MINOT — I reported
that the State Board of Higher Education was considering moving on from North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott. A review of Hagerott’s contract was on the board’s agenda for its June 25 meeting.
During that meeting, after a lengthy executive session meeting that was closed to the public, board members voted unanimously to terminate Hagerott’s employment as chancellor. His current contract, which was set to expire in June 2025, was extended by six months to December 2025 at his current salary of more than $424,000 a year, at which point Hagerott will become a “distinguished professor of artificial intelligence,” as Board member Kevin Black described it.
It is unclear, at this time, what the terms of Hagerott’s professorship will be. Black said his compensation levels would be finalized in December 2025.
No criticism was made of Hagerott during Tuesday’s public board session, which is common practice in the traditionally opaque university system. Under the guise of respecting and protecting reputations, the board typically makes personnel changes without giving the public any clear reason why, even though taxpayers are usually on the hook for the fancy golden parachutes paid to departing employees. go.
When former North Dakota State University president Dean Bresciani was fired, for example, he was given a professorship at the institution he once led that is highly compensated and far from demanding.
When Hagerott’s contract was last renewed in 2023,
there was some public criticism
salary increases for its staff exceed increases for leadership at the university level. Privately, before Tuesday’s board meeting, people close to decision-making told me that Hagerott was seen as too shortsighted in certain policy areas (I have been described as “obsessed” with artificial intelligence and cybersecurity), as well as too partial. toward institutions of higher education in western North Dakota.
Meanwhile, Hagerott’s defenders suggest that his tenure as chancellor is ending after almost a decade, partly in retaliation for Bresciani’s firing.
Unfortunately, because the SBHE rarely puts its cards on the table, opting instead to deliberate on these matters behind closed doors rather than in open meetings, it is difficult to say what the true motivations are.
Hagerott addressed the board after the vote, although he did not object to the decision. He expressed his gratitude and said that he looked forward to his professorship.
Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist and podcast host for Forum News Service with extensive experience in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Contact him at rport@forumcomm.com. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.
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