Posted on 04/15/2005 7:20:27 PM PDT by nypokerface
DENVER (Reuters) - The University of Colorado named former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown as interim president on Friday, hoping to improve its image after controversies including sexual assault claims and a professor who compared victims of the World Trade Center attacks to a Nazi.
Brown will take over the presidency of Colorado's flagship university on Aug. 1 on a temporary basis until a permanent replacement is found. He was president of the University of Northern Colorado from 1998 until 2002.
"The essential elements we need to focus on are openness and accountability," Brown told reporters after being named to the $350,000-a-year post at the state-funded school.
Brown, 65, replaces Elizabeth Hoffman, who resigned last month amid criticism of her leadership. Last year, the university was sued by two women who claimed they were raped during an off-campus football recruiting party in 2001.
Late last month, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuits. The women are appealing that decision.
Earlier this year, the writings of ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill generated a controversy that prompted calls for his dismissal.
In an essay after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Churchill called some of those killed in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a reference to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
A review of Churchill's academic work is under way, the first step toward possibly revoking his tenure.
Brown served five terms as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1980s. In 1990, he won an open U.S. Senate seat, but did not seek re-election in 1996.
Since 2002, he has been president and CEO of the Daniels Fund, a charitable foundation established by the late cable TV magnate Bill Daniels.
They could have had Hugh Hewitt.
Pity Churchill's follies are more well-known than "2004 Coach of the Year" Barnett's corruption. Only a brief allusion to the football scandal.
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