MTSU professors call for vote on school president

MC PHEE

MURFREESBORO (AP) — Dozens of Middle Tennessee State University professors have called for a faculty and staff vote on the leadership of school president Sidney McPhee, who is struggling to move beyond a sexual harassment complaint against him.

Educational leadership professor Joel Hausler has asked the Faculty Senate to sponsor a campuswide referendum, while chemistry professor Linda Wilson told faculty senators in a recent e-mail that McPhee “is not able to properly lead the university and to properly represent us to the Tennessee Board of Regents and the public.”

Wilson also asked faculty senators to conduct a poll of their departments on the need for a vote. One of the senators, English professor Ted Sherman, said 23 of the 25 English Department members who responded to his survey believe the faculty should take a vote of confidence.

“There’s at least a willingness on the part of the faculty to want to have a vote to send a message, whatever that message would be, “Sherman said. “And he might get a majority vote of support.”

A meeting of the Faculty Senate is set for Monday.

“I don’t know what people might bring up,” Faculty Senate President Dan Pfeifer said.

In a phone interview with The Tennessean newspaper Friday, McPhee said he continues to focus on the university’s progress. He said he respects the professors’ right to criticize him, but said “no one is going to get me off course.”

McPhee’s troubles began in October when his administrative assistant at the time accused him of sexual harassment, saying he’d made inappropriate sexual remarks and touches during office meetings and golf games.

An investigation by the state Board of Regents, which oversees MTSU, found that McPhee did sexually harass the woman by seeing her socially and creating a hostile work environment. He was suspended without pay for 20 days and took a $10,000 pay cut for a year.

Since then, the woman filed a lawsuit against both McPhee and the Board of Regents. In it, she claims she suffered “severe emotional distress, mental anguish, indignation, wounded pride, shame and despair.”

She also claims she was involuntarily transferred after the investigation to a university job with less responsibility and prestige.

Hausler believes McPhee received too light of a punishment from Regents Chancellor Charles Manning, who appointed him to lead the Murfreesboro school.

“There’s no doubt that if I had been charged with the same offense and couldn’t mount a better defense, I’d be gone,” he said.