University of Wyoming College of Law students delivered an open letter Monday to UW President Bob Sternberg demanding more transparency about their dean’s resignation. College of Law Dean Stephen Easton’s resignation is the latest in a series of departures from the University's top ranks. Since July, five deans have been replaced along with several provosts.
UW Professor Emeritus, Charles Ksir, was asked to be interim dean of education after that dean resigned. He declined. Ksir says that in over 40 years at UW he’s never seen this much turnover with the arrival of a new president.
“I guess I’ve been here through, let’s see we had, probably 5 or 6. I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” he says, noting that it has some faculty worried. “They’re just looking over their shoulders and wondering who’s the next person who’s going to get asked to leave, and where are we going with all this. There’s a lot of uncertainty on the part of some of the faculty right now.”
Another retired professor, Peter Shive, posed the following question to the faculty listserv: “What is going on, and what does it mean?” He says he got plenty of responses, but they were mostly in private.