Simon P. Newman rejected a call by faculty members to
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Simon P. Newman rejected a call by faculty members to resign as president of Mount St. Mary’s University by Monday morning, as students staged a rally on the Maryland campus to show their support for the embattled leader.
Mr. Newman has been under fire for weeks about a controversial freshman-retention plan and a blunt metaphor that he used to describe at-risk students. The backlash his comments provoked intensified after he fired two faculty members, one of whom has tenure, and demoted the Roman Catholic university’s provost.
On Friday, Mr. Newman reinstated the two fired professors, but faculty members voted overwhelmingly to demand the president’s resignation by 9 a.m. on Monday. Thane M. Naberhaus, the tenured associate professor of philosophy who was dismissed, decided to return to teaching for now after initially saying that he would not do so while Mr. Newman was in office. He told The Frederick News-Post that he would finish out the semester but would not stay at the university in the long term unless Mr. Newman resigned.
Over the weekend the campus’s student-government association released results of a survey showing that students supported Mr. Newman by a wide margin.
On Monday morning, as the faculty’s deadline for Mr. Newman to resign approached, students staged a rally in support of the president, according to the newspaper:
At Monday’s rally, at least 70 students appeared in front of Bradley Hall in the snow, a showing of support for Newman. Students and staff members at the Mount spoke one by one with a megaphone from the steps of Bradley Hall, recounting the good Newman has done for campus.Newman also spoke to the students.
In a brief phone interview, Newman said he wanted to move the campus forward with the students, faculty and community.
“I’m simply very grateful for the help and support,” Newman said, before hanging up the phone.
Some alumni also spoke out in support of the president, according to The Washington Post.
A campus spokesman told the Frederick newspaper that Mr. Newman had not resigned but would not be making a statement.