{"id":24809,"date":"2009-07-21T11:31:19","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T15:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/ave-maria-university-fires-fr\/"},"modified":"2009-07-21T11:31:19","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T15:31:19","slug":"ave-maria-university-fires-fr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/ave-maria-university-fires-fr\/","title":{"rendered":"Ave Maria University fires Fr. Fessio, again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fr<\/a><\/span>As it’s reported in a few places, Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, the well-known and gifted teacher and leader was fired by Ave Maria University. The matter of his dismissal revolves around all things, financial matters of the university. Something mentioned here before. So, one must ask if the university is going to be able to make it in the long haul or is the pizza man’s dream over. All are called upon to pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance for Father Fessio and, of course, for Ave Maria who once again makes an imprudent decision just because someone disagrees with their philosophy. Sounds like the roundheads are at it again. Read the news article<\/a> on this event. Father Fessio’s email follows:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
This morning, (Monday, July 20th) Dr. Jack Sites,
\nAcademic Vice President of Ave Maria University, flew from Houston, where
\nhe was attending a meeting of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools,
\nto San Francisco, to inform me personally that I was being dismissed from Ave
\nMaria University. Our meeting was amicable and Dr. Sites, as always, acted as a
\nChristian gentleman.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
He said that the reason for my dismissal stemmed from a
\nconversation I had in November of 2008 with Jack Donahue, then chairman of the
\nboard of AMU. At that time I felt it an obligation to speak to the board
\nchairman before the upcoming board meeting, to make sure he was aware of the
\nurgency of the university’s financial situation. After I had informed him,
\nusing projections based on publicly available documents and statements, he
\nasked me what I thought was the solution. I told him that there were policies being
\nfollowed that were at the root of the problem, that the present administration
\nwas irrevocably wedded to those policies, and that without a change of
\nadministration the university was at great risk.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Dr. Sites said that Jack
\nDonahue related this conversation to Tom Monaghan, and it was decided (I don’t
\nknow specifically by whom) that the university could not have a faculty member
\nmaking these criticisms of the administration and thus undermining the
\nuniversity.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Dr. Sites told me that there were unspecified others who had
\nsimilar substantive concerns that I was undermining the university.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
I continue
\nto support the university. I pray for its success. I have great admiration for
\nthe faculty, students, and many of the staff. I do disagree with some of the
\npolicies of the administration. This seems to be the reason I was fired the
\nfirst time, in March 2007, since the official explanation was
\n“irreconcilable administrative differences”.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Nevertheless, I think it
\nis an accurate summary to say that I am being dismissed as a faculty member
\nbecause of a private conversation with the chairman of the board in which I
\nmade known my criticisms of the university administration; and because of
\nallegations which have not been made known to me and to which I have not been given
\nan opportunity to respond.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
I will continue to recommend AMU to students and
\nparents. And I will continue to think my dismissal is another mistake in a long
\nseries of unwise decisions.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it’s reported in a few places, Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, the well-known and gifted teacher and leader was fired by Ave Maria University. The matter of his dismissal revolves around all things, financial matters of the university. Something mentioned here before. So, one must ask if the university is going to be able to … Continue reading Ave Maria University fires Fr. Fessio, again!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1936],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}