Simon Newman Resigns as President of Mount St. Mary’s; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/1/16

Katherine Mangan and Nick DeSantis, Chronicle of Higher Education; Simon Newman Resigns as President of Mount St. Mary’s:

"Months after he incited a bitter backlash by comparing struggling students to bunnies that needed to be drowned, Simon P. Newman resigned late Monday, effective immediately, as president of Mount St. Mary’s University, in Maryland.

Mr. Newman, a former private-equity chief executive, had come under increasing pressure to step down after his decision to fire two professors — one with tenure — and to demote the provost. All had questioned his controversial freshman-retention plan, which called for encouraging at-risk freshmen who didn’t respond well to advising to drop out during the first weeks of the semester. He presented it as a win-win for students, who could get a tuition refund, and the university, which wouldn’t have those dropouts count against its retention rate.

Mr. Newman — who has since apologized for his blunt language — had said that professors who objected to his plan should stop treating students as cuddly bunnies and drown them instead. That conversation, which a faculty member leaked to the student newspaper, The Mountain Echo, brought a deluge of unwanted national attention to the Roman Catholic university in rural Emmitsburg, Md."