UW-Whitewater has hired an interim athletic director to replace Amy Edmonds, who was recently demoted:
Effective Oct. 17, Randy Marnocha will begin serving as Interim Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Chancellor Beverly Kopper announced today. Amy Edmonds will return to her previous position as associate athletic director, and will assist with the transition.
“Randy Marnocha is a familiar member of the Warhawk family. He served our campus for 27 years in various capacities, including 2006 until 2010 as Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs. He then took a position with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Athletic Department as associate director for business operations,” Chancellor Kopper said. “Randy has experience at one of the nation’s premier athletic departments, and I am pleased that he will bring his skill-base and knowledge to Warhawk Athletics.”
A national search for a new Director of Intercollegiate Athletics will begin in the spring.
See, Interim Athletic Director named @ https://announcements.uww.edu/Details/12892.
One may have read local stories about Edmonds’s demotion, in which UW-Whitewater’s Media Relations Director Sara Kuhl has denied that the athletic leadership change had anything to do with a recent lawsuit against Edmonds and former Chancellor Telfer.
It’s an unverfiable denial, of course, and in any event reporters who are asking Kuhl if the demotion is a result of former coach Timothy Fader’s lawsuit only show how little they understand about the history of UW-Whitewater’s administrative handling of sexual assault complaints.
Coach Fader’s effective dismissal and subsequent lawsuit wasn’t a cause, but instead an effect, of a pattern of mishandling, ignoring, and obstructing assault complaints. See, as a category at this website, Assault Awareness & Prevention.
Asking a question about a single lawsuit isn’t adequate follow-up to a wider problem: it’s evidence of ignorance, laziness, or servility.
When I read about this “new” hire and think about previous hires and promotions at UW-W I am reminded of the quote attributed to Chicago politician Abner Mikva: “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” It seems to me that if you’re looking for an administrative position at UW-W, unless “somebody” in the current University hierarchy knows and/or “sends” you, you need not apply.
I think that’s right: for the administration, it’s either someone already known, or someone who seems readily compliant. The key characteristics are (1) ceaseless boosterism, (2) a willingness to place the desires of top administrators above the needs or rights of individuals (coaches, faculty, or students with grievances), and (3) the insistence that the needs of top administrators are identical with the needs of the institution, society, the civilized world, etc.