The Portland State University Board of Trustees will hold an unusual Sunday morning meeting this weekend to further consider the fate of President Rahmat Shoureshi.

The 8 a.m. session on Sunday will be the third “emergency” meeting in two weeks for the trustees as they struggle with the decision of whether to retain or dismiss Shoureshi after just 20 months on the job.

Shoureshi finds himself accused of repeatedly misleading his board of trustees, destroying public records, and treating staffers badly. Last October, trustees gave Shoureshi the option to resign. He declined.

Gov. Kate Brown put the PSU board on notice that she wants action sooner rather than later. In a written statement, a Brown official said “the Governor has been monitoring the situation at PSU closely, and she expects the board to resolve this situation quickly and take appropriate action.”

Shoureshi, meanwhile, has been trying to shore up his own position. In January, he approached his friend and Portland attorney Robert Stoll about joining the board.

He then hired a lobbyist, Portland-based Len Bergstein, in hopes of speeding the process of getting new appointees onto the board.

As with any leader, Shoureshi likely wants smart and connected people on the board who he knows and can count on. And he certainly could use some staunch supporters on the board at this point.

But getting loyalists in place quickly was tricky and required special action from Brown. Under state law, the governor appoints the trustees of all seven public colleges.

“My interest was determining the timeline,” said Bergstein, the lobbyist. “But the university blew the deadline.”

Nik Blosser, Brown’s chief of staff, gave Bergstein the bad news on April 2:

“Hi, Len – I just had a chance to discuss this with the Governor. The deadline for names was last week. Our internal deadline for review of everything was actually today. Given the timeframes, we are going to wait on making any additional appointments until the next opportunity, which is likely in September.”

Bergstein responded, “Nik - I’d like to beg for your reconsideration.”

But it was no use. Bergstein didn’t get a second audience.

Bergstein came away admiring Shoureshi. “He is focusing on three things: student success, quality education and access. All the negative publicity has blurred his message.”

Bergstein added that Shoureshi himself is paying him, not Portland State.

Stoll, who founded the law firm Stoll Berne and is powerhouse of Oregon Democratic politics, is a longtime financial supporter of PSU. He’s also been a staunch ally of Shoureshi’s since his arrival in August 2017.

Shoureshi hired Steve Berman -- a Stoll Berne lawyer -- to represent him through the current uncertainty.

Stoll maintains that Shoureshi’s firing would bring fundraising to a halt and would anger faculty members, many of whom support him.

“Rahmat has actually done good things for the university, particularly in making it more accessible to first-time college students and poor students,” Stoll said. “I’ve been dealing for 16 months now with seven of the deans -- they are supportive of Rahmat. They are concerned about his future; they want him to stay. I’m really concerned at what it might do the morale of these deans.”

Stoll denied he’s joining the university board just to save Shoureshi.

“I’m doing this,” he said, “because I want to help the university.”

The university’s independent assessment of Shoureshi remains under lock and key. The board in March commissioned two investigators to look into Shoureshi’s tenure and the implications of some of his decisions as well as his treatment of university employees.

The investigators presented trustees with their findings in binders that were at least three inches thick.

The university hasn’t released the reports, declining even to divulge an executive summary, because it figures into a personnel decision.

Later this month, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission plans to consider whether it will launch its own investigation.