One year ago tomorrow, former AU President Benjamin Ladner was removed from office after a nine-hour meeting of the AU board of trustees. During fall 2005, the campus was alive with protests as students and faculty voiced their disapproval of the university's leadership. The board ousted Ladner, but not before giving him a severance package that some termed a "golden parachute." By accepting it, Ladner severed all ties with the university. One year later, where are we now?
On Sept. 28, 2005, a crowd of AU students and faculty members quietly gathered on the steps of Mary Graydon Center with a microphone, handmade posters and prepared statements for a protest rally against then-university President Benjamin Ladner, who since that summer had been on administrative leave due to allegations that he had misspent hundreds of thousands of dollars of university funds.
The surrounding crowd grew as students switching classes stopped to hear the statements, which came from not only angry students but also a professor and members of the Student Government.
"If we don't do something about the way the board of trustees is structured, this will happen again," School of International Service professor Stephen Cohen said in a speech at the rally. "Because the way our board of trustees works, a Ladner is inevitable."
The rally, however, changed tempo quickly. Thirty minutes later, hundreds of students stormed the Butler Board Room in an unplanned sit-in of a meeting of AU's board of trustees, a dramatic turning point in the Ladner scandal saga that still remains freshly imprinted on the mind of any student, professor or staff member who witnessed or participated in it.
Ladner was eventually dismissed from the university Oct. 10, 2005, after the board met for nine hours and listened to opinions of student and faculty leaders, many of whom approved statements of no confidence in Ladner's leadership. The story was followed closely by several local and national newspapers, TV stations and trade journals, drawing great scrutiny from the public and, eventually, from the Senate Finance Committee. Upon his departure, Ladner accepted a $3.7 million severance package on the condition that he cut all ties with AU. The board of trustees promised significant governance changes to prevent the situation from ever happening again.
It is undeniable that the Ladner scandal shocked the AU community. But in the year since, much of the raw anger and student activism that defined the fall of 2005 at AU have died down. To revisit last fall's events and reopen dialogue about what progress has been made, The Eagle spoke with numerous students, administrators, campus leaders and faculty members to produce this retrospective on what problems the scandal fixed and what questions it still has left unanswered.
Looking back
Nearly a year later, students and faculty have diverse opinions about the Ladner situation and the events of last fall. They recalled specific memories of the events leading up to Ladner's dismissal.
"The entire event was kind of surreal," said Peter Brusoe, former executive director of the Graduate Leadership Council. "I was heading to Michigan for a few weeks, and the mantra from AU's administration was 'it's going to blow over.'"
After hearing the board of trustees had suspended Ladner, Brusoe said, "I knew it wasn't going to blow over."
Former Student Government President Kyle Taylor worked with the board of trustees and Senate Finance Committee to represent the student opinion. His most vivid memory was the students storming the boardroom during an anti-Ladner protest on Sept. 28 of last year, he said.
"I was in a special meeting of the board when they were deciding what to do with Dr. Ladner (whether to keep him or not), and halfway through my statement you could hear the students protesting outside," Taylor said in an e-mail. "We all looked out the window to see 500+ students yelling and chanting, waving signs in the air. I have never been more proud of the student body."
Taylor said his personal opinion of the Ladner scandal aligns with the stance he took as SG president.
"He should have been forcibly removed from his position without severance," Taylor said. "After all, he stole from American University. At the same time, the board failed to uphold their fiduciary duty and should therefore resign in full."
Taylor said the Ladner scandal consumed his senior year.
"As SG President, it was a constant part of my life [during] days, nights and weekends," he said. "Still, I do not regret a minute of it. I did all I could to represent the interests of the student body and ensure that our voice was heard."
Becky Mann, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, said the Ladner scandal was "embarrassing." She said she was impressed by the students' organization of the Sept. 28, 2005, anti-Ladner protest on the Friedheim Quad.
"I feel like if [the protest] hadn't happened, nothing would have been done because [the board of trustees] were ignoring the student body and faculty," Mann said. "I thought it was impressive that they actually did something to change because we stood up for ourselves, for the integrity of the school, which was being compromised by the board."
Wendy Swallow, an associate professor in the School of Communication, said she remembered running into the protest after teaching a class.
"Being a kid who grew up during the Vietnam War, I can never walk away from a legitimate protest," she said. "It was very exciting to see that kind of joint action because it's so easy to think that students are apathetic, but I don't think they are."
W. Joseph Campbell, an associate professor in SOC, said he remembered when the SOC faculty passed a vote of no confidence against Ladner.
"It was an important moment for the school and our faculty to take the unequivocal stand to express no confidence in Ladner," Campbell said. "By then, he had lost all the confidence that anybody should be expected to have in a college president."
While current freshmen weren't on campus last year, some still have strong opinions about the Ladner situation.
"This school is really expensive, and the fact that our president [was] embezzling money is ridiculous," said Alex Engler, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs. "I'm glad he's gone - a little disappointed it took as long as it did."
Stephen Cohen, a professor in the School of International Service, said he remembered the division in the board of trustees over Ladner.
"You had people who felt that Ladner was so good that he was worth any amount of money," he said. "Even at the end, some not only wanted to retain him but were willing to increase his salary. The fact that very intelligent people on the board of trustees could be so overly enamored with this guy is something that clearly sticks out in my mind."
Not all students, however, saw Ladner in a negative light.
Justin Bibb, a sophomore in SPA, said he wanted to hear all of the facts before he made up his mind about Ladner.
"He was bringing in the money, why let him go?" Bibb said.
Ladner did not have a chance to present his side of the story while accusations were being made against him, Bibb said.
"I really don't think there was a civil debate here on campus to my personal standards," Bibb said.
While reporting for this article, attempts to reach Ladner for comment were unsuccessful, as his previously listed Maryland number has been disconnected and his currently listed Georgia number went repeatedly to an answering machine. A message left by an Eagle reporter early last week was not returned.
Additionally, some members of the AU community declined to discuss their reflections on the Ladner situation, especially faculty.
The turn of events
The AU board of trustees dismissed Ladner Oct. 10, 2005, following an internal investigation of allegations that he had misused university funds.
The board began investigating the allegations in March 2005 after the board's Executive Committee received an anonymous letter detailing Ladner's alleged use of university money for personal expenses. Members of the SG and The Washington Post received similar letters in July 2005, while The Eagle received a similar letter in September 2005.
The letters described Ladner's alleged misuse of university funds to pay for a variety of personal expenses, including personal use of former university chef Rodney Scruggs, Ladner's son's engagement party, European vacations and other expenses. The board placed Ladner under suspension on Aug. 24, 2005, pending the outcome of an investigation, The Eagle previously reported.
Reginald Green, Ladner's former chauffeur, was later identified as the author of the letters. Green said he wrote and mailed the letter after he was fired for allegedly taking an unscheduled bathroom break. On Aug. 28, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission cleared the way for Green to file suit against AU and the Ladners for wrongful termination, according to The Examiner.
A report released in late September 2005 questioned over $500,000 in university funds spent by Ladner. The items mentioned in the report included $100,000 for the services of a social secretary, $44,000 for alcohol and $22,345 for a trip to Nigeria, The Eagle previously reported.
In the month prior to Ladner's dismissal, several university government groups called for Ladner's resignation. The faculty from five of AU's six schools passed votes of "no confidence" in Ladner and demanded his resignation. The School of Public Affairs did not pass its own resolution after it could not reach a quorum but declared that it was the "sense of the meeting" that Ladner should resign.
The Faculty Senate also unanimously called for Ladner's resignation, The Eagle previously reported. The Student Bar Association and Graduate Leadership Council passed similar resolutions in September 2005, while the SG passed a resolution calling for Ladner's resignation in early October 2005.
A student-organized rally demanding Ladner's resignation on Sept. 28, 2005, culminated with a sit-in outside a meeting of the AU board of trustees in the Butler Pavilion. Twenty student protestors were invited into the trustees meeting to discuss their grievances. Organizers of the rally estimated that between 500 and 700 people participated in the rally at its peak, The Eagle previously reported.
Two members of the board of trustees - then-Chair Leslie Bains and Paul Wolff - resigned as a result of board divisions exacerbated by the Ladner scandal. Bains said she resigned before the meeting that ousted Ladner in order to avoid derailing a board decision on Ladner's employment. Wolff resigned the day after the board's decision, citing an unwillingness to serve with people "who show so little regard for the most basic canons of board governance," The Eagle previously reported.
On Oct. 24, 2005, Ladner agreed to sever all ties with AU in exchange for a $3.7 million severance package offered by the board. The package included a $950,000 settlement payment, as well as a deferred compensation package that contained money from a life insurance policy and deferred income. The deans of AU's six schools, the university librarian and student government groups condemned the board's decision.
Assessing the changes
During the year following Ladner's dismissal, AU made a variety of changes to its governance policies in an effort to move beyond the scandal. SG President Ashley Mushnick said it was important that AU move past the Ladner scandal and instead focus on improving itself.
"I think there has been a strong push from parts of the community to move on," she said.
Mushnick said the Ladner scandal changed the role of the SG president, but she still needs to work on the daily campus issues to help students.
"I can only harp on this for so long," Mushnick said. "I'm in here for a year and have a limited amount of time to improve campus life for AU students. I want to do that to the best of my ability."
While the community is moving beyond Ladner, some parts of the scandal are still issues, Campbell said.
"I think that, if you dug a little deeper, you'd find that people are still annoyed by the severance package - that it sets their teeth on edge," he said. "And for good reason - that's a big chunk of change. ... Paying him to go away, as painful as it was, ended things in a way."
After Ladner left the university, the "focus became, 'How do we keep going?'" Mushnick said.
According to Mushnick, the SG's new priority is the search for the new president.
"I know what I don't like, so in the future of AU, I want to find something the students can like," Mushnick said about a university president.
"The person who eventually becomes the official new president is going to lay out a vision for American University and affect how much all of our degrees are worth," she said.
The AU community and administration also is now more concerned with governance issues, she said.
"Some [in the] administration were very surprised and offended by the president's actions," Mushnick said. "I think it made them reflect a little more on the leadership."
Niles Anderegg, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the "main failure in the situation was the lack of oversight" of Ladner and the board of trustees.
For years, people said Ladner spent too much money and was not accessible to students, Mushnick said. No one knew what he was doing for the university, she added. Mushnick said there were two stages to the issue last year - the discovery of Ladner's excessive spending, which led the his dismissal from the university, and Ladner's compensation.
"One reason the board gave Ladner so much money was to make him go away," Mushnick said.
Students for a New AU, a student protest group, formed in the fall of 2005 with the intent of removing Ladner from his position. The group was in the public eye when it organized the Sept. 28, 2005, anti-Ladner rally on the quad and stormed a board of trustees meeting. After the rally was over, SFANAU continued to be in close contact with Taylor. The group helped plan the SG comprehensive action plan and researched proper governance for a board of trustees.
Mushnick said AU is better off without Ladner as the president.
"AU holds itself to high standards in terms of public service and ethics," she said. "I don't think its right to have someone leading the institution who is not living up to those standards."
Mushnick said anything is possible, but she does not believe a similar situation could happen again anytime soon.
"The memory is still fresh in our heads," she said. "You have to think about the ability for someone to pull that off in a more closely monitored environment."
Gary Abramson, current board of trustees chairman, said the governance reforms enacted by the board of trustees this summer will provide the board with greater oversight.
"We've done a thorough governance review, which has implemented a lot of new checks and balances in terms of changes in audit procedures," he said. "There are much tighter review guidelines being assessed. I think that the overall watchfulness of the board is much more serious as a result of having gone through this."
The increased clarity in board oversight will decrease the possibility of a repeat of last fall's events, said David Taylor, chief of staff to Interim President Neil Kerwin.
"Something as simple as the presidential contract was a matter of great debate last fall," he said. "There were different interpretations as to whether or not the board had ever even seen the previous contract. It's very clear now that there is a regular oversight and review of the president, so there's a lot more clarity regarding oversight."
AU spirit unaffected
Despite the Ladner scandal, AU had the largest number of applicants in the freshman class ever, said Ben Gorbon, a campus tour leader for AU Ambassadors. AU received 15,004 applications for the Class of 2010.
"I do think we're still going ahead really strong," said Roxana Florea, a sophomore in SPA and CAS. "Our school is obviously drawing in the right crowd despite what happened."
C.K. Goldstein, a freshman in SIS, said he wasn't really aware of the Ladner scandal and it was "no deterrence" in his decision to come to AU.
Mushnick said she has noticed a change in the student body having an increased interest in governance issues.
"There's definitely been an increased concern about governance at AU, and students are more apt to listen to any major policy changes," Mushnick said. But this activity has not surprised her, she said, because AU is a very politically active campus, so it is only natural to find active students.
"Students who were here realize the power they have," Mushnick said. "If there are issues in the future, they know they do have the power to make a real impact."
Eagle Staff Writer Marissa Newhall contributed to this report.
