Bethune-Cookman University’s president plans to retire, the university confirmed on Monday. During her career, the president, Trudie Kibbe Reed, has twice presided over a college while it was censured by the American Association of University Professors over its firing of faculty.
Ms. Reed, who has served for seven-and-a-half years as president of the historically black university, declined through a spokeswoman to say why she is stepping down. But the spokeswoman, Meredith Rodriguez, noted in an e-mail that Ms. Reed is taking care of her mother, who is ill.
Ms. Reed, 64, will remain in her position as president until the Board of Trustees determines her departure date, according to a statement the university released Monday.
During Ms. Reed’s tenure at Bethune-Cookman, the institution added its first master’s program, in transformative leadership, and changed its name from “college” to “university,” but it also became engulfed in controversy.
In an October 2010 report, an AAUP investigative panel described Bethune-Cookman as “repressive of academic freedom” and accused the university of denying due process to seven dismissed professors. Based on those findings, the AAUP voted to censure the university last June. Four of the professors, who the university said were fired for sexual harassment, sued the university, claiming they were terminated for speaking out against the administration.
In addition to those cases, at least eight other lawsuits were filed recently against Bethune-Cookman by former employees for issues related to wrongful termination, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported in October.
Before coming to Bethune-Cookman in 2004, Ms. Reed served as president of Philander Smith College, in Arkansas, where she also ran into trouble with the AAUP. An AAUP report found that Philander Smith fired a professor for speaking to the media without the prior approval of the president’s office and dismissed several other faculty members for disloyalty to the administration. As a result, the organization voted in 2004 to censure the college. Philander Smith said at the time that the AAUP report was erroneous.
The News-Journal first reported Ms. Reed’s resignation from Bethune-Cookman on Sunday, citing Larry R. Handfield, the board chairman, who told the newspaper that the board had accepted Ms. Reed’s resignation on Friday. But there appeared to be some confusion over Ms. Reed’s status within the Board of Trustees on Monday. Two trustees told the Orlando Sentinel that the board had not discussed the issue in a meeting on Friday. One of those trustees, Rev. Randolph Bracy Jr., told the Sentinel that “resignation is out of the question,” and that Mr. Handfield was “out of order” and would be “dealt with.”
Mr. Handfield did not return multiple requests for comment on Monday.
