No integrity with Don Cozzetto! You don't leave a possition like that so fast. Poor poor.

How much is his severance pay? He is getting some isn't he?

So, what was his vision and why couldn't he advance it? And, was it just his vision and not the vision of the board? Chester

I contributed to a "free for all" page last night. Where is it? I don't recall seeing anything remotely offensive.

Truth:
The Free For All page is still available. Just scroll down to the bottom of today's home page and hit next.
You will see it is the top item on the next page.
When we have plenty of items added, those posted earlier in the day get pushed down the list.
Hope this helps answer your question.

Elaine Macdonald

Ben and Elaine. I recall in the past (on Fridays) you used to have a link to your Friday Free For All at the top of your home page.

Also, Saturdays on your site usually are a very slow news and opinion day. Why don't you consider expanding your Free For All to Saturdays? I think this would increase the traffic on your web site on Saturdays.

Great idea Charles, but the Free For All needs "monitoring" and I'm not sure I want to be tied to the computer all day to make sure everyone is on their best behaviour!

Elaine Macdonald

The agreement with a president and a Board is sort of like a marriage, either you understand each other from the beginning and pretty well see eye to eye, or one of the parties thinks that they can change the other over time.

It appears that neither of those two happpened.

The amount of severance to be paid, if any, depends on the pre-nuptuals.

I would have to say from what I have seen and heard, Cozzetto was no Jago. But then, Cozzetto entered a very tough era in UNBC history.

A fella with a macho attitude might be great for a small midwestern USA university wishing to build their legacy around sports heroism to grow endowment funds, but that simply will not work in PG, even though it is a bit red around the neck.

;-)

LOL! They say that Cozzetto resigned because he couldn't "advance his vision". That makes it sound like it was someone else's fault and not his own.

Cozzetto tore UNBC apart, canned a bunch of administrators, and most of the surviving managers and staff left UNBC because the situation became intolerable.

And these folks are supposed to be the brightest brains in our area! Right??

The scuttlebut I've heard is that Cozzetto's vision was felt to be more appropriate for a college than a university.

As for the short notice, I wouldn't necessarily hold that against Cozzetto. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Board preferred it that way, and it is quite possible that this has been in the works for some time and that it is only the public for whom this is news. In any case, the President is not critical to the day-to-day functioning of the university, especially during the summer

For those reading this site, I predicted the resignation of Dr Cozzetto months before. Cozzetto failed to listen to the advice given to him in the public media and decided to go along with the increasing administration corruption and mismanagment in UNBC.

One clear example of his bad judgment was when last year he assigned Dr Gordon Martel as the acting Dean of CASH in UNBC despite the complaint against Dr Martel received months before from a UNBC faculty. Dr Martel as the UNBC faculty association grievance officer has insulted a grieving faculty in UNBC by using F word "Fucking" in public.

Ironically, Cozzetto decided to promote Dr Martel instead of disciplining him and covered up the insult and damage to the faculty's carrier.

The new hire in UNBC needs to look at the mismanagment and administration corruption in UNBC and elect two new Deans for the CASH and CSAM colleges. Dr William McGill, the current Dean of CSAM in UNBC should have been fired years ago when he got into conflict with the VP Deborah Poff and abused the faculty members in CSAM.

Sadly, Dr McGill's abuse of faculty members over the past 7 years has become a chronic problem in UNBC and the main cause for the decline of morale in UNBC and the widespread administration corruption in UNBC.

DR.DON COZZETTO-hope your vision looks to a place far away, you might try taking some math courses to try improving your abilities in the addition sector of that discipline.

The financial problems at UNBC already existed when Cozzetto took office. Without defending the way he has addressed them, aren't Jago and the Board the ones responsible for those problems in the first place? Cozzetto may well have been no improvement, but it is far from clear to me that he was any worse than his predecessors or that they were so great. Perhaps Cozzetto was no Jago as Owl says, but Jago was no George Pedersen either.

Don Cozzetto was a very problematic administrator. When I met him it was clear that he had absorbed this "cowboy" attitude during his life in the US. His "vision" for UNBC was one of a small-town, american college rather than the force that UNBC was becoming.

His departure is long overdue. When he arrived he just played cowboy pointing and accusing people like Charles Jago of mismanagement. Well, the egg is on Cozzetto's face becuase he did the mismanaging and his amateurish bait and switch tactics did not work.

Some important observations is that the UNBC media service announced that the Cozetto "stepped down". Well that translates to "he got canned". I would love to hear Jago's reaction to the recent announcement. I would love to hear Chancellor Michalos' reaction? He is a highly respected and experienced scholar so I cannot imagine he would have put up with Cozzetto's silliness.

Furthermore, UNBC needs to clean house of incompetent and corrupt Deans (both deans are terrible). I agree with Nowicki that Martel is part of the problem. Martel has been a raging ego for some time at UNBC and he needs to be removed from any sort of administrative position.

Oh where are the days of Deborah Poff and the good people of UNBC?

Sammie

Cozzetto was put in a tough spot from day 1. UNBC was a complete mess when he came on board. From a public relations standpoint it looked great (because Jago had done great things), but the state of the finances was brutal. Adding to the mix was the new sport centre coming on board which I would guarantee is running the uni into the ground (anyone see how dead it is up there?).

Cozzetto had a different vision for UNBC that not many others agreed with. I wouldnt be so quick to discount his ideas, because UNBC was on a real slippery slope how it was previously going.

He had a strong personality and was brought in to be the bad guy and clean things up. Thats why Max never got hired...he was a good guy. They needed someone to come in and shake things up, but it never panned out properly. I figured Cozzetto would last another year, but I guess the heat in the kitchen was too much.

Am I reading correctly? I cannot believe what I am seeing. Max Blouw cast as a "good guy" and nice. Are you kidding me?

There is a reason they did not hire Max. Not only was he deeply incompetent, but an raging egomaniac.

Talk to any of Max's colleagues, some of which he abused in his ego-driven desire for power.

Wow, how history can be re-told!

The problems that Cozzetto faced were many. He came to UNBC and blindly followed the advice of the VP/Provost Dr Howard Brunt.

Brunt himself had become a party to discrimination of faculty by the Dean of CSAM (i.e. Dr McGill). In one case the VP Brunt with the cooperation of UNBC Faculty Association (FA) covered up the discrimination of hiring in Physics dept and punished a faculty in Physics program who earlier raised the discrimination to the VP instead of punishing the CSAM dean and Physics chair.

The faculty who was discriminated earlier in hiring in Physics and grieved the hiring decision was a former UNBC faculty called Valerio and he is now an associate professor in a better university.

VP Brunt then went on and covered up other cases of discrimination by CSAM dean Dr McGill (e.g. in Computer Sc). This comes after the FA grievance officer Dr Lee Keener resigned from his position as grievance officer in FA. Keener is now a member of UNBC board and the board can seek his advice in getting out of the current mess.

After the resignation of Keener from FA, the UNBC FA has even worked with UNBC administration in covering up discriminations (e.g. in Physics and Computer programs) and passing laws that is against the interests of the faculty (E.g. FA role in weakening the tenure in UNBC and allowing UNBC to fire tenure faculty; or the start up fiasco).

In one case, when Brunt was confronted with evidence of discrimination and threat of legal action, Brunt jumped the ship and resigned. Brunt also saw the enrolment trend in UNBC and the enrolment in UNBC took a further dive of 6% reduction one year later and the story of corruption and mismanagment in UNBC goes on .... Now Cozzetto jumps out of the ship ...
Who is next?

In my opinion, the UNBC board needs to open up an inquiry into the conduct of the faculty association after the resignation of Lee Keener from FA and especially looks into the grievance files in hiring/firing in UNBC. If any member of FA or UNBC Dean or program Chair are implicated in these discriminations (e.g. in Physics and Computer programs), they should be disciplined or fired. Otherwise there is no hope in this UNBC system which is deep in corruption.

Sammie...

Max was cast as a good guy externally. He brought lots of research $$ to UNBC and made good things happen. Thats why he was the "good guy" candidate.

I can't speak for how he was viewed internally as I am not on the inside of that place.

Jigga,

Max Bloux was (is) an incompetent adminstrator who is an ego driven at all costs damn everyone else kind of guy.

The "external image of Max" was created by Max. The PR was created by his office so that he could be coorinated as the next King of UNBC. Jago was part of that PR campaign because Max was going to be his boy to take care of Jago's legacy. Then comes in Cozzetto who immediately starts to bad-mouth and point fingers at Jago. Oh what a hellish little money pit UNBC has turned out to be for the taxpayers.

I am not in the University business but I know several of Max's colleagues who were some happy to see him go. He over and over again took credit for other faculty and staff members success. Creating the postive spin for himself. For example, he took public credit for the medical school, for medical grants, for staff successes. He was (and is) a egomaniac. Too many of my friends suffered at his ego-raging for me to sit back and have Max cast as some sort of good guy.

The list of people who should hang their heads low in shame include Cozzetto, Blunt, Blouw, Fisher, Martel, McGill, and Randall. The old boys rule again! Protect and circle the wagons.

You have heard it here from Nowicki and others. It is time for an investigation of UNBC's practices. I do not want another of my tax dollars to be wash down the UNBC drain. There are great people there, some of whom are my friends, and UNBC's success has been because of their hard work. The administration of UNBC (except for Deborah Poff who I hear very good things about) have been an embarrassment.