There you have it
Talk about anti-climactic.
A year ago, while Dennis Lennox was busy raising a big stink about Gary Peters, were you to say he'd get his way - kind of - and that nobody would really care, I'd have laughed.
I guess that's not fair, though. When the Board of Trustees updated the "political activity of staff members" policy Thursday, there was a lone voice of dissent.
Honors Program Director James Hill showed up to voice his concern that the policy was overly restrictive based on a comparison to policies at similar state universities.
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. By a unanimous vote, the Board approved the new policy, which updated the procedures on the books since 1955 for employees who want to run for political office.
Perhaps Hill should have paid closer attention to what came before the contract bargaining team, as Faculty President and associate professor of finance and law Nancy White - who this year was herself a candidate for the state legislature - said they reviewed it.
Is the update too restrictive? Hill seems to think so. It certainly is thorough, no surprise. Perhaps Hill can thank Lennox for that, seeing as how it was he who caused the uproar in the first place.
It includes new restrictions that govern the procedure for employees to go about notifying Human Resources. Statements must be attained from a supervisor and the supervisor's boss.
A whole new round of statements must be attained once the employee actually gains the office, through appointment or election.
Guess that is an extra layer of hoops to jump through. CMU administration is a bureaucracy, and any kind of added regulation within a bureaucracy tends to discourage the activity in question. It's unavoidable.
The policy does address alternatives to the employee having to quit. Leave of absences for long periods or requests for substantial leave will be considered "upon presentation of a compelling advantage" to the university. Hmmm ...
What's the lesson to be taken away here? That uproar and change is bad and leads to added restriction? That don't-rock-the-boat keeps everybody happy?
Lennox had a beef with Gary Peters, the Griffin Endowed Chair who was just elected to U.S. Congress, because he felt Peters was using CMU to indirectly finance his campaign.
Agree or not, he found the gray area and did his best to paint it black-and-white, throwing into stark contrast the shaky position a bureaucracy can find itself in when old policies leave too much ambiguity.
One can hardly blame the Trustees for rubber-stamping this thing with a thud, given the initial uproar.
However, It's ironic that Lennox was not even in attendance when his big, tangible contribution to CMU was decided.
Nobody besides Hill spoke up about the policy during the meeting. The meeting agenda was full, and it's one of the busiest times of the year.
But still, nobody? That's kind of disappointing.
