‘Significant error’ if Smith returns as COB president

The Nassau Guardian

It would be a “significant error for the country” if former College of The Bahamas President Dr. Rodney Smith is reappointed to the top post, former COB Council Chairman Franklyn Wilson said.

Wilson was asked by The Nassau Guardian to respond to reports from sources close to the process that the college council has recommended to the government that Smith fill the position.

In 2005, Smith apologized for not properly using another academic’s material with attribution in an address

at COB’s honor’s convocation.

He alleged that the council forced him to resign, even though it had been proved that his use of material in the speech was not a violation of intellectual property rights.

Speaking to The Nassau Guardian recently, Wilson said he could not confirm that Smith’s name has been forwarded to the minister of education for consideration.

But he said, “I personally would be disappointed if that were in fact the recommendation.”

Wilson said, “I think it would be a significant cause for having to explain a lot to the public as to why that is the right thing to do.

“In doing so, I make it clear, there is no question about the competence of the gentleman. There is no question in my mind about that, but the issues left from the time of his separation from the college, they remain and quite frankly his performance when he came back for the interview, I cannot believe that an objective analysis of his comments when he came back for this interview would leave him as [the best] candidate.”

Smith was one of four candidates shortlisted for the vacant presidency post.

While addressing the college’s stakeholders in March, he said if successful he would implement policies to ensure students and faculty are held accountable for any breach of intellectual property rights.

Smith said he was disappointed to have left the college amid the plagiarism controversy, but has returned and offered himself again for consideration in the national interest.

“I left feeling disappointed that even though I had taken a drastic reduction in income and returned home to serve, I was being rejected and did not feel the support I was promised,” he said.

“My family and I have suffered for the past nine years emotionally and financially as a result. I am not a plagiarist, and I have never been accused of such before or since that incident.

“I am here today offering myself once again to be of service to my country.”

But Wilson said Smith’s failure to show contrition is disappointing.

“In my view there is no doubt that the good gentleman is knowledgeable, academically qualified; no one questions that he has an earned doctorate degree...no one questions that he accomplished meaningful things here in the role, but at a time when one is trying to inspire certain qualities within the population, I think that is a very difficult thing to do for somebody in that role,” he said.

“...I am not limiting this to what happened when he separated from the college. That’s not the point to me because everyone’s entitled to a second chance. But in the process of getting a second chance it seems to me useful to show contrition.

“I saw just the opposite. What I saw appeared to me to be a rationalization that somehow an individual had been wronged, that somehow what happened previously was a mistake, that somehow what happened reflected an error in judgment on behalf of the then council.”

Smith is vice president for administrative services, operations analysis and research at Hampton University.

Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald confirmed that he received a recommendation on the next COB president from the college council, but he said it would not be appropriate to make the name public until he has taken the matter to Cabinet.

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