At my meeting with two of your staff members yesterday, they asked me to contact your office if I had anything more to add. I appreciate the opportunity to do so and have tried to summarize a number of key issues that have emerged during the last month.

First, I have normally been extremely appreciative of the assistance that your office has provided in dealing with our financial practices and processes, even when these touched on weaknesses that needed significant remedies. On a number of occasions, we have called for assistance in trying to rectify problems in a proactive way and have been very pleased with the help that was provided.

But I believe that many of us who have been through this particular investigation have become very concerned with the tactics that have been employed and the manner in which conclusions appear preordained. Let me first mention some of the investigative techniques.

Yesterday afternoon I spoke to Professor Robyn Lacks. She noted that she had been visited for the third time by your staff. I believe that they held two interviews with her and another occasion visited her office to gather materials when she was not present. She noted that at the latest session, your investigator began by noting that she was coming up for tenure this year and that Mr. Snead wanted her to know that her cooperation in the investigation would be a factor in the tenure decision. According to Dr. Lacks the investigator also had a note on a folder that was quite visible to her characterizing her divorce. Dr. Lacks mentioned to me that while she is a gritty individual - having studied murder scenes as a dissertation topic - she was reduced to tears by her interrogator.

In my thirty years as a faculty member and administrator, I have never heard of an individual investigator from an audit department becoming involved in a discussion about an upcoming tenure case in what was clearly perceived as an implied threat. I myself, after being informed that "something is rotten in the State of Denmark," was asked whether I had promised tenure to Dr. Lacks as a way of compelling her to work with Rodney Monroe. The reference to her divorce seems equally unjustified.

I heard a similar story about bullying investigatory techniques from Ms. Kelly Coldiron in Dr. Jon Steingass' office. Like Dr. Lacks, Ms. Coldiron is also a very tough minded individual who has served the university in a staff position with extraordinary talent for many, many years. She noted that the first hour of her questioning was perhaps the worst experience that she ever had at VCU because of the attacks on her honesty and integrity and that she too needed a break to simply regain her composure. From what I gather, I believe that in the second hour of her interrogation she made certain that she provided some very clear assessments of those who might have axes to grind in these circumstances and how some of the accusations originated.

I believe that you have already received a note from Dr. Steingass in which he characterizes the investigation as the most horrendous experience in his life.

Second, beyond the disturbing investigatory techniques, there is an even more troubling tendency than has dominated the investigation. This is simply the assumption that all of us have been engaged in a deliberate and widespread conspiracy to violate rules and regulations and to instruct others to do so at every turn.

From the outset, I believe that individuals have attempted to be open and honest about what they believed occurred. I personally told you that many of us, including President Trani, believed that it would be good for Rodney Monroe and good for VCU if he could receive his degree from our university. We had discussed the fact that he was likely to continue in a Master's program and might someday be able to contribute as an adjunct instructor for the University. Given his tremendous success as police chief, we felt that this would be a good thing and not a bad thing for VCU.

But there is a huge difference between saying that many individuals at VCU were enthusiastic about Monroe's affiliation with the university in a degree-seeking status and that we were involved in a conspiratorial web instructing and pressuring each other at every turn to engage in unethical and rule-breaking behavior. As far as I can tell, at no point did anyone try to cover up anything that had occurred. The day before he graduated The Times-Dispatch ran a major story praising his perseverance in which all the basic facts of the case were essentially aired and the next day, at commencement, he was praised by the President as a role model for adult learners.

I fully recognize that when a case such as this comes under close attention, we should ourselves assess, scrutinize, and perhaps modify our own processes. This is completely appropriate. But it would be the oddest conspiracy I've ever witnessed for the purported perpetrators to announce what they've done in great detail on the front page of The Times-Dispatch and then follow it up with public celebration of Monroe in front of 10,000 people at commencement.

This brings me to a third concern that I want to mention. I think that many individuals to whom your investigators have spoken have noted that the Monroe case, for whatever peculiarities it may have possessed, was never the subject of the kind of widespread and sustained attention that is given to the "problems" that we deal with on a daily basis in a university of our size. Other than the matter that seems to have arisen when the person who completed his official worksheet specifying what he needed to take in order to graduate then decided later not to sign the graduation application, there was relatively little sustained attention given to this.

I know that Dr. Steingass and others mentioned another case of an individual employed at the University who was discovered not to have a legitimate undergraduate degree while applying for a graduate program here. In this instance, I personally made the unhappy discovery that the degree not only came from an unaccredited institution, but that the website of the institution was now a conduit to pornographic sites. Your investigators continue to say that the cases were not comparable, because the individual actually had taken more hours than Monroe at VCU. But this misses the point - the latter case was actually one in which deans and senior administrators spent considerable time in actual meetings trying to figure out the best answer to a difficult situation.

Your investigators mention to us that people's recollections are incomplete and changing. Because it was not an issue that was comparable to the time consuming problems that we address on a day-to-day basis, recollections are incomplete and somewhat imprecise. Moreover, many of the issues to which we are asked to respond occurred almost two years ago. Yesterday, for example, I was asked about a meeting that was set up through an email from me between Dr. Steingass and Dr. Lacks with Ms. Coldiron as the coordinator. After being informed of this, I tried to find out what happened and what everyone's recollection was. Here is the outcome of this effort: Ms. Coldiron does not recall setting up the meeting at all - Dr. Steingass did not remember meeting with Dr. Lacks - and both Dr. Lacks and Ms. Coldiron believe that while there was not a formal "meeting," Dr. Lacks and Dr. Steingass spoke when Robyn stopped by the office one day. In any case, this confusion is not the result of a conspiratorial cover-up as your investigators continually imply, but simply imperfect efforts to remember the details of events that took place some time ago.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not note the extraordinary weight that seems to be given to viewpoints of individuals, including anonymous ones, who have large axes to grind. From what I can see, they have added almost nothing to the basic facts that The Times Dispatch reported over a year ago with the exception that they cast the entire event in a conspiratorial and defamatory light. I am fully supportive of the fact that negative accusations, from wherever they come, have to be completely investigated. And I also believe that there can be positive changes that emerge from this scrutiny, especially in terms of channeling decanal discretion about internal VCU and SACS guidelines.

But I also believe that any fair investigation should be consistent with the values and practices that have made so many of us love working at VCU and that have made VCU such an exciting place with extraordinary support from the community. I believe that there is widespread support for this premise, not only here at VCU but throughout society at large. Unfortunately, for the reasons detailed above, I do not believe that this investigation has met these minimal standards. The University can also be harmed when productive members of the community who have dedicated their lives to the institution are treated in the way that has been described.

I truly appreciate the offer to add these comments.

Sincerely,

Bob Holsworth, Dean, College of Humanities and Sciences