BY WATCHING ADAMS STAFF – 4/6/18

After being placed on administrative leave on February 12th, 2018, former Adams State University (ASU) president Dr. Beverlee McClure tendered her resignation effective March 31st.

While many news outlets reported that McClure was removed from office due to her October 2016 Halloween costume in which she dressed as a plumber by wearing a fat suit with rotting teeth, the university maintains that McClure was removed “after determining that there was a lack of congruence between the priorities of Dr. McClure and those of the Board of Trustees.”

Watching Adams wrote at length about McClure’s legacy as one of “personnel controversies, self-inflicted public relations mistakes, mounting financial problems, decreased student enrollment, high employee turnover, and an erosion of campus morale.”

As part of her settlement agreement, McClure and her attorneys will receive a sum of $250,000. McClure will also receive a 2015 Jeep and a university laptop used during McClure’s tenure as president.  McClure was represented by the Denver-based law firm King & Greisen, LLP.  The University was represented by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

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McCLURE’S COSTLY PRESIDENCY

McClure’s tumultuous tenure as president has been called, among other things, Superstorm Beverlee – leaving a wake of financial and staffing destruction at ASU in her wake.

Many ASU employees maintain that McClure cultivated a culture of bullying and intimidation during her time in office.

One ASU employee was quoted in the Denver Post as stating McClure is “incompetent to lead a university. … Her people skills are awful because she is vindictive, hyper-sensitive to criticism, and just plain mean. She mocks people less fortunate than herself, like a waitperson with a stutter.”

A former faculty member who was banned from campus but successfully lifted the ban after a lawsuit was filed by the ACLU also told the Denver Post, “She has unquestionably left the university in much worse condition than she found it; now many of my colleagues at ASU are being terminated due to dire financial conditions and ongoing declines in enrollment.”

One former ASU employee reacted to the news of McClure’s settlement agreement with, “Wow. $250k, a $40-50k car, and a laptop. I’d say McClure made out handily on this deal. I’m sure the Board was simply glad to get rid of her.  You could pay an assistant professor nearly 7.5 years for the same amount of money!  What a con artist.”

Another person familiar with these circumstances stated, “I hear through the grapevine at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque that she has been applying for every position advertised from Dean to Director of this, that and the other. My source on the inside says NOBODY will hire her.”