Class warfare

Worcester State College faculty vote no confidence in president Kalyan Ghosh after two WSC students were accused of rape. But the trouble goes to the heart of the school's academic direction.

by Chris Kanaracus

Spring-semester classes may have ended at Worcester State College (WSC), but a glance across campus tells you something's going on here. Take the near-completed, $22.5 million science building, which casts an imposing shadow on Chandler Street. The football field and once-shabby running track are looking good, too, having been refurbished at a cost of $2 million. Behind the library, construction is underway for a new access road and a parking lot. Even the administration building sports snazzy new carpeting and mock-gold fountains.

And academically speaking, WSC is riding higher than in years past. No longer will you hear jokes like this one:

Q: Why did John go to Worcester State?

A: To see if he could get into Doherty.

Kalyan Ghosh, Worcester State's president since 1989, is credited with much of the college's success. These days, though, praise for Ghosh is hard to find among the campus community. On May 8, in the wake of published reports that two of the college's students were allegedly involved in a 1999 gang rape of an Anna Maria College student, unionized WSC faculty members publicly protested the president, challenging his leadership and jeopardizing his reputation within the state-college ranks. Faculty -- incensed the alleged crime was not made public and that no action was taken against the two students facing criminal charges -- cast a no-confidence vote (69 against, 53 for), against Ghosh. This is the second such vote taken. Though a 1998 action against Ghosh was narrowly defeated (by one vote), this time, faculty members sent a strong message: they have lost faith in WSC's administration.

To his critics, Ghosh is an authoritarian, meddling, power-hungry despot with little respect for faculty and for student safety. His opponents acknowledge the publicly funded school has grown under his leadership but, they maintain, in the wrong directions.

Yet to his supporters, Ghosh is a committed, savvy, visionary leader, who has been unfairly targeted by subordinates who believe they're left out of the college's new, science-driven academic mission.

So far, it's unclear what, if anything, will come of the faculty vote. It's up to the school's board of trustees and the state's Board of Higher Education to decide Ghosh's future. And both groups have expressed support for the embattled president, who has said little of the faculty unrest. But one thing is certain: 122 Worcester State professors, unwittingly or not, have raised larger questions about one of Worcester's most beloved and valued colleges.

According to Robert Walker, chairman of the college's language and literature department and a Ghosh critic, the latest no-confidence vote "was an eruption, of sorts," after a March 28 T&G article detailed the indictments of two WSC basketball players, Franky Pierre, 22, and David S. Graham, 21, on charges they and two UMass-Amherst students had gang raped a female Anna Maria student in April 1999. The T&G story shocked nearly everyone on campus -- it was the first they heard of the incident. Yet according to press reports and an inter-office e- mail from an administrator, Ghosh knew of the alleged rape over a year ago, when Anna Maria officials contacted WSC's Dean of Students Paul Joseph. According to the e- mail, sent by Joseph after the two students were indicted, campus police issued a "stay away" order to the Pierre and Graham but made nothing public. Last September, the students were arraigned in open court. In February, the students were summonsed to an evidentiary hearing. Ghosh confirmed to the T&G he had "heard a rumor" about the hearing.

But it wasn't until the March 27 indictment was made public that Pierre and Graham were suspended. And at no time during the year were their names or details about the incident released to the campus. The pair remain free until their trial, later this year.

Since the T&G article ran, WSC administrators have maintained the most appropriate action, based on available evidence, was taken against the accused students. Kaine Thompson, WSC spokeswoman, says, "Anyone that assumes president Ghosh is not sensitive to this issue is completely unfounded. As soon as we were apprised of the nature of the situation we acted accordingly."

But faculty and students tell a different tale. Not only did the administration act slowly against Pierre and Graham, they contend, but also it covered up the alleged crime. Speculation among faculty and students has mounted. To keep its image intact, the college did nothing. Others claim it was a calculated move to keep WSC's Division III basketball-championship bid alive -- the team's assistant coach, Rick Rushton arranged legal counsel for Pierre and Graham, according to T&G reports.

In the past weeks, Ghosh has formed a task force to investigate how the school handled the information flow. Predictably, faculty members scoff at the move. "As far as this situation goes, it strikes me that either the president is not telling the truth, or he is telling the truth. In either case, he hasn't been doing a very good job," Walker says.

In other instances, however, the administration has acted appropriately. In 1998, when current student Kimberly J. Lomas was raped at an off-campus location by WSC senior Christopher Wojciechowski and by another man, Matthew Ross, school officials placed a restraining order on Wojciechowski and posted campus-advisory warnings announcing the assault, albeit without posting the names of those involved. Wojciechowski and Ross pleaded guilty to the charges in December 1999.

But Ghosh's critics say more often than not, the school has failed to address campus crime. The discontent stems from 1997, when a student was allegedly stalked and raped by a classmate. At the time of her alleged attack, no formal administrative procedures were in place to handle sexual assaults; and the student, says psycology professor Laurie Dawson, "had to go to administrator after administrator" and tell her story many times over.

As a result, and after the incident was publicized in late 1997, a task force was convened to "streamline the process," says Dawson. New guidelines were drafted, but, says task-force member and English professor Ruth Haber, the administration never acted upon the report. "We based our plan on the model of Fitchburg State College," says Haber, also a Ghosh critic. "But we were told time and again that it was too cumbersome. Our meetings with the administration over this amounted to attempts to wear us down and stonewall us."

According to one student, who did not want to be named, Ghosh has done little to appease students, either. At a meeting held in April to address commuter-students concerns, such as parking, the president was questioned over his handling of the Anna Maria gang-rape case. "We basically ripped him a new one," says the student. "Every other word out of his mouth was different. He wasn't believable."

And that's exactly what's frustrating WSC faculty, which has been vocal (particularly tenured staff) in its criticisms. While visiting with Haber in her office last week, a reporter spied a curious assortment of homemade buttons: "Another Lesbian Against Rape," "Enforce Zero Tolerance," and "Let's End Sexual Battery and Intimidation -- Act Now (L.E.S.B.I.A.N)" among them. Haber says the buttons, which could be spotted last week on the chests of faculty members, both male and female, were made to combat a "whispering campaign" that purportedly began within the administration. "Word leaked out that someone -- no one knows who -- had said, `The only people who care about this rape are lesbians.' As usual, with all the important decisions in my life, I was the last to know; and I was dressed all wrong for the occasion," Haber says with a sarcastic chuckle. She can not confirm the validity of the comment; if anything, the buttons suggest the depth of the rift between the two sides.

What can't be downplayed are the facts about sexual assaults on campus. A 1999 study done by Dawson and the school's sexual-assault counselor, Debbie Gaston, found 18 percent of WSC female freshmen reported being sexually assaulted within their first year at school. That number is actually a few points down from the national average, which is 25 percent. "I don't think we have a greater problem than at other schools. But I do believe the facts should be out there. Honesty is the best policy. I find it a little disingenuous that only after a newspaper article comes out is action then taken. It's my belief that this issue isn't all that important to the president."

But most of Ghosh's critics agree, last week's no-confidence vote centered on more than the rape dispute; it also was the result of a sense of disconnection from and disrespect and even fear of the top college administrator.

Criticisms have surfaced for years, erupting in April 1998, when the first no-confidence vote was taken. That time, faculty responded to the resignation of Bonnie Kind, Ghosh's vice-president of academic affairs, the most visible link to the administration faculty has. Many WSC professors suspect the highly regarded Kind was forced out by Ghosh. Kind, though, maintained her departure was a resignation and declined to comment when contacted by the Phoenix last week. "Bonnie was very good," says one professor. "She promoted an openness that was lacking from the president's office."

Yet Kind wasn't the only vice-president to serve under Ghosh. In fact, according to faculty, the position is a revolving door. At least five administrators have held the seat since 1989, when Ghosh took over for then-president Philip Vairo. "He doesn't like a strong vice-president," says a faculty member. The instability in the vice-president's slot has particularly rankled department chairs. Walker says that a "new vice-president brings new rules and expectations. I've been a chair here for eight years, and it has been an extremely difficult job working with an academic structure that constantly shifts. It has created an air of uncertainty."

Ghosh acknowledged the discontent created by Kind's resignation and responded by appointing popular, veteran English professor Jeffrey Roberts to the post while a search was conducted for a permanent replacement. "Jeffrey's hiring was meant to be a healing gesture, to appease us while we looked for someone new," says a faculty member. Apparently, Roberts hasn't been as kind as hoped. "He echoes everything Kalyan says."

And Ghosh can say quite a bit, and not always when he's welcome. Ghosh, critics on the faculty say, has become involved in faculty searches, an area left to department chairs. On more than one occasion, says professor Bruce Cohen, chair of the college's history department, candidates chosen by faculty committees were disqualified by Ghosh.

It's for those reasons, and not selfish, ancient gripes, that led to the no-confidence votes, faculty says.

So far, Ghosh has declined to talk publicly about the no-confidence vote. He also declined an interview request by the Phoenix. But he's not alone when it comes to being the center of campus controversy. Within the past two months, faculty members at SUNY-Buffalo, Mississippi College, California University in Pennsylvania, and at Bennett College in North Carolina called for their presidents' dismissal. Among the complaints? Alienated teaching staffs, ailing educational programs, and mismanagement of funds.

It's certain Ghosh has supporters, not only among deans, administrators, and the board of trustees, but also within the faculty. English professor Ken Gibbs is one of them. Ghosh, he says, is "a strong person. When you have a strong leader, someone is always going to be aggrieved." Philosophy professor Courtney Schlosser, in a letter to colleagues, said Ghosh "is being scapegoated"; the no-confidence vote was "an example of justice by mob action." Professor Donna Joss, occupational-therapy department chair, says Ghosh is an "exemplary leader" with "a clear understanding of the entire institution."

Ghosh's supporters point to his record, which is impressive.

When Ghosh took over the post, he inherited a campus in disarray. At the time, state leadership, crippled by a recession, considered shutting down three state colleges. Plummeting enrollment and inferior academic programs made Worcester State a prime target.

But it didn't close; some say it's thrived. Since 1992, the college's budget has been balanced. Tuition costs have stayed nearly level, from $2557 per year in 1992 to $2458 today. Admission standards have been improved by raising minimum SAT scores, by rejecting applicants with GEDs, and by phasing out remedial-education classes.

Ghosh is also credited with forming the Worcester State Foundation, a fundraising arm separate from alumni-fundraising efforts. The fund, started in 1994, is overseen by community leaders and school administrators and taps into local businesses and residents for tax-deductible donations. To date, about $4 million has been raised.

Then there's the $22.5 million new science building -- the first new building on campus since the 1960s. There's an additional $15 million in renovations ongoing at three existing buildings. The communications department is enjoying an overhaul. New disciplines are in the planning stages: advanced degrees in health-administration and in nursing, to name two.

But one of the biggest reforms undertaken by Ghosh is also a key source of discontent for faculty. History-department chair Cohen says traditional disciplines have been neglected in favor of new programs like occupational therapy and communication disorders.

Nineteen-ninety-two is when the state's Board of Higher Education ordered all state colleges choose a "mission focus," or concentration, within a particular area. Fitchburg State College focused on government and business, and now refers to itself as a "leadership school." Worcester State, a teacher's college and a liberal-arts school, took a vastly different approach: health and biomedical science.

As a result, say teachers like Cohen, the new science building and football field, while signs of campus growth, are bittersweet. "You have to ask yourself, `How do you grow a school?' Do you run it like a horse race, without removing the blinders to look left and right?"

It's hard to measure how programs like Cohen's have suffered. He can't offer much in the way of hard data. But, he points out, many of Ghosh's faculty supporters are those who work in programs tied to the college's new mission. It's here where the battle lines gray to a struggle between new and old, between traditional and modern disciplines.

But certainly it all goes back to Ghosh. Though faculty are hopeful their second strike against the president will bear results, chances are, he's not going anywhere. In a brief statement made to the Phoenix, Judith Gill, acting chancellor of the Board of Higher Education, says she "supports president Ghosh in his efforts at Worcester State College."

Yet observers say old wounds have been re-opened, and they don't see them closing anytime soon. "Morale is low," says Walker. "We've hired a lot of new, dynamic people here in the past few years, I'd hate to see them discouraged by all of this."

Chris Kanaracus can be reached at ckanaracus[a]phx.com.