Facebook page questions Howard

An anonymously run Facebook page entitled “HSC Alumni and Friends for a New President” currently has about 380 likes and is calling for an end to Hampden-Sydney College’s current president and University of Toledo presidential candidate, Chris Howard.

When asked about the page, Howard said, “I have no additional comments about the Facebook page other than what I communicated to the Toledo Blade.”

Clayton Notestine, Student Government president, said during Howard’s visit to the UT campus, Howard explained why the page could have been created.

“His argument was that the college that he is the president at, Hampden-Sydney, was currently undergoing a lot of major changes and decisions,” Notestine said. “His explanation was that some of the decisions he had to make upset a few of the more vocal faculty and that small vocal few created the page.”

Saranna Thornton, professor of business and economics at HSC, said she doesn’t think “you can go anywhere where 100 percent of the people like the college president.”

“I did some math and if you look at the number of the people who are on the Facebook page versus the number of people who are associated with Hampden-Sydney, the Facebook page ends up being less than one percent of people who have some relationship with the college,” Thornton said.

Thornton said she didn’t want to comment about whether or not everything on the page is accurate.

“I haven’t read everything on it [the page], so I don’t want to say there’s no truth behind it, because in order to do that, I’d have to read everything,” Thornton said. “But I do know one of the things the Facebook page complains about is that the Board of Trustees at Hampden-Sydney didn’t do a thorough review of the president until the end of his fifth year and that’s true.”

Stanley Cheyne, professor of physics and astronomy at HSC, said he thought the page is a bad way to express someone’s opinion.

“For me, it’s a cowardly and hurtful way to launch a social media campaign,” Cheyne said. “I’m not saying I agree or disagree with it, but a lot of it is conjecture. It’s usually based on rumor alone. I don’t give it much credence.”

Cheyne said he doesn’t pay much attention to the page and only hears about it when coworkers talk about it.

“The only time I ever really hear about it is through one of my colleagues, like when something comes up he says ‘have you seen the latest’ and my answer is always no,” Cheyne said. “I always just take for granted that it’s on there, something might be on there and I don’t pay much attention to it at all.”

Thornton said she thought the page was created anonymously as a way for people to protect themselves after expressing their opinions.

“Somebody might stay anonymous because they’re worried about what other people might think of them,” Thornton said. “There are people at Hampden-Sydney who think Dr. Howard is the greatest president the school has ever had, so if one of your friends was somebody on that end, you might not want to let somebody know you’re on the other end.”

Notestine said he doesn’t think the page could affect Howard’s chances in UT’s presidential decision.

“I don’t think it’s going to have a super-heavy weight in the decision-making process,” Notestine said. “There are other reasons to go and choose him or not choose him over other candidates.”

Notestine said the things that will affect Howard’s opportunity to become the president of UT will fall more on his “personal experience and less about any of the controversy that may show up on a Facebook page.”

In reference to Howard’s work as president at HSC, Cheyne said he thought Howard has done an excellent job

“I think he is very energetic, he is one of the hardest-working people I know,” Cheyne said. “He’s done a lot of things that I think are very good. I think fundraising is the main thing.”

Thornton agreed and said it will be hard to see Howard leave HSC and that she will miss his work.

“I think he’s done good work and we were hoping that he would stay here for five years,” Thornton said. “But we always knew that he would go on to bigger and better things. I’ll be sorry to see him go, but I wish him the best.”