My first reaction to the resignation of UBC president Arvind Gupta was relief — Arvind’s nightmare was finally over. He could go back to what he does best: work to make this country better without the shackles and the indignities he endured over his 13-month presidency. My own moments of resignation didn’t last long. A few days later, I learned of the Jennifer Berdahl story and decided that UBC had seen enough hurt. The latest leaks have now brought to light an unacceptable level of ad hoc, ruthless, and possibly illegitimate actions occurring at the highest levels of our flagship university. I will try to reconcile what they reveal with what I experienced first-hand.

Unlike what the UBC Board Chair told the Vancouver Sun, the leaks revealed that the resignation of Gupta was not a “surprise” for him nor did he find it “regrettable”. And contrary to what the Chair told the Globe & Mail, the president didn’t have the support of the Board in his dealing with disgruntled Deans and subordinates. And as opposed to what the Chair and the Chancellor announced last August, we now know that it was a small clique of Board members that actually forced the president out. These are just a few of the untruths to come out last week.

I’ve known Arvind Gupta for over 20 years and he is no quitter. Yet I understood why he resigned on August 7. His life since being announced President was closer to Jean Valjean’s than to Julius Cesar’s. This aspect of the story is the most harrowing for me. Last week’s leaks made it even more so.

It takes serious time for an incoming president to grasp the complexities of an institution such as UBC and adapt to historical entitlements, power brokers’ expectations, and turf borderlines. Arvind Gupta was never given that chance. Efforts to undermine his presidency started soon after the decision of the search committee was made. Accusations similar to those in the humiliating and disingenuous (leaked) memo by the Chair and the Chancellor started to circulate among some members of an entrenched UBC guard even before Gupta’s presidency had begun.

In early February 2015, a Board member warned me that another governor was trying “to lure him to the other camp.” What camp, I asked? “Those who want to topple Arvind,” he responded before the Secretary to the Board, who was present, immediately silenced him.

And so, the knives were already out while the President was working around the clock on his agenda, including professionalizing university and Board governance. Was I really hearing of a plot to topple a president, a mere 4 months after his installation? I warned the Board Secretary about how fraught this dangerous path would be. “The university would implode,” I said, and followed up — somewhat naively — with, “the Premier will never allow it to happen.”

Gupta was an activist president. He was feverishly advocating for Transit to UBC, for a National Student Mobility Program, and a new research council to support early career researchers. He was working on a $30-million Centennial Scholarship Fund for students, on an ambitious faculty recruitment and retention initiative, and on housing assistance among other projects. He was moving fast on many files. I could not imagine, however, that some would use this very pace and effort to help justify the undoing of his presidency.