Kylee Harless
Staff Writer
It is the year 2020, one year since the University of Wyoming dismissed former President Laurie Nichols, and still the university has no answer. As the year progressed, the Board never gave the students and faculty an answer to “why”, and stories continued to come out about how the former president was being quietly investigated.
To the Board of Trustees, what did you investigate her for? What did you find that you cannot tell to the student body?
While working at the Branding Iron, my colleagues and I have made many phone calls and have sent many emails to Dave True, the chairman of the Board, and when he responds, it is always with “no comment”.
I now raise the question: What are the Trustees hiding?
It makes me very concerned that if they are hiding things about our past president, what else will they hide in the future? In addition, they are looking for a new president, and during this process, they will not give the students any information. Only the bare minimum is being said in their University of Wyoming Internal Communications emails, and with this search taking place, what will happen to Neil Theobald? What will happen to the projects he has started on campus?
Personally, I liked President Nichols; she was a good person and she cared about the students. Now she is gone, and the university is left with a middle-man playing president while the Trustees find us a new president.
I went to the Wyoming Press Association (WPA) in Casper WY and had luncheon with Governor Mark Gorden. In the luncheon I asked him what he was going to do as governor to help the students of the university, because we feel like we are in limbo due to the Board of Trustees.
He responded with his job description, where I then I asked him what else he was going to do in order to help the students of the university, as well as what he was going to do about the Board of Trustees. He responded that he was watching them and guiding them, and that things will get better.
If things are going to get better, it needs to be soon. These unanswered questions and lack of comments are becoming the normal answer, which is not okay. The university needs answers, and they need them now, before tensions rise even higher.
Let us get these issues straightened out before they are too curved to be straightened out in the future.
