What we don’t need to know about Kathleen Scherf

A lot of people seem to think we the public have a right to know exactly what was behind the firing of Kathleen Scherf from her job as president of Thompson Rivers University. One of our local papers even wrote an editorial to that effect.

In our own paper, city editor Susan Duncan’s On The Run column in today’s Daily News gives an excellent insight into some of the factors taken into consideration by the TRU board of governors, but that’s probably about as much as we’ll know, and as much as we need to know.

General conclusions are that there were several things that led to the decision by the board, and that it should have been no surprise to Scherf. But unless there is a huge leak in the administrative offices of TRU, the report upon which the board based its decision will not see the light of day.

While it might seem logical that when a public servant is fired we should be told the reasons, that isn’t the way the world works. When M.J. Cousins was fired as CEO from Venture Kamloops, and when Gail Scott was more recently fired from the same position, the only comment made by the VK board was that they were leaving to pursue other interests.

That’s standard language for: “This is a personnel matter and we simply aren’t going to say more.”

There are many other examples of the same thing, and there are two good reasons. One is that the person being fired is going through a terrible time and publicly talking about minute details of his or her deficiencies would be cruel and unnecessary.

The other reason is that people who get fired from important management jobs have a right to legally challenge it if they wish, and anything the employer says can and will be used against the employer. So, details are off limits. Anything approaching the “fired” word is usual steadfastly avoided. 

What’s unusual about the Scherf case isn’t that so little is being said about the reasons, but that so much has become public. Board chairman Ron Olynyk said more than most public employers do in these situations when he indicated that the board had lost confidence in her leadership abilities.

The board of governors is going by the book, and those who long for all the tidbits will have to go without.