The Fall of a President

Dr. John Sellars is out; here’s how the relationship went sour.

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Less than two years ago, Dr. John D. Sellars came to Drury University from Syracuse University with a head full of steam. He had been a finalist for the Missouri State University presidency; when Drury came calling he took over a small private school with a fraction of the red tape and, presumably, state school problems. Sellars’ hiring just seemed right.

But two years later Sellars is gone, or as good as. He tendered his resignation with the Drury board of trustees on April 23, citing “personal reasons” in the most generic of press releases. He has not spoken to the press; a GO request for an interview sent to Sellars’s office was forwarded to the office of university communications, which responded with a press release. His last day is May 31; on June 1, former Drury trustee and local entrepreneur Todd Parnell will begin a one-year interim presidency.

Drury brass is of one voice: Sellars was not fired, he was not asked to step down, he resigned. He will leave with an as-yet-undisclosed severance package and mostly untarnished reputation. But when any leader—be it in education, public service or business—leaves unexpectedly less than halfway through a contract (Sellars was not quite two years into a five-year deal) talk of forced resignation follows. Some faculty say Sellars was unpopular from the start, and though it wasn’t entirely his doing, he began digging his own grave on the tight-knit campus almost the moment he got there.

“I think a lot of mistakes were made early on with respect to how the new regime would extend or revise what had gone on in the past. There’s always a natural tension there,” says Tom Parker, chair of the department of art and art history and the outgoing president of Drury’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

“Any new president would have had problems,” Parker adds. “In hindsight, a lot of those problems probably weren’t very well dealt with.”

But what sort of problems? There’s a laundry list, including:

• Money. Shortly after Sellars took office, the school made a very public announcement that the school was floating in millions of dollars of red ink after more than a decade of rapid growth and capital improvements. Responsibility was laid at the feet of Moore’s administration. According to one longtime faculty member, who spoke on condition that GO extend anonymity because the conversations were private, a furor ensued. Many faculty came to Moore’s defense. “[Sellars] was a change person, and one way to go about that is to put down your predecessor,” the faculty member says. “That might work at a large school, but at Drury, we know what John Moore did.”
• Sellars wanted to tinker with the mission statement. Charles Ess, a professor of philosophy and religion (and also the incoming president of Drury’s AAUP chapter), says he thinks Sellars did his best and did a number of good things, but would give the president one piece of advice. “After a 22-year presidency, you don’t change a lot of things quickly.” One of those things Sellars wanted to review right off the bat was Drury’s mission statement, which Ess says was not well-received, especially when coupled with the budget announcement. “[The administration] came across as saying what we have been for 20 years or 120 years is all up for grabs right now,” Ess says, specifically mentioning that one of Sellars’s new administrative hires (Ess didn’t name names) questioned the school’s long-standing affiliation with the Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ denominations. “They did not understand the religious tradition the university had been affiliated with since its founding,” says Ess, whose wife, as of press time, was about to be ordained as a Disciples minister. Nothing changed with the mission, Ess says, but the topic only alienated many faculty further.
• Faculty don’t feel Sellars supported academic freedom. Last year Jim Murrow, a retiring professor in Drury’s vaunted Breech School of Business Administration, did an interview with KY3’s Jerry Jacob in which he criticized Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott for making $9,000 an hour while his workers make $9. He says he was speaking in the capacity of an economic expert, not a Drury faculty member. However, Wal-Mart—and specifically former Wal-Mart president and DU alum Jack Shewmaker—is a major Drury donor. Less than a week later, Sellars had penned an op-ed piece in the News-Leader asking why we should demonize Wal-Mart and thanking the retailer—and Shewmaker specifically—for their contributions to the school. Murrow says he complimented Wal-Mart in the interview and even shops there, but that part was left on KY3’s cutting room floor. Then, Murrow says, he was asked to retire. He had been planning to retire next year after spending the better part of 25 years at Drury, but he says his departure was hastened, if only by a year. “They asked me what it would take to leave. I’m leaving one year earlier than I would have, but with a package,” Murrow says.