a mainland misunderstanding of what it means to be ‘local,’ which he claimed to be, which he certainly wasn’t, isn’t, won’t be, it doesn’t work that way.
Perhaps ‘local’ life is different in Westfield. It must be tough finding someone to run a little college of barely 5,000 students. It must be tougher taking the job after leaving behind the 30,000 or so students, faculty, and friend at UH, though I suppose that almost any kind of employment is better than no employment at all.
Westfield State College has a web page with Directions to the Campus. Those same directions can be read in reverse for anyone who may need to leave the campus, whether they be student, visitor, or outgoing president.
Dr. Dobelle, we’ll be watching.
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