President David Schmidly faced allegations of cronyism and preferential treatment for athletics when he served as president of Oklahoma State University from 2002 to 2007.
Schmidly came under fire during his years as president for hiring several vice presidents, giving a bonus to a coach while denying raises for faculty, and ordering a student residence complex to be leveled.
Bob Darcy, political science professor and former faculty chairman at OSU, was one of Schmidly's critics during his presidency.
"He created one new vice president after another," Darcy said. "After he created a new vice president, then each of the new presidents had to have an entourage, and so each of the entourages were associate vice presidents. That created a lot of problems - morale problems with faculty."
Schmidly declined to comment on this story Tuesday.
Al Goodbury, Schmidly's former chief of staff, said he and Schmidly worked closely at OSU and that Schmidly had a positive impact on the University.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"He did wonders for this campus that will last for many decades," he said. "You see the results of his work here on campus now.. All of those happened under Dr. Schmidly's leadership, and to say that he did nothing for academics is just an outright fabrication of the facts."
Schmidly created three vice president positions during his presidency at OSU - vice president of enrollment management, vice president of information and technology services, and vice president of diversity and inclusion.
Gary Shutt, an OSU spokesman, said the enrollment management and diversity and inclusion positions at OSU are now vacant. He said Schmidly eliminated the IT position after the employee filling it was involved in a lawsuit.
Darcy said Schmidly's administration also lowered morale by announcing that there would be no money for faculty raises, meanwhile OSU's football coach Mike Gundy received a $1 million bonus.
"I can understand giving a bonus to a football coach - even a worthless football coach - but doesn't (Schmidly) know how that's going to play with the faculty?" Darcy said. "All of us - the little children playing in the sandbox - can see the connection between 'There's no money for raises' and 'We're going to give the football coach . a million-dollar bonus.'"
Goodbury said the bonus announcement was poorly timed but that the allocation of funds for Gundy's salary was beyond Schmidly's control.
"The biggest advocate for salaries for faculty was President Schmidly," he said. "Certain years he had bad timing, I agree, but to say that he favored football coach salaries over faculty - that's just not true. He wasn't oblivious to it. It was just something that he didn't control.. He let people do their jobs. He didn't meddle."
One of the biggest controversies surrounding President Schmidly's time at OSU occurred when oil mogul T. Boone Pickens gave $165 million to OSU in order to build an "athletic village" on a block where about 350 students resided in inexpensive housing.
"The athletic village was very important for OSU to remain competitive in the Big 12," Goodbury said. "We were woefully inadequate on facilities.. And the only place that it made sense to build the athletic village was contiguous to the athletic facilities.. It didn't make any sense to have it out west of town, 15 or 20 miles away from campus."
Goodbury said the neighborhood that was leveled to make room for the athletic village was full of houses that were not up to code.
"The space that was bought out actually was houses that you wouldn't want any of your kids to ever live in," he said. "They were all substandard houses. Most of them were not owner-occupied. They were these rental houses that the slumlords, for the most part, maintained for students."
Goodbury said Schmidly and OSU worked with the Chamber of Commerce in Stillwater, Okla., to provide alternative housing for the students and low-income residents that were displaced.
Many in the student population protested the demolition, and Darcy said Schmidly mishandled the uproar.
"You cannot believe what a hash Schmidly made of that. It was just unbelievable. We had protests. It was just endless problems where it didn't need to be," Darcy said.
James Miller, a senior at OSU, said he was a senior in high school during the athletic village controversy and witnessed much of the unrest.
"Some guy got up and sang a folk song in protest at one of the city meetings when David Schmidly was in attendance, and I know a lot of people were really disgruntled because he tore those houses down and moved some of them to God-knows-where," he said.
Miller said he was unhappy about what he viewed as an overemphasis on athletics during Schmidly's administration.
"Our stadium has probably doubled in size," he said. "I'm just disappointed. One of my professors called it 'Oklahoma Sport University.'"
