Statement and Employment Actions The governing body of the North Dakota University System (NDUS) is the State Board of Higher Education (SBHE). The board members are appointed by the governor to four-year terms. The board provides oversight for the State's eleven public institutions of higher education. The Chancellor serves as the system’s chief executive officer, reporting to the Board, From 2011-2013, the SBHE garnered a lot of negative attention, both from the media and lawmakers, for hiring a new Chancellor (Hamid Shirvani) in 2012 at a significantly higher salary than previous chancellors, and for then buying out his contract for $1 million in 2013 when, things did not work out. Many of the issues surrounding his termination involved lack of. transparency, open meeting violations, harassment and bullying. The Board felt it had no choice but to release him from his contract. The blowback was so great about the issues and about the Boards decisions that an initiated measure to replace the Board with a Commission started in the legislature and went to a vote of the people in November 2014. Iwas recruited by Shirvani prior to his departure, At the Information Technology Department, | served as the State's chief information officer (CIO) for seven years. Shirvani wanted me to become the NDUS CIO and head up the NDUS institutional research department. There was a great need to make the NOUS technology organization more efficient and strengthen its cyber security. Unfortunately, | came on board the same day that Shirvani was terminated in 2013. The SBHE appointed an interim chancellor until the outcome of the initiated measure was determined. Once that measure was defeated, the Board went forward with a search for a new chancellor. The Board made it clear that it would be important to hire the right person for the job in order to rebuild the Board’s image as well as the system's image. Dr. Mark Hagerott was hired as the NDUS Chancellor on July 1, 2015. He was a former Navy captain and had never served in a leadership position in a public education institution. He taught at the Naval Academy following his active service. He grew up in Seattle but had North Dakota roots — he had spent summers on his grandparents’ farm while his Dad was In the Navy - and his North Dakota connection became one of his strongest selling points with the Board, At the system office, the senior staff consisted of Linda Donlin, Vice Chancellor of, Communications and Strategic Engagement; Richard Rothaus, interim Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs; Laura Glatt, Vice Chancellor of Administrative Affairs; and Lisa Feldner; Vice Chancellor of Information Technology & Institutional Research as well as Interim Chief of Staff. in December of 2015, Laura Glatt took a position in Colorado and Tammy Dolan was hired as the Chief Financial Officer. We were directed by the SBHE to “smooth things out” and “keep the NDUS out of the news.” Immediately upon his arrival, senior staff encouraged the new chancellor to do a “Listen and Learn Tour” around the state to meet with the legislators, business leaders and the campuses, with the hope that this effort would begin to repair relationships that had been damaged in the ct RECEIVED NOV 47 2017 40 Death lw es‘We soon learned that this was going to be a difficult task. We had to remind the Chancellor repeatedly that this was a listening tour. That he was to listen and learn and not talk about himself, cyber security, and being in the Navy. We had to ask him not to talk over people - he especially had a tendency to talk over women. He talked over men, too, but he would often go back and say to them, “What were you saying, sir, ll go into receive mode now." That rarely, if ever, happened with women. For example, at an introductory meeting with Pam Sharp, director of the State's Office of Management and Budget, she intended to give him an overview of the State’s budgeting process and how the NOUS fit into that process. The meeting was a disaster because he talked over her for the full hour barely allowing her to speak until there was only a few minutes of their time left. Logistics also became increasingly problematic because Hagerott always wanted someone to ride along with him in the car. Senior staff accompanied him on his first couple trips, just to introduce him to people, but he soon decided that’s how it needed to be going forward. It became apparent that what he really wanted was a chauffeur so that he could talk on the phone or do emails while others drove. This became very difficult to schedule because of our small staff and especially because he refused to ride in the car with either of the two, in his words, "single moms" in the office. It also created a situation where these two women were denied opportunities for networking with the Chancellor, board members, and campus and community leaders, which affected their ability to do their jobs. interestingly, he said he would ride with the single fomaic IIIS because, in his words, she “had a same sex partner,” although he made it clear he didn’t approve of that relationship. She soon left the office for other opportunities. He then determined he should have a single male staff member chauffeur him around the state and act as his aide. He said this staffer should “quit his night class” so he could do that. The Chancellor said that in the military someone at his level would have an aide to be at his beck and call, read his emails for him, write responses and point out to him what was important for him to know. He also threatened to hold up this staff member's status change from “on probation” to “permanent” employee because he wanted leverage to force him to be available to serve the chancellor's needs. Senior staff and the human resources (HR) director were able to intervene and soon after convinced the Chancellor that it would be impossible to continue the practice of having 2 chauffeur and to delay taking this staff member off probation. The information below was provided to the Chancellor by the HR director on Nov. 3, and only then did he agree with those recommendations: 1. Because the employee was given a positive probationary review recommendation letter on October 23° which indicated he had met expectations set forth as part of his original appointment letter {attachment 1), | would recommend that he come off of probation and become a permanent employee, Note: As per NDUS policy 4 probationary period, his probationary period could have been extended, but since positive feedback was delivered by his supervisor RECEIVED : NOV 47 2017 NO Dt ah omen elit becomes difficult to circle back with a new message and puts the system office in a vulnerable spot. If a decision is made to keep him on a probationary status the system office will incur a legal risk as per the signed employment contract letter. 2. Update the position description to include changes to job duties and reporting structure. | would recommend including detailed expectations and, in order to ensure performance remains on track, include timelines/follow-up dates if necessary. Our goal would be to retain the employee by providing clear communication, training and follow-up regarding the revised job duties. In the near future, if the employee is not meeting expectations, he would be placed on a performance improvement plan and either improve to meet/ exceed expectations or be terminated, ‘The first six months on the job, the Chancellor would routinely mention to senior staff about male friends in the Navy who would do well as vice chancellors for, a — EE |: 3 250): 1: resisted removing the interim status from [IEEE position unti! he was directed to make the move by the board chair. After learning that IINIIMMis a cancer survivor, the Chancellor would, on nearly a weekly basis, refer to Lack of stamina and health as a negative. Additionally, the Chancellor would mention to me concerns about Ms. Donlin’s advanced age, and state that we should be looking to fill her position with someone younger and more vibrant. At the same time, he was telling Ms. Donlin on nearly a daily basis that she looked “really good for her age.” He routinely referred to the two attorneys assigned to our office as. junior lawyers and “too young to be of much use.” He insisted that any of his questions be referred to one of the senior attorneys in the Office of the Attorney General. He preferred to. ignore the advice of the two young male attorneys, and the female senior attorney, insisting whenever possible to go to the Attorney General himself, often going to their offices without an appointment and insisting on seeing them -- just to double check on the advice already given him by the assigned attorneys. For example, in September 2017, he ignored the advice of Nick Vaughn, the assigned attorney, and insisted that he speak with the Attorney General about an open records request that requested the Chancellor's emails which contained the words “cyber” and “Nexus”. The Chancellor claimed his emails should be exempt from open records because they were research related. The Attorney General refused to meet with him and referred him back to his deputy attorney general who is a female. Another instance occurred ‘over Minnesota reciprocity when the Chancellor ignored the advice of both the assigned “young” attorney and our CFO, stating they were too young to have the necessary experience. In late September 2015, the Chancellor met prominent author and technologist Jaron Lanier at a conference in Bismarck. For weeks afterward, the Chancellor would occupy staff meeting, time describing how overweight Lanier was and asking rhetorical questions about how someone could let their body go. He repeatedly stated that Lanier was so overweight he could RECEIVED a NOV 17 2017 No Di honesberely function and hypothesized that he developed his brain so much he was neglecting his body. There was never any substantive discussion of Lanier's work, just weeks of commentary on his weight. This fixation served to further tensions and emphasize that the Chancellor was. making vast judgments about people based entirely on superficial assessments of their physical appearance. This unwarranted and gratuitous attack on an individual who the Chancellor met only briefly at a conference fed the hostile environment where staff members were concerned about what he was saying to others about their health, age, and appearance On September 29, 2015, at 4:00 pm, Ms. Donlin and | met with SBHE chair, Kathleen Neset, to go over the agenda for the next day's Board meeting. Neset asked us how it was going in the System Office with the Chancellor. We talked about concerns we had with the Chancellor regarding his discriminatory behavior toward the system office staff and the liability that presented for the Board and the system. We discussed his distorted focus on cyber security to the detriment of his role in the NDUS and his complete disinterest in learning the critical aspects of his job, in particular, academics. Neset listened and then stated that the SBHE couldn't have another failure, so we needed to help make this Chancellor successful at all costs, and she asked us to keep her informed, From the start, the Chancellor talked about cyber security ad nauseam, He would interrupt conversations and meetings to talk about how we needed to create a cyber academy in the NDUS. Senior staff at the system office told the Chancellor that their workload was already overwhelming - most were doing two jobs - and they could not take on another project like a cyber academy. In September of 2015, the Chancellor said he needed a "good man" to help him with a new, related initiative he wanted to start, and reached out to Josh Riedy, the former NDUS CIO who had been demoted to UND CIO. Riedy was an ironic choice as he had previously been unable to manage the NDUS technology systems and personnel which eventually led to a security breach. Thereafter, the Chancellor and Josh would talk about cyber security at least once a day In November, the Chancellor announced NexusND ~ an initiative involving cyber security, big data, and unmanned systems. He told me he thought | was too busy to take on something like this, but that Josh Riedy was perfect to head up the initiative. | reminded the Chancellor that the system had experienced a security breach as a result of Josh’s lack of knowledge or experience in cyber security and information technology systems. In fact, | had been instrumental in mitigating the damage that had occurred because of the lack of leadership that led to the breach. However, my comment was brushed off as irrelevant, and he went forward with his plans with Josh lemorandum of Understanding (MOU) The following excerpt was prepared by me at the request of UND auditor, Timothy Rerick, who conducted an internal audit (available upon request from UND) triggered by a UND compliance hotline complaint, which ultimately led to the dismissal of Josh Riedy in 2016. The excerpt below demonstrates the numerous concerns regarding the Chancellor's decision-making involving Riedy’s role in the NexusND initiative. RECEIVED NOV 47 2017 Oi ler 2 annaDecember 31, 2015 ~ Chancellor Hagerott emailed a draft MOU between NDUS and UND for work related to the NexusND project. The email came at 11:47 am and asked for my (Feldner’s] thoughts. | [Felder] was on annual leave that day and did not immediately respond. The Chancellor then called later in the day and asked [Feldner] me to quickly review it while he waited. | read it and said that | felt 20% was too much to allocate to Josh Riedy. He responded that Josh made under $100,000 so this was only $20,000. | said ! was sure Josh Riedy made quite a bit more than my salary and the system office could not afford 20% of that. The Chancellor wanted to know if | approved of it. | told him | needed more time to look it over and that ! was in the middle of making a New Year's Eve dinner. | asked if it could wait until Monday when we were all back at work. The Chancellor said he needed to give Josh the “go-ahead” so Josh did not apply for the UND President's job and the application deadline was January 4, 2016. He also mentioned that Josh was looking at other positions out of state, About an hour later | had a chance to look up Josh Riedy's salary and texted the Chancellor that his salary was between $235,000 - $265,000. January 4, 2016 ~ After reviewing the draft MOU over the long weekend, | had several concerns that | shared with the Chancellor on the morning of January 4. I said the agreement was open ended; 20% was too much money; Josh would be making more ‘money than all the presidents except the two research institutions and that would undermine the whole initiative; it needed to be approved by the SBHE; the NDUS office didn’t have the money to spend. The 20% equaled $46,000 and that would pay for a position. | also told him we'd just RiFed a person for that same amount and this was not appropriate. He insisted if he didn’t have the MOU that Josh would leave for a position at SDSU. | left the meeting very frustrated and arranged for Ms. Dolan, Ms. Donlin, and Dr. Rothaus to meet with the Chancellor at 1:00 that day. Together in that meeting, we all urged the Chancellor to hold off on the MOU. January 5-6, 2016 - each of the senior staff members visited individually with the Chancellor trying to encourage him to rethink the language in the MOU. He was insistent that Josh would get another job in South Dakota if he didn’t get the MOU. | told him both the Provost and President positions at SDSU hadn't even been opened yet and the Student Affairs position was just now forming a search committee so that position wasn’t posted either. The Chancellor insisted that Josh had been nominated for position in SD and would be named shortly. | asked him who gave him that information, and he said Josh did. (attachment 2) January 7, 2016 ~ Rebecca Wimer and | received an email with the MOU (attachment 3) signed by UND President Kelley. The Chancellor had not yet signed it. Rebecca came to me and expressed concern that the MOU was giving Josh too much money and it would cause trouble. She asked me if it had been reviewed by our legal team, and I said not to my knowledge. | later told the Chancellor that the MOU needed to be reviewed by legal 80 he shouldn't sign it. He said he was going to sign it so Josh would not apply for other RECEIVED 5 NOV 17 2017 HO Dot af eer ann ispositions and that legal could review it in the meantime and reissue a revised version if there were problems. The Chancellor signed it. January 8, 2016 —| emailed the MOU to Noah Brisbin, our legal counsel, and asked him to review it January 11, 2016 ~ Noah Brisbin reviewed the MOU and found several issues with it. forwarded Noah’s email to SBHE Chairman Kathleen Neset and followed it up with a phone call. She asked that a meeting be set up with the Chancellor, Don Morton, myself, and our legal counsel. The MOU was a violation of SBHE policy as well as several legal issues. January 13, 2016 - Noah Brisbin assisted Rebecca Wimer in drafting a memo to rescind the MOU. January 14, 2016 ~ Rebecca Wimer emailed the memo rescinding the MOU to UND. President Kelley for his signature. He signed it and it was emailed back to me (attachment 4) January 15, 2016 ~ Kathleen Neset, Don Morton, Nick Vaughn, and { met with the Chancellor. Nick Vaughn listed the legal concerns with regard to the MOU and Chairman Neset ordered the Chancellor to sign the memo rescinding the MOU. As far as | know, Kathleen Neset and Don Morton never informed the other S8HE members of this chain of events nor the illegal MOU that was signed and ultimately rescinded. On January 5, 2016, the Chancellor, as an overreaction to an email with errors sent to a Board member by one staff person, sent an email to all system office staff saying that his approval was required before any communications could go out to the SBHE or the college presidents (attachment 5). This communication caused a major upset in the office because the role of the staffis to communicate with college presidents on a weekly, if not daily, basis. As a result, | was asked as chief of staff to set up a meeting for the staff to communicate their concerns. That meeting was scheduled for January 7, 2016, with the staff and the Chancellor ‘On the day of the meeting, the Chancellor chose to be out of the office, and the staff asked that the meeting be held anyway to voice their concerns. Each staff member individually voiced their concerns about the Chancellor's treatment of them and comments he had made to them The comments included discrimination based on marital status, gender, sexual orientation, health status, weight, age, and political affiliation. One example: Ms. Donlin and | were both out for a week in which an interim legislative meeting was going on in the Capitol. The Chancellor called in the communications staff and asked them each what their political affiliation was so he could determine who could be "downstairs with the legistators.” Bere Cy Astaff ECEIVE a 17 207 ¥O at tablemember said the Chancellor told her “it was okay for him to ride in a car with firstname because she is a lesbian.” Other examples included him asking staff of their religious affiliation down to the actual church they attended. More examples are included in the compliance report mentioned later in this document, ‘The staff reported their concerns to me, so as the Chief of Staff, | felt duty-bound to immediately report the conversations to our attorney. He then had multiple conversations with the SBHE chair, and a meeting was scheduled on January 15, 2016, to address the concerns with the Chancellor. | was present at part of the meeting that dealt with the MOU that the Chancellor had forced President Kelley to sign, and the SBHE chair directed the Chancellor to rescind (see above on MOU). The discrimination conversation took place after | left That evening, the Chancellor called me to ask who on the staff thought he was making advances toward them. He kept saying “sexual harassment” and | told him it wasn’t sexual harassment but rather discrimination but he talked over me at every point in the conversation. This lack of understanding or caring about gender bias has been reiterated recently in the Chancellor's repeated claims to the media and Board that he was investigated for harassment. In January 2016, NM became aware that the Chancellor was telling multiple individuals that NNN was too ill to work very hard. This appears to have been an attempt to force WEES 0. through false claims linked to Mllhealth status. IB complained in writing to Board Chair Neset, who confirmed that she herself had been told this. The Chancellor ‘was repeating such claims as late as a few months ago, seemingly when he was trying to free up salary dollars that would allow him to hire an acquaintance from the Navy. ‘Throughout February and March, his behavior continued, but became more pronounced in that he would burst into an office without knocking and begin to talk negatively about college presidents, other members of the staff, and then talk about cyber security, sometimes for hours, with no regard for that staff person's time or schedule. In fact, a couple of staff members, including me, kept tally sheets of how many times he would talk about cyber security each day. He seemed obsessed with the fact that his NexusND project was now stalled because Josh Riedy was no longer able to help him. in the meantime, he spent very little time focusing on the day-to-day duties of his job. During the March 9, 2016, Chancellor’s Cabinet monthly conference call, each campus president was asked to report on the progress of their studies. The Chancellor called on each president by addressing them, “President Lastname” please update us on your study. When that president was finished, the Chancellor would thank them profusely. However, when he got to President Mason, the only female president of the group, he called her by her first name, Tisa. Not just once, but every time he addressed her. As she finished her report, he said, “I want to thank Tisa’s husband for allowing her to spend so much time on the Governance study..." In April, the Vice Chancellors were invited to lunch with Chair Neset, where she asked for an update on the situation in the office. As a result, she decided to have another talk with the RECEIVED 7 NOV 17 207 WO Depo ator &Homon Right saChancellor about his behavior. She asked Senior Staff members for talking points, which Ms. Donlin provided in an email that is attached (attachment 6). | believe that Neset and Vice Chair Morton did meet with the Chancellor at some point following that communication but nothing was ever shared with the staff or, to my knowledge, with other Board members. The Chancellor continued his unbalanced focus on his pet projects of NexusND and Bakken U. His behavior continued as before, and as his first annual performance review approached, as well as the performance reviews of the presidents, he claimed he didn't have time to work on the presidents’ reviews and pushed as much as possible off to senior staff and to his administrative assistant. While many of us refused, | believe he was able to coerce a few into doing his job for him. As the May Board meeting approached, he became frantic because he did hot have their reviews finished. He took a large binder and had two assistants print off as much paper as possible related to each campus to fill the binder. Then at the meeting, he made a big deal of how hard he worked on the reviews, and dropped the binder of the reviews on the floor for dramatic effect, startling the whole group. Meanwhile, President Ray Nadoiny was having issues managing Williston State College, and stinging audit reports were surfacing. Nadolny submitted his resignation under pressure from the Audit Committee. instead of facilitating his departure, the Chancellor prolonged the agony - - actually paying Nadolny with ND tax payer dollars to write his memoirs ~- which Nadolny turned into a book, Resilient, with some not very flattering references to the Chancellor. This continued contact created pressure on staff, who were placed in uncomfortable positions as a president who had effectively been terminated showed up for meetings with the Chancellor. On May 23, 2016, the NDUS hosted a strategic event at the State Capitol called Envision 2030. It ‘was well attended by leaders from across the state, and the speaker roster included Governor Dalrymple, Senator Heitkamp, Rep. Sanford, Chair Neset and the Chancellor. The entire SBHE ‘was in the front, as well as the Lieutenant Governor, former Governor Ed Schafer, legislators, Cabinet members and other dignitaries. At least half dozen members of the media were in attendance, and the entire event was webcast across the state. There were also students in the room, including a 10-year-old. Staff worked extremely hard to organize the event and to help the Chancellor prepare his remarks. He strayed significantly from the main intended message of the speech, dwelling on NexusND and cyber security. At one point, he told a story about the importance of emerging technology and related it to his grandfather leaving the farm to find work in the technology field because farming was not supporting the family. "My grandfather was born in the 1890s ~ he didn't know technology -- he said WHAT THE F are you talking about ~ (Jaughed) in the Navy we can say that word - for emphasis." http://envision2030.ndus.edu/ Envision 2030 morning session video: 1:51:23. After the meeting, the Chancellor asked Ms. Donlin how she thought his speech went. She said, “Most of the feedback I've had is about you saying 'what the F.' No one remembers anything else you said." The Chancellor scoffed at that, and said he didn’t think it was a problem at all. He RECEIVED 8 NOV 47 2017 NO Dop fr eran itssaid that people understand he was in the Navy and that’s how we talk. She said it was highly inappropriate to say that -- even the abbreviation of the expletive ~ especially in front of all those important people -- and in particular in front of students. At one point, the Chancellor lightly punched Ms. Donlin in the shoulder, and said, "Aw, c'mon. you don't really think it was a big deal, do you?" She reiterated that it was inappropriate and that all the feedback she's had about the speech was about that one remark. The Chancellor then proceeded to walk around the office and ask others what they thought, and saying that he thought Ms. Dontin was being a "prude." He told me he thought it was time for her to retire if she thought what he said was inappropriate. However, he got the same feedback from others. The Chancellor brought it up many times during the course of the next few weeks, trying to justify what he said, and saying people would give him a pass because he ‘was in the Navy. On June 10, 2016, the office received an open records request for emails from the Chancellor to/from then interim President Ed Schafer of UND. | was eating lunch in the cafeteria at the time when his administrative assistant called and asked me to come up to the office quickly because, “The Chancellor is flioping out! He’s ranting and raving about an open records request. He's so mad he’s shaking, and I'm afraid he’s going to do something stupid.” | calted our attorney to meet me and quickly went up to the office to find out the problem. The Chancellor kept saying we couldn’t give out the emails because “they'd change the course of history." | told him we routinely give out all emails when asked, and this was no different. He, once again ignored the advice of our assigned attorney and stormed down to the Attorney General's office, and I did my best to calm things down in the office. After this event, senior staff had to organize their schedules to make sure that one or more of Us were always present in the office when the Chancellor was in. The combination of the tantrum in June and pressure on staff to write presidential evaluations had created a situation where staff felt harassed, and even unsafe, if the moderating presence of a senior staff member was not available. ‘Asa result of the incident, our attorney suggested to the SBHE chair that a climate survey of the staff be performed by the compliance officer, and the chair agreed. The compliance report (results of that survey) are attachment 7. The survey was conducted very professionally. Each employee was surveyed anonymously, and their answers recorded. The Chancellor was not aware of the survey being taken because we did not want him to put pressure on respondents. As you can see, 100% of the staff surveyed said he treated women differently than the men among other things. The final report was given by the compliance officer to the attorney and to Chair Neset. The report was not given to the rest of the SBHE members as part of his annual review for 2016, even though they were asked to provide comments that the Chair said she was going to incorporate into the review. Since its release in 2017, the Chancellor and SBHE members Neset, Morton, and Stemen have, in public comments, referred to this report as unverified and anecdotal. The report was done, RECEIVED 9 NOV 17 2017 RD Dept. Lubo& Hanan igs oahowever, by their own compliance officer, who reports to the SBHE, not the Chancellor. Their attempts to disavow the report is strong evidence that they chose to allow the discrimination to continue, rather than address the issues. Their claims the Chancellor went to training or mentoring cannot be substantiated and it seems the Neset and Morton are aware he did not do 50 even when Neset directed him to. There is, as far as | know, no evidence that the SBHE took any action to remedy the discrimination attested to by 100% of the interviewed staff. This is a causal factor in the Chancellor's choice to terminate me and appoint a male friend to a position using my now available salary dollars. The SBHE’s inaction made it evident to the Chancellor that he could continue to discriminate, and they would look the other way. The Chancellor also made numerous public references to (EE undergoing what he called a “major medical procedure," apparently to indicatelgggg could not dol} full duties. The procedure was, however, minor and scheduled. Additionally, the Chancellor announced to the entire Budget Section of the legislature that he would be presenting in leu of IM and | because we'd both recently undergone “major” surgery and were recovering and then pointed tous at the back of the room. My surgery was very minor wrist surgery but both and | were embarrassed. Beyond the obvious problem of publicly sharing employees’ health status, the Chancellor continued references to health and denigration of individuals has created a hostile atmosphere. Staff are afraid to mention or seek accommodation for any health issue, major, minor, or chronic, for fear of public exposure and denigration. I, personally, need annual check-ups at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester as | am at high risk for breast cancer. After witnessing his reaction TE cy edical status, | disguised my leave requests as annual leave for a family event. The Interim Legislative Higher Education Committee met on June 7-8, 2016 at Valley City State University. Ms. Dolan, President Mason, and | presented a significant amount of information to the committee over the two-day agenda as had been prearranged by the committee chairman, Rep. Mark Sanford {the minutes of the meeting can be accessed here, http://www legis.nd.gov/assembly/64-2015/interim/17-5121-03000-meeting-minutes.pdf] There were several times during the meeting where the Chancellor would rise from the audience, raise his hand to interrupt, and comment on the discussion. That is not permitted by Legislative Council and is deeply frowned upon. The protocol is that each speaker -- including members of the committee itself — must be called upon by the Chair before they can ask a question or address the committee, The Chancellor had been told by Ms. Donlin, Ms. Dolan, and me prior to the meetings that he should follow protocol and not interrupt proceedings. Not only did he completely disregard our advice, but he also demonstrated his utter disrespect for female leaders by interrupting every female speaker at the podium, including Dr. Mason, who is president of Valley City State University, and was hosting the committee meeting. While Ms. Dolan was presenting on the budget allotments, the Chancellor walked up to the podium and actually pushed her aside so he could speak even though he didn’t have the answer to the question Ms. Dolan had been asked. Later on when | was presenting a section on administrative costs, the Chancellor came up and pushed me aside so he could answer a question raised by a senator, and once again, he didn’t RECEIVED, NOV 17 2017 Naoto amashave the answer to the question. However, Rick Tonder presented a section on campus space utilization and the chancellor did not approach the podium or interrupt him from the audience. Conversely, when President Mason presented on an error she discovered in the space utilization calculation, the Chancellor came to the podium and interrupted her in order to speak, Later, Peter Smithhisler presented on the Clery Act and was not interrupted by the Chancellor. After the meeting, | asked the Chancellor why he insisted on pushing Tammy Dolan and { aside to answer questions when we were fully prepared to answer. The Chancellor responded the “he was taking one for the team” and that he thought the legislators were picking on us. That was hardly the case, in fact, the legislators’ questions were very insightful and respectful. On July 19, 2016, senior staff was gathered in the Chancellor's office for a meeting. The office is, on the 10" floor of the Capitol with windows looking to the west and the south. The Chancellor was facing south. All of a sudden, he leaped out of his chair and ran to the windows to pull down the shades. He shouted, “There’s a drone outside the window! The Russians are spying on usl” At first, we thought he was joking, but it soon became clear that he was indeed serious and extremely agitated. One of the senior staffers, got up and calmly looked out the window and said there were students flying drones down on the Capitol mall. Dr. Rothaus commented that it was unlikely the students were Russian spies. The Chancellor then turned to me and said, “When Ressler put that wifi in the capitol, he should have been concerned about people using it.” | was immediately insulted and offended. | said, “Ressler didn’t put wifiin the capitol, | did. Ressler didn’t even know what wifi was when I got to ITD. That is one of my proudest ‘accomplishments ~ putting wifi throughout the capitol so all citizens can use it! This is a public building and people should have access to its resources!" Then the Chancellor said, “weren't you Ressler’s deputy?” | said, “No, he was MY deputy. He’s an accountant, not an IT person.” Apparently, the Chancellor could not fathom a woman in a leadership role, particularly, in information technology and cyber security. In the fall of 2016, the Chancellor's administrative assistant, left to pursue other opportunities. He was very critical of her departure saying that she was making a poor decision. He would expect her to be at his beck and call all hours of the day and night. He did not want her to take any annual leave. in fact, when she asked to take annual leave on a Friday to attend her brother’s wedding in Minnesota, he denied it. f senior staff had not intervened on her behalf, she would've missed the rehearsal dinner on Friday evening. She began looking for other opportunities and was immediately offered a management job with better pay in another organization, In January 2017, Ms. Donlin took early retirement to pursue other opportunities. The Chancellor often commented that she had “a lot of energy for a woman of her age” which was highly inappropriate, Neither of those positions were replaced because of the allotments and funding cuts, At one point after Ms. Donlin's retirement documents were signed, the Chancellor came into her office and angrily said that if he had known that he would not be able to replace her position, he would not have “allowed” her to retire The Chancellor made repeated age-related comments about Tammy Dolan (CFO) and Nick Vaughn (attorney), claiming that they were too young to be trusted for advice. On more than RECEIVED A NOV 47 2007 RD Dapt. tba anon Rightsone occasion he asked Ms. Dolan to get someone else to review a budget issue because of her “inexperience.” Incidentally, Tammy Dolan spent 2 years at the ND State Auditor's office, 13, years at ND Workforce Safety and Insurance as the budget administrator, and 9 years as a budget analyst for the ND Office of Management and Budget where her primary portfolio was higher education. When the Minnesota reciprocity agreement came up for renewal recently, the Chancellor said he needed to take over the process himself, telling numerous staff that Dolan was too young to have the experience to handle it, despite the fact that she had already brought the issue to a conclusion and only needed his signature. Numerous female staff have complained about inappropriate touching, The complaints have been that the Chancellor constantly puts his hand on their arms, leans on their shoulders, or requires them to shake his hand. The complaints have not been that the touching has been sexual, but rather denigrating and condescending, as if it’s okay to pat women like children or pets. While as a stand-alone issue this might have gone unnoticed, this combined with the other actions, and the habits of interrupting women when they speak has created a hostile atmosphere, At meetings, the female staff always try to sit at least one chair away from the Chancellor to stop the touching and patting. If the Chancellor came into the office of a female staff member, he would hold out his hand and expect you to shake it before he would leave your office. Even if you said that you didn’t want or need a handshake, he would insist. If you didn’t, he would lean in and get closer, talking about what a nice guy he was, and you really should shake his hand. You felt forced into it, so that he would leave you alone. It felt very demeaning The Chancellor also devised what he apparently thought was a “cute” way to recognize staff. During senior staff meetings, each staff member would report on things that had happened in the past week. If a female staff member announced the completion of a project or some other accomplishment, the Chancellor would stand up and walk over and “award” them with a yellow sticky note and put it on their shoulder or upper arm, He didn’t do it to male staff members. Several times, | told him | didn’t want a yellow sticky, as did other staff members, but he insisted. It was degrading, to say the least. Additionally, there have been numerous complaints about the Chancellor ignoring what female staff say, but responding to the same idea if uttered by a male staff member. In weekly staff meetings, it would become a habit of counting how many times a female staff member would say something before @ male staff member would chime in and say it and get the Chancellor's concurrence. On some issues, it became the functional tactic to text a male staff member and ask them to raise an issue so that this time consuming and demeaning pattern of being ignored could be avoided. ‘As we went through the 2017 legislative session, Ms. Dalan and | took the lead on strategy and testimony as per SBHE directive. The Chancellor would talk to legislators an an ad hoc basis, and we soon began hearing that legislators did not want to meet with him anymore. All he wanted to talk about was cyber security. They even coined the phrase, "! got cybered today," meaning the Chancellor had talked to them about cyber security at lunch or wherever he could RECEIVED 2 NOV 47 2017 HD Dip of Lato & umn igs Boefind them. It went so far as one of the legislative leaders telling the SBHE chair, “we don’t want him down here anymore. In fact, some of our folks would rather have Shirvani back” (referring to the previous Chancellor). Multiple times, SBHE board member Stemen would remind Ms. Dolan and { that the SBHE did not want the Chancellor to present at legislative hearings, we were to take the lead. During the session, Ms. Dolan and | would suggest he listen to the floor speeches that surrounded bills that we were concerned with. You can listen to them from your computer at your desk. In particular, we urged him to listen to the higher education appropriations bill when it was brought to the Senate floor before crossover. He was completely disinterested, and said he'd get around to it later. He said he had some calls to make about cyber first. He never did listen to the floor speeches in the Senate or the House to my knowledge. ‘Toward the end of April and throughout the early part of May, the Chancellor put pressure on Ms. Dolan, Dr. Rothaus, and me to help write the presidents’ evaluations, Again, we said no but agreed to review the drafts when they were ready. When we refused to write them he reached out to Ms. Donlin who had left the system in January. She also declined. As a result, he had a new male data analyst write them for him. ‘On May 15, 2017, Chair Neset and Vice Chair Morton met with me in the Governor’s conference room. They asked me several questions about the Chancellor's leadership and how he was doing with the staff. | replied that he all he did was talk about cyber security while the rest of us did his work. His behavior had not changed with regard to the discriminatory references he made to staff. They asked me what parts of his job he did do, and I told them | ‘was not aware of any that he actually took on 100%. The discussion continued for about a half hour with Chair Neset winding it up by saying that the system office staff would just have to make it work because, “We will be renewing the Chancellor's contract. { won't have this Chancellor going down — not on my watch.” In other words, it didn’t matter what the Chancellor's performance was, she was not going to let it look like there was a problem during her term as SBHE chair. On June 14, 2017, | received an email from Dr. Brent Holman of the ND Dental Association. He requested that { meet with him and their industry representative, RaeAnn Kelsch. We set up a meeting for June 20, 2017 at their offices in Bismarck. Dr. Holman said they had reached out to the Chancellor in the fall of 2015 asking for help in creating a shared program with NDSCS for dental assistants at WSC [attachment 8]. Both Ms. Donlin and John Miller, President of WSC, were at that meeting. He said the dentists were willing to fund all the clinicals for dental assistants and purchase any software necessary for online instruction. He said they had reached ‘out to the Chancellor more than once after the meeting and had never heard back. He asked for my help, to which | agreed On July 6, 2017, the Chancellor informed me that he would be taking on the chief of staff duties, and | would no longer be responsible for them. In a way, that was a relief because it was a lot of work, and | wanted to focus on my IT portfolio. However, after he “took over” he didn’t RECHVED B NOV 17 207 ND Dap cabo Hono iis ‘naractually do any of the chief of staff duties but pushed them off to his administrative assistant, the communications people, or just didn’t do them. For example, | informed him of my recent meeting with the ND Dental Association and their expectations. | had sent them an email informing them that the Chancellor had now taken on my chief of staff duties [attachment 9] ‘The Chancellor agreed to meet with them, and their meeting took place on August 2, 2017. ‘They articulated their proposal and asked that the Chancellor follow up with the president of NDSCS to help with the shared programming. The Chancellor did not follow up then or since. On July 12, 2017, | received a phone call from Greg Stemen, an SBHE member and chair of the SBHE Audit Committee. He was concerned about some contracts that had been brought to his attention by the internal audit staff. The contracts were between Dickinson State University and EAB Corporation and one of its subsidiaries, Royall. The auditor found that OSU had violated state procurement law by not going out for bid. In addition, OSU violated SBHE policy for similar reasons and for not getting prior approval for technology solutions. The contracts were in excess of $1.5 million. | recommended that we terminate each of the contracts. We were obligated to pay for them for the first year, but then could terminate, thus recovering ‘over $900,000. The NDUS already had technology solutions in place that provided for what DSU had requested in the contracts. Their new VP of Finance had not been aware of the system solution. Additionally, the contracted solution was incompatible with the existing software used by the NOUS. [attachment 10] Stemen visited with the Chancellor who, instead of handling the situation, wanted to wait for a new Vice Chancellor that he was thinking of bringing on board, to review the situation. | suggested to Stemen that was very unfair to the new vice Chancellor since he was not familiar with state procurement law, SBHE policy, nor IT contracts. Stemen replied that he thought we should have someone with “executive” experience look at the contracts. I was shocked. In my former position as State Chief information Officer, my job was to administer the State of North Dakota's Information Technology Department and all of the State's technology infrastructure. My position included reviewing and approving all major technology contracts for all state agencies. | held that position for seven years under two governors and administered a biennial budget of more than $170 million. | share this situation in detail as evidence of the Chancellor's gross denigration of the abilities of women in the office. He made it abundantly clear that he would support an inexperienced male over an experienced female, and a Board member went along with it, On July 31, 2017, during the evaluation of Kristie Hetzler, executive assistant to the Board, the Chancellor mentioned her “athletic build” and appearance as being a factor in her successful relationships with the SBHE and the public. That evening, Hetzler called and expressed her anger over that comment. She felt the Chancellor disregards her work and attributes all of her success to her appearance. | agree with her assessment. Gn August 4, 2017, the Chancellor did indeed hire his acquaintance from the Navy, James “Phil” Wisecup, for the Interim Vice Chancellor for Strategic Engagement. That position was originally held by Ms, Donlin, but the system gave that position up during the allotments and the 2017 RECEIVED Fr NOV 17 207 NO ot ar Hon Rslative session. As a result, there were no funds allocated for that position in the 2017-18 budget. Wisecup, has no experience in public relations or strategic communications, yet he was put in charge of that area as well. In comparison, Ms. Donlin had 30 years’ of experience at several large organizations. Wisecup served as the president of the Naval War College for two years after retiring from active duty. Essentially a figurehead position, Wisecup inaugurated a library, hosted several symposiums and oversaw the College's 125th anniversary commemoration during his tenure. The vice chancellor position was not posted so others could apply for the position, nor was it approved by the SBHE. Instead, the Chancellor created a “temporary” position for Wisecup and gave him an 11-month contract. Following the hire, the Chancellor frequently asked individuals in the office where he could “free up salary dollars for Phil.” Wisecup’s salary for the first year of his contract is $110,000 for a 4-day work week. Not surprisingly, that is exactly the amount of the portion of my salary which came from the system office budget. It is abundantly clear that | was forced out to bring in an inexperienced male, and this was a culminating event in the ongoing pattern of gender bias. ‘On August 22, 2017, an open records request came into the system office asking for all the Chancellor's emails with the terms “cyber” and “nexus” contained within. When the Chancellor ‘was briefed on the request on August 24, he started ranting that Chinese nationalists were after his email, He was claiming that it was not a real person but rather a botnet asking for the email. | was working in Grand Forks that day and was asked to confirm whether or not it was a botnet (a robot). it was not a botnet. As the resulting responsive emails numbered over 6,900 in total, his administrative assistant emailed the requestor and asked them to refine their search or there could be a significant redaction charge. The requestor refined the search proving that it was not a botnet [Attachment 11). Further open records requests began to come in on various topics, particularly the hiring procedures surrounding Wisecup, whom he had just introduced to the legislative interim higher education committee two days prior. The Chancellor became agitated with all the requests, and I've heard he blamed me for them. However, the requests came from legislators on the interim committee which is probably not a coincidence because the Chancellor made quite a point of introducing his friend to legislators as this great new hire. | had nothing to do with the requests. ‘On August 23, 2017, the Chancellor called me into his office and accused me of several things that | did not do. His administrative assistant was also present at the meeting. He had a letter that he asked me to sign, stating that | had made derogatory comments to staff, which | had not. | asked if he was asking me to resign, and he said that was my decision. | refused to resign and refused to sign the paper [attachment 12). He put it in my personnel file, and | immediately wrote a rebuttal [attachment 13]. On September 14, 2017, | was driving back from a two-day meeting with technology staff from across the system. The Chancellor sent me an email terminating my employment, and then RECEIVED 15 NOV §7 2007 1D Dap. Lar Homan Rights smart ROcalled my deputy to terminate my access to my email and files. Therefore, | did not actually receive the email and had to learn of my termination late that evening from Dr. Rothaus, Ms. Dolan, and my deputy. My position in the NDUS is an unclassified administrative position. It is “at will,” meaning | could be terminated without cause and be provided six months of severance per SBHE policy 608.2(2). { believe the Chancellor called me in on August 23 to bully me into resigning so he did not have to pay the severance. Otherwise, he could have just quietly terminated my position and paid the severance without making false accusations that ended up on the front page of every newspaper in North Dakota. Employees from the system office have since met with me and expressed concerns for their jobs and well being. This type of treatment of employees should not continue, and lam now in a position to help. Someone has to stop this blatant mistreatment of employees. Thus, 'm requesting an investigation into the discriminatory practices at the North Dakota University System office. This includes discrimination based on gender with regard to work responsibilities and rate of pay for management positions. For example, one male Vice Chancellor earns considerably more than the Chief Financial Officer and the work responsibilities are of a similar high degree of responsibility. The new male Vice Chancellor makes slightly less than the CFO but has very light work responsibilities and only works 4 days per week. Additionally, discrimination based on gender, political affiliation, religion, LGBT status, marital status, health, age, and appearance is a daily occurrence in the workplace. Inaction by the SBHE Chair and Vice Chair has allowed the discrimination to proliferate and has resulted in a hostile work environment for employees in the ND University System Office. Additionally, | have heard from colleagues still employed by the NDUS that he has told the ‘communications director, Billie Jo Lorius, and SBHE secretary, Kristie Hetzler that each will receive increased compensation and a new position if they will “work with him” on responding to open records requests. Apparently, he is asking them to withhold emails and documents from the responses. This also is said to include agreeing to refute the statements each made in the compliance survey and other allegations. Related documentation: On October 3, 2017, the Council of College Faculty that represent faculty at the eleven institutions in the ND University System sent a letter to the SBHE Chair expressing their concern about the lack of procedure surrounding the issuance of the compliance report {attachment 14]. While | understand that the Board has a policy allowing unclassified employees to be terminated "without cause," The intent of the policy is not to allow it to be used as a tool to ‘enable 3 person in power to violate anti-discrimination laws and dismiss a long-term, productive female employee in order to hire his male friend. Board Chair Morton was quoted in a newspaper story, saying " At a certain level, you serve at the will of the chancellor. In the. private sector, that's very typical." Somehow, ! don't think so. RECEVED NOV 47 2017 16 aap atariNorth Dakota Century Code 34-11.1-04 essentially states that an employee may, without fear of reprisal, report to the employee's respective agency head the existence of: a job-related violation of local, state, or federal law, rule, regulation, or ordinance; and the job-related misuse of public resources. On at least three occasions referenced below, | have reported violations and/or misuse of public resources and yet | was terminated. a. The MOU with Josh Riedy was both a misuse of public resources and a violation of SBHE policies (page 4). b, The email issued about Dickinson State University expenditures illustrates a misuse of public resources (page 14), c. My report to the SBHE Chair and an assistant attorney general of discriminatory statements and actions made by the Chancellor to NDUS employees (pages 6-7) In addition, | believe SBHE Chair Neset and Vice Chair Morton willfully withheld critical information about the Chancellor's performance and unethical behavior from other Board members over the course of two years in an effort to avoid public criticism and bad press. By doing this, they denied the rest of the Board the opportunity to make informed decisions about the leadership of the system and responsible allocation of taxpayer dollars. This is a disservice to the system and all of its employees, the state, and the students the system was created to serve ~ and must be stopped. RECEIVED NOV 47 207 017 Dig lee & lon Pe isan HO. :