Tag Archives: SUNY Binghamton

Binghamton U Coach Gets $1.2 Million to Resign

The New York Times: Binghamton Coach Gets $1.2 Million to Resign

The tumultuous tenure of Kevin Broadus, the coach who oversaw the Binghamton basketball program’s first N.C.A.A. tournament berth and also its subsequent implosion, has ended.

On Thursday, the university announced that Broadus had received a $1.2 million settlement to resign from the university. Binghamton’s president, C. Peter Magrath, said that Broadus would receive $819,115 from the Binghamton athletic department and that $380,884 would be paid by the State University of New York.

SUNY Binghamton president down plays basketball scandal as she walks out the door

Inside Higher Ed: Closing Argument

With her nearly 20-year presidency at the State University of New York at Binghamton besmirched by a basketball scandal in recent months, Lois DeFleur is taking some subtle steps to answer critics and, perhaps, shore up her legacy.

DeFleur announced in January that she’ll retire in July, and the rocky past few months at Binghamton have appended a troubling coda to what many regard as an otherwise successful presidency. A scandal in Binghamton’s men’s basketball program came with high doses of nearly every undesirable element one could imagine: Charges of off-court drug use by players, claims of heavy pressure by coaches to admit unqualified students, and allegations that an athletics fund raiser was tarted up as a sexual “plaything” for donors.

Chancellor Zimpher Announces Steps to Strengthen Academics and Athletics at Binghamton University and Across the SUNY System

Chancellor Zimpher Announces Steps to Strengthen Academics and Athletics at Binghamton University and Across the SUNY System

New York City – Following the report of former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher today announced SUNY will take steps to strengthen the relationship between academics and athletics at Binghamton University and across the SUNY System.

“SUNY’s ongoing commitment to intercollegiate athletics is important and meaningful to the total student experience and the life of our campuses,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “Accordingly, we have taken proactive and deliberate steps to ensure that the academic integrity of the Binghamton campus and the system overall is maintained, while providing our student athletes the opportunity to compete at the highest levels.”

Those steps include ensuring that academics, the core of SUNY’s mission, are seen as the highest priority. To that end, the chancellor has asked SUNY Provost David K. Lavallee to lead the effort for System Administration.

SUNY-Binghamton President Will Retire After Year of Controversy

The Chronicle: SUNY-Binghamton President Will Retire After Year of Controversy

Lois B. DeFleur announced today that she would step down as president of Binghamton University in July, after 20 years in office. Ms. DeFleur cited personal reasons for her retirement, including her coming marriage and her mother’s fragile health. But in the last year, Ms. DeFleur’s presidency and Binghamton have been plagued with controversy. A female fund raiser sued the university last summer, alleging that senior officials in the athletics department had tried to use her as a sexual “plaything” to help solicit contributions from donors. Last fall the university terminated an adjunct who complained she had been pressured to pass basketball players who skipped classes. The university later reinstated her. But at the same time the university dismissed six basketball players, including one who had been arrested for selling crack cocaine, and it reassigned its athletics director. Nancy L. Zimpher, the State University of New York system’s chancellor, also announced that an outside auditor would examine the basketball program.

Binghamton University killing: Al-Zahrani asked about a transfer 30 minutes before stabbing

Press & Sun-Bulletin: Binghamton University killing: 46-year-old grad student charged in professor’s death

Less than 30 minutes before he allegedly stabbed Binghamton University professor Richard Antoun to death on Friday, Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani approached professor Joshua Price to complain of financial troubles and inquire about transferring into the doctoral program that Price directs.

Al-Zahrani, a 46-year-old post-graduate student in the anthropology department, had met with Price once or twice before, Price said, the first time on the afternoon of Nov. 10.

The New York Times: Binghamton Student Says He Warned Officials

VESTAL, N.Y. — In this small upstate college town, there were many who tried to comprehend how a popular 77-year-old professor who championed antiwar philosophies would have come to such a violent end: stabbed to death in his office on Friday, by, the police said, a graduate student whom he knew.

SUNY Binghamton reinstates lecturer; Inquiry to be conducted by SUNY Central not campus

The New York Times: SUNY Board to Oversee an Audit of Binghamton

The fallout from the implosion of the Binghamton basketball program continued Friday, when the SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher announced that the university would not oversee an independent audit of its athletic department.

Binghamton also reversed the firing of Sally Dear, the adjunct lecturer who taught human development for 11 years before being dismissed earlier this week. Dear believed she was dismissed because she spoke out against the basketball program. The university had cited fiscal reasons. But Dear received a letter Friday saying she would remain an adjunct, althoug

SUNY Binghamton fires lecturer critical of embattled basketball program

The New York Times: Binghamton Lecturer Critical of Athletics Is Fired

The Binghamton University adjunct lecturer who accused the athletic department of giving preferential treatment to men’s basketball players and pressuring her to change her grading policy for players was dismissed Tuesday.

The lecturer, Sally Dear, who taught human development for 11 years, said she felt the decision was linked to her criticism that appeared in a New York Times article in February.

Fund Raiser Says Binghamton Used Her as Sexual ‘Plaything’

AP: Woman sues, says NY school used her as ‘plaything’

NEW YORK (AP) — A fundraiser at an upstate university has sued two senior athletic department officials, accusing them of using her as a “plaything” and trying to make her ply big donors with her sexuality.

The plaintiff, Elizabeth Williams, is represented by the lawyer who won a highly publicized sexual harassment case against former New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas two years ago.

Mystery donor strikes again

AP: Mystery donor keeps giving to woman-run colleges

The mystery college donor has struck again — this time at Binghamton University in New York, whose financial aid office phone started ringing off the hook as word of an anonymous $6 million contribution spread across campus.

Binghamton is the latest of at least a dozen universities to receive donations totaling more than $60 million in recent weeks. The gifts have arrived with the same, highly unusual stipulation: not only must the donor must remain anonymous, but not even the college can know who it is or try to find out.

The recipient colleges seem to have almost nothing in common except this: so far, all are led by women.

Press & Sun-Bulletin: BU gets $6M mystery donation
Money to go toward scholarships, tuition aid

It appears the mystery donor has struck again.

This time, Binghamton University is the lucky school.

BU has received an anonymous $6 million donation, the largest individual gift in school history. The money, and the circumstances surrounding it, seem to follow a most unusual script.

“To have this come out of the blue, it really takes your breath away,” said BU President Lois DeFleur.

The gift came with two strings attached: BU had to promise it will not attempt to uncover the identity of the donor; and most of the money must be used for scholarships and student aid.

That follows the pattern of a mysterious benefactor, who in recent weeks has given more than $48.5 million to at least nine universities across the United States, including $8 million to Purdue University and $7 million to the University of Iowa.