Education

Ethics/Higher Education

Discover within the pages of the "Chronicle of Higher Education" some reporting of a recent incident of financial mismanagement. Give the essence of the incident and your personal and/or professional opinion relative to the situation.

The president of Adams State College, Richard A. Wueste, was recently dismissed for alleged financial mismanagement. Mr. Wueste was accused of making unbudgeted expenditures of $558,000, of adding positions, signing contracts that the board had not approved, and failing to submit a balanced budget for the next academic year. The board deliberated for 17 hours before voting 8 to 0 to fire Mr. Wueste (Fischer, 2005). Based on the fact that Mr. Wueste was blindsided by the board's decision and the fact that he had just recently been given a good evaluation and a raise, makes me question the board's actions. If the initial spending of $558,000 had been approved before he spent it then holding him accountable for that seems ludicrous. If the board had a problem with the new budget that Mr. Wueste had submitted then they should have discussed it with him and both parties should have worked together on changes. I feel that this is a classic case of the board being set in their ways of doing things and having problems with change.

2. Institutional retrenchment can be both painful and contentious. Can administrators ascribe to "ethical retrenchment"? What might the ethics of retrenchment consist of?

Ethical retrenchment is the idea of downsizing and cutting expenses in an ethical way. This consists of remembering that the staff that are being let go is in fact people and not just a number. Administrators can ascribe to ethical retrenchment by being as open and honest with their employees as they can be and by giving them as much notice that downsizing is going to occur. Another thing that can be done is a job counselor can be provided in order to help employees to deal with the uncertainty that they are experiencing. If retrenchment is not handled in a positive way it will lead to depression and low morale, neither which is good for an organization as a whole (Ethics, 2008).

References

Fischer, Karin. (2005). College in Colorado Fires President. The Chronicle of Higher Education,

52(9), p. 37.

Ethics. (2008). Retrieved May 19, 2009, from AllExperts Web site:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Ethics-2216/2008/7/qstn.htm