<p>Judy Hample is leaving after the second year of her five-year contract, to pursue other interests in higher education. It wasn't exactly voluntary--there was a complaint about her purchase of $28,000 bookshelves for Brompton. Then there was the little matter of the university denying Freedom of Information Act requests for the police records related to her false report during the Sept. 30 safety walk, citing them as evidence in a criminal investigation.</p>
<p>There's no excuse for denying the FOIA request, but I don't see why there was a criminal investigation in the first place. The safety walk should include a test of the blue light system, and letting the police know about it ahead of time totally defeats the purpose. I think the police were just embarrassed about how long it took them to respond.</p>
<p>I loved one of the comments on the article in the Bullet:<br>
[quote]
Judy Hample is the third president in four years at the university. So the president-ship of UMW is becoming like the Defense of the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. Nice.
<p>I read about it in yesterday’s paper but did not get the details. How do you find this stuff? I know it doesn’t come from UMW! I learned about the bookshelves but I never heard about the safety walk thing.</p>
<p>My son is a senior at UMW, and I find the troubles the University has had hiring and retaining a competent president during his time there quite disheartening. The local newspaper cited the “official reason” for her “resignation” but went on to allude to the test of the blue light system during a safety walk (during which she falsesly told the University police that she was a student) as well as the expenditure of $28,000 for bookshelves in the Presidential home.</p>
<p>Can anyone at UMW fill in any details? </p>
<p>It seems there is no back-up plan in place to fill the position on an interim basis.</p>
<p>I was not impressed with her speech to the parents during D’s orientation. She was new to the campus at the time and it seemed to me she was going off on her own agenda, paying no attention to the fact that the school has been there a long time and has it’s own traditions and mindset. It almost seemed as if she had the “I can straighten out this mess” mentality. I’m not saying there are not messes there to be straightened, but I think a smart president will keep a low profile for awhile. At least she hasn’t had any DUI’s.</p>
<p>My s. has applied to UMW and wants to major in computer science. No decision yet, we visited last week from New England. Admissions seemed competent – they set him up for an interview with the head of the department – and the info session and tour was standard. I was surprised, however, to hear that course selection was not done via computer but by going to the student center and signing up, and similarly housing selection. So, when I read about the president debacle, as well as the thread on administrative incompetence, it gives me pause. Can anyone give me an appraisal of how good a school this really is? Are the students happy? Are the professors good? Does the staff care? All insight appreciated.</p>
<p>Who told you course selection wasn’t done via computer? Freshmen are given two days in July to go online and select classes. The one thing I didn’t like was that they were totally on their own for their first semester, choosing classes without talking to an advisor. </p>
<p>I don’t know how they do housing selection–this will be S’s first time.</p>
<p>I’m not at all impressed with the administration. Let’s leave it at that. S is happy there, so he’ll stay. But to be honest, I wouldn’t pay out-of-state tuition to send him there.</p>
<p>I can also tell you that course selection is done online. We were on vacation and D registered for her first classes. Housing has been done with a lottery and in person. UGH. D had to sit for several hours waiting for her number to be called. I guess the good thing was she got to see what was available and choose, rather than be assigned. I have heard that housing will now be done by GPA and computer and the hours of sitting will not be happening. I’m not sure if that is rumor or fact and D is homesteading so it doesn’t matter to her.</p>
<p>stevensmama and I have both had our share of frustrations with this school. I can’t say that I’ve ever spoken with and Office of (fill in the blank) and been satisfied. Once I had to be quite firm with a young lady who was a student worker and didn’t want to let me talk to anyone higher up. I don’t know if those were her instructions or she was taking it upon herself but it was aggravating to have her keep repeating to me that I didn’t need to speak to anyone but her.</p>
<p>D had a miserable first year, mostly roommate related. This year has been much better. She has loved almost all of her classes and her professors have been mostly really great, only one I can think of that she’s complained about at all. If she had not had such academic success she would have left after last year. She is enthusiastic about her major and gets lots of positive feedback from her advisor and professors. When she has not been able to register for classes she hoped to take she has been able to email or talk to the professor and work things out almost every time. I think a student who works hard and cares a lot about the subject will get a good response from almost all of the teachers.</p>
<p>Wow. I always love it when a first impression turns out to be correct.</p>
<p>I wish they could find a really high quality person to take over. There are very good people out there. I don’t understand why they picked two bad ones in a row.</p>
<p>Wasn’t that a jaw dropper?? I mean, she in ACADEMIA, not show business. I don’t care what they have to pay to be rid of her, it’s already time to go.</p>
<p>Hample is a perfect example of why tuition has risen to ridiculous levels during the past twenty years. She represents a new generation of opportunists in administration. </p>
<p>With minimal achievements as a scholar, she demands a salary exceeding $330,000 and builds an empire of lackeys around her with high salaries also. Institutions are delighted to see her leave after a few years, so they say nothing negative about her. She travels from position to position.</p>
<p>After years of beating down faculty and raising tuition at other colleges, she got sloppy and made two mistakes at the U. of Mary Washington. To the credit of your BOV, someone did a little research and saw the future with her at the helm… and acted.</p>
<p>Hample thought nothing of buying $28,000 in bookshelves during this horrible economic downturn. For a woman who owns a half-million in jewels, that was chump change. </p>
<p>Her strategy of sucker punching (setting up and firing) a college employee is standard operating procedure. She assumed that when she placed the false alarm, that no one would respond in a timely manner. She was wrong.</p>
<p>She was going to fire a longtime college security staff member as a “shot across the bough” to the entire college work force. The message would be “Don’t mess with Judy” and then she would get her way without resistance from longtime staff, faculty and other administrators. She did this when she took the chancellor position in Pennsylvania by immediately firing the president of Slippery Rock College without reason. She did the same at Indiana State and attempted to do this at the University of Toledo until the AAUP stepped up. She didn’t realize that your security department was actually competent.</p>
<p>Not quite. It took security 6 minutes to respond to the blue light–if it had been a real emergency like someone being assaulted, the perp would have been long gone. Still, that shouldn’t have been a firing offense, just a red flag that security needs to change some procedures.</p>
<p>Click on Hampden-Sydney College and follow the link to the interview with their president.
If a small LAC can get someone with the wow factor of this guy why can’t UMW??</p>
<p>I am just so amazed. Who the you-know-what hired this woman? Did they do any vetting? Were they so caught up in the mindset of hiring a woman that they didn’t care to look at her past? And why in the world is the salary so high at UMW? It’s a pretty small public school!</p>
<p>Presidents matter. I know there have been some statements in The Bullet that say the day to day activities of the students are not in any way connected to who the president is, that their lives are in no way affected. Gotta be kidding, or maybe hoping. The president sets the tone, the agenda, everything. From the top down. It matters, and it matters a lot. I am just fried by all of this. More money, that could have been used for stuff that would matter, will be paid to this woman–just to make her go away. We can be fairly certain she would not have resigned unless she felt it would be profitable. </p>
<p>UMW needs a parent representative. They don’t give a flying blankety blank about parents there and they should. They dare to call and send letters wanting donations but don’t bother to let us know when classes are cancelled due to bad weather? Because it’s none of our business? I have never received any communication from them except to ask for money. </p>
<p>Rant over. We are moving to F’burg after S graduates from high school. UMW is not even on his radar screen.</p>