Laramie Senator Phil Nicholas says he’s sad and disappointed to see Bob Sternberg depart from his position as President of the University of Wyoming so quickly. Sternberg resigned on Thursday after less than 5 months on the job.
Nicholas defended Sternberg’s policies, saying he has never seen a university president go to such lengths to get public input, even visiting oil fields and coal mines to talk to people. But he says Sternberg’s changes may have come too quickly, and adds that faculty could have given him more of a chance. The real issue, Nicholas says, is the cost of all these resignations.
“I don’t think that it goes unnoticed that a lot of money is spent to recruit a new president. That folks leaving offices continue to be paid high, very high salaries as part of their agreement. That it is an expensive ongoing process.”
Nicholas says the university has $60 million dollars-worth of requests on the table in the upcoming legislative session. But he says he has total confidence that Interim President Dick McGinity is capable of representing the university’s interests.