Why O'dell Owens left Cincinnati State

O'dell Owens quit as president of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College after months of headbutting with Board of Trustees members who insisted that he spend more time fundraising for the school, college records and interviews show.

The demands came after Owens ran afoul of several board members -- including Chairwoman Cathy Crain, who described losing her temper with him in June after Owens was quoted in The Enquirer about an idea to ask voters for a tax levy.

Owens, whose contract was up for renewal after last school year, pointed to the fundraising demands as the reason he quit abruptly in September. He also acknowledged personality clashes with some board members he described as controlling.

Internal documents obtained by The Enquirer show that the president faced demands that would have included attending at least 10 in-person fundraising meetings each week. The board insisted on approving those meetings in advance.

Trustees also had aimed to hire a chief operating officer to tackle many of the administrative duties that Owens had handled during his five-year presidency.

The increased oversight came despite Owens' hefty fundraising -- he said he raised $1.73 million in 2015, which was $300,000 over the goal the board had set for him -- and national recognition, including applause from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who visited the campus in September.

The Enquirer learned the reasons for Owens' departure after submitting an open records request for a variety of documents, including internal emails, personnel records and a confidential employment agreement. The documents detail growing concern over the college's finances in light of an enrollment decline, and also highlight how Owens was being shifted almost exclusively to the role of fundraiser.

"I will leave this institution confused that I did not raise enough money for Cincinnati State," Owens told board members in a Sept. 23 email announcing his immediate resignation from the $240,000-a-year post. A former Hamilton County coroner, Owens was hired as the medical director for the Cincinnati Health Department, where he's now paid $196,000 a year.

An employment agreement, drafted in mid-August but never executed, proposed extending Owens' contract for a single year. After that, board members would assess further extensions on a "monthly or bi-monthly basis." The agreement spelled out several fundraising demands. Among them:

Owens would attend at least 10 in-person fundraising meetings per week, or an average of two per work day.

He would need to submit to the board a "target list" of potential donors for approval.

The board also would have to approve the amount of money requested of each donor.

A member of the college's development team, which oversees fundraising, would be required to attend each fundraising meeting with Owens. Depending on the "prospect and the status of the solicitation," the meeting might also be attended by a "board member or other friend of the College."

Community college experts consulted by The Enquirer said the demands underscore a national trend: As state funding for community colleges has been nixed, the institutions' presidents have been asked to do more fundraising.

That money doesn't account for much of a typical community college's budget, said Matthew Miller, vice president of student and community relations at Mid Michigan Community College. Miller researched the issue in 2013 for his doctoral thesis.

"Fundraising is not making up anywhere close to substantial portions of budgets, but it helps to fill in the gaps," Miller said. Cincinnati State has an annual budget of about $71 million.

The consulted experts said they had never heard of a 10-meeting-per-week requirement.

"That surprises me," said Josh Wyner, vice president of the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization in Washington, D.C. "That kind of requirement could easily crowd out very important other work the president needs to do."

Owens this week told The Enquirer that he found the single-year contract extension "insulting," and what he considered the micromanaging of his fundraising activities "confusing."

"I could understand it if I hadn't met my goals, but I had," he said.

Michael Oestreicher, one of the trustees, told The Enquirer the one-year extension wasn't meant as an insult, but rather as a way to ensure Owens was happy after his position had so drastically shifted focus.

Nor was the board's insistence on approving donation requests and meeting attendees meant to be micromanaging, he said. Rather, trustees wanted to be as helpful as possible.

"To me, there wasn't anything really controversial about this," said Oestreicher, who described the focus on fundraising necessary to beef up the college's $4 million endowment fund. "He seemed to have bought into the concept that it'd be something he could do and would do, and we were trying to work out the details. He just pulled the plug."

The Enquirer reached out to other board members, including Crain, as well as to Elliot Ruther, the college's chief of development. None returned calls or emails for comment. Ruther's position, which oversees all fundraising activities at the college, was created in 2013.

Ruther did not respond to requests for the college's recent fundraising reports. The Enquirer will continue to pursue them.

Emails obtained by The Enquirer show other discord as well. Several trustees -- Crain, Oestreicher, Robert Ringel and George Vincent -- complained to each other in a series of emails about Owens' dealings with the media.

For example, they criticized Owens for writing a guest column in support of marijuana legalization for The Enquirer. Owens said he had written the piece as a doctor, not the college president, but he said the newspaper added his title.

"As experienced as he is in the PR world, he should have anticipated that and should have started the article, IF AT ALL, with a disclaimer saying he was writing as a doctor and not as Pres (sic) and it is not official policy, etc.," Oestreicher wrote June 4 to Crain, Ringel and Vincent.

Owens also was criticized for talking to an Enquirer reporter about a possible levy to help fund Cincinnati State -- an idea that never got off the ground. Oestreicher said in an email that Owens told him the reporter "trapped" him into commenting.

Crain dismissed that notion: "No one can be trapped if they are prepared," she wrote. "No one is an island when paid to be president of a state college. The fact that not one board member, let alone the board chair was aware that this was happening is inexcusable.

"After my conversation with him, I called each one of you because I had lost my temper and thought that each of you should know," she continued. "As the time passes, let me make it clear that the words I used were appropriate and necessary."

On Thursday, Owens described that phone call as a turning point for him. He said Crain's ire wasn't warranted because he'd answered honestly a question during a meeting with The Enquirer's editorial board.

"They asked if I wanted a levy. I wasn't going to lie. I said yes, but I said it would be difficult to lay the groundwork for that," Owens said. Crain "called me up and screamed at me. She said, 'How dare you ask for that?!' She just went off. I felt it was inappropriate for a professional. That's when the voices inside me said it might be time to leave."

It wasn't the first time Owens said he felt slighted by the board, however. He said some trustees seemed determined to undermine his accomplishments.

"My No. 1 challenge when I got there was that they said, 'You have three months to open a campus in Middletown but you can't have any money.' When I pulled it off, there were people in leadership positions who said, 'You got lucky.'"

Owens said he didn't mind being asked to fund-raise so much, but he worried about shifting administrative duties to a new COO.

"When you begin to split roles, my question was, who's going to be held liable if something goes wrong?" he said. "If I'm fundraising and there's a (COO), who's going to be accountable? It'd be the president. How can I be held accountable for something I'm being so divorced from?"

Owens was replaced by Provost Monica Posey, who is serving as interim president. Oestreicher said a search committee has been formed to start the quest for a permanent president.