A coalition of KSU faculty, students, alumni, joined by Cobb community leaders have filed an injunction to block Sam Olens as president of Kennesaw State University. Sam Olens is a political appointee who was rushed in by the Board of Regents without any sort of legitimate search or consideration of other candidates. Two of the plaintiffs are KSU faculty members who applied for the position before the deadline and never even had their applications acknowledged.
University System of Georgia officials will pay Olens $430,000 in salary and other benefits for his first year on the job, according to a letter sent to Olens. Olens’ base pay as attorney general is about $140,000. His base pay as KSU president would be $388,800 by comparison. Considering Olens would never be considered for any other comparable job at any other university in the country, I also wonder if the USG violated their duty to offer a much lower salary package to Olens. Does anyone honestly think Olens would not have taken the job for half that amount? When did we reach a point where a public university official is making more money than the salaries of some fortune 500 companies?
In my recent article 10 Reasons Sam Olens May Have Resigned to Go to KSU I noted this appeared to be a clear violation to Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws when a political appointee was hand-picked as a successor. I also outlined the reasons Sam Olens is anxious to take over this lucrative job as a reward for protecting the rampant corruption within the University System of Georgia for so many years.
The full injunction is listed below. I would wager Nathan Deal and the others pushing to reward Olens with this plum job (for which he has absolutely no qualifications for) were counting on the national presidential election to overshadow this blatant cronyism.
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Thank you Alan for this information. Our voice is being heard loud and clear.
I commend Alan Wood, KSU Faculty, students, alumni, et al for voicing the facts I have been telling our General Assembly and Gov. Deal as a Georgia Whistleblower since 2009 after 15 years in the Office of a USG college president. It is time for our elected officials to read the facts in the Injunction and introduce a Bill in the 2017 Legislative Session to address the non-accountability by the Board of Regents allowed by our Georgia Constitution, Gov. Deal and the General Assembly for far too long.
https://gwmac.com/poitevint-deposition/
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/23973296/former-employee-board-of-regents-hiding-records