Apologists for CSU’s Shameful Board of Trustees: Tactic #1 Start a Whisper Campaign. Michael Sneed at the Sun Times thinks she has solved the mystery of Calhoun’s departure…So who is passing on information?

Michael Sneed is a columnist for Chicago’s Sun Times, a paper which had supported the Watson regime. Two days ago in her gossipy-styled opinion section called “Sneedlings” she posted the following short bit, “Ending the Mystery” (see article & link, scroll past the blather about the new name of the White Sox stadium). 

http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/sneed-guaranteed-rate-logo-may-need-arrow-adjustment/ 

To paraphrase her unnamed source, the CSU Board of Trustees was apparently, shocked, shocked that Thomas Calhoun had asked for an outrageous sum of money to stage an inauguration for himself. And, besides that, he painted over the 1920s mural ceiling in the bedroom of the prez mansion and this is a historic house. Can you believe he did that? That was the last straw. The board had had enough!! 

Well, who knows about the ceiling and its great loss to the art world, but let me get this straight. Sneed thinks that Calhoun’s request for money to which the Trustees could say yes or no ticked them off so much that he needed to be fired, terminated, separated? This Board that has ponied up how much money in maintaining their favorite president Wayne Watson in the style to which he had become accustomed is now affronted? This Board that has footed the bill for lawsuits and appeals for their favorite president Wayne Watson that have only netted CSU and the taxpayers of Illinois further legal losses, lawyer’s fees, and larger payouts to victims of Wayne’s hubris is now aghast?

To recap. A painted over ceiling of dubious historical and artistic value and a request for money that the Trustees themselves had the power to veto if they deemed it so outrageous is what got Calhoun fired. Well, Sneed, if you believe this, I’ll tell you there’s a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale and I could let you have it for a good price.

Since the Board tied itself and Calhoun into silence by terms of its contract of separation with him (neither party is supposed to disparage the other publicly) the only way for them to make Calhoun out to be a bad guy is to begin a whisper campaign.  

But whispering works two ways. So let the whispering begin. 

Who do you think whispered to Michael Sneed?

I think it was N………..

OPINION Michael Sneed

CHICAGO 09/21/2016  Facebook: MichaelSneed@Sneedlings
msneed@suntimes.com

Ending the mystery . . .

Sneed hears rumbles former Chicago State University President Thomas J. Calhoun Jr., who mysteriously exited CSU recently with a $600,000 golden parachute after serving only nine months in office — is being credited with one major change before he left.

It involved a paint brush.

Sneed is told Calhoun’s brief residence at the CSU mansion, a 1921 mansion occupied by the university presidents, resulted in a change in the master bedroom — which sports a huge mural ceiling of hand-painted cherubs.

“Not anymore,” a CSU source said. “It was completely painted over while he was there. How insensitive is that,” added the source. “The house is historic!”

“Calhoun also managed to infuriate the CSU board members, who were not happy when they found out he [Calhoun] had put together a massively expensive inaugural budget,” added the source.

“The university was in urgent need of a funding infusion and Calhoun asked them for an inaugural budget which cost a veritable fortune. And the state would have had to foot the bill!  They’d had it.”