New letter takes issue with claims
SLIPPERY ROCK — In a letter sent Monday the head of the committee leading Slippery Rock University's search for a new president defended two university employees whose participation in the search process was called into question last week by another trustee.
Trustee Jeffrey Smith, responding to claims raised Friday by trustee Robert Taylor, wrote in a letter dated Monday that he believes it is “imperative to correct the record,” following a board of trustees vote last week that derailed a presidential search that seemed to be nearly finished.
The vote by trustees — a 5-5 tie that president trustee Bill McCarrier said requires the process to start again from the beginning — came hours after Taylor released a letter raising concerns that the university's search for a new president had been tainted by conflicts of interest.
In his letter Taylor raised concerns that two SRU administrators, Molly Mercer and Scott Albert, had been serving on the search committee despite their immediate superior, Amir Mohammadi, being identified as an internal candidate for the SRU presidency.
In his letter Taylor calls the situation “a clear conflict of interest” and asks Bill McCarrier, the board president, to suspend the university's search and investigate.
McCarrier said last week that both Mercer and Albert notified the committee and the trustees about their professional relationship, and also called officials from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, who told them no conflict existed and they could continue to serve on the committee.
Smith, in his letter, echoes those statements and says Taylor's letter contained “several erroneous claims” — including allegations that Albert and Mercer never notified anyone about their professional relationship with Mohammadi.
Smith, in his letter, calls that assertion “wholly inaccurate,” and says that Mercer and Albert both discussed their relationships with Mohammadi “on several occasions,” with the committee.
Smith also says that the search committee contacted the chancellor's office at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which oversees SRU and 13 other state-owned universities and colleges, and was told by state officials that there was “no inherent conflict involving (Mercer and Albert).”
“To be clear, Ms. Mercer and Mr. Albert acted ethically and took every action necessary to ensure the integrity of the search process,” Taylor's letter reads, in part. “Any member of the search committee who attended all of the committee's meetings and interviews of all candidates would have been well aware of this.”
Smith's letter, like Taylor's, was addressed to PASSHE interim chancellor Karen Whitney, SRU trustees, Gov. Tom Wolf, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission.
Smith did not return a message left seeking comment.
