A&M President Banks resigns amid fallout of McElroy hiring

A statement from Blanton, which was released to The Eagle on Friday afternoon through his legal representative, David Schleicher, also said an earlier draft of a job offer letter for McElroy was altered and sent to her without his advance knowledge. Blanton said it also retained his electronic signature and reduced the appointment from an earlier-discussed multiyear term to one year.

Blanton said Banks’ misleading comments came during a Faculty Senate meeting on Wednesday, which was held to provide clarity on the attempted hiring of McElroy to become A&M’s new director of journalism in saying “the decisionmaking that led to the crisis was at the department level.” 

On multiple occasions in Wednesday’s Faculty Senate meeting, Banks said McElroy’s initial offer for an administrative, tenured role as director of journalism was still in place and the offer was never changed. However, two official offer letters from A&M to McElroy were shared with The Eagle by McElroy last week. The first was for an administrative, tenured role, which she signed. A&M officials later sent McElroy a revised offer and lowered it to a one-year deal, which A&M officials later said also included a three-year administrative offer. McElroy told The Eagle that university leaders came back to her with a verbal multiyear deal to become a professor of practice, but the offer was never placed into writing.

Blanton said he shared related materials with university legal staff on Thursday and was “pleased” to see Banks resigned. Blanton’s statement said he requests a full and independent investigation of the events so they will not be repeated. He also objected to race having been a consideration in the treatment of McElroy, a Black woman.

“The unusual level of scrutiny being given to the hiring of Dr. McElroy was acknowledged by one administrator to have been based, at least in part, on race,” Blanton said in his statement. “Regardless of the source of any such pressure, I understand it to be illegal for any employer — much less a public university — to subject a job candidate to stricter scrutiny due to her race or color.”

A&M Chancellor John Sharp announced Friday morning that Banks had resigned immediately from a position she had held since June 2021.

In her resignation letter sent late Thursday night, released by A&M, Banks said, “The recent challenges regarding Dr. McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately. The negative press is a distraction from the wonderful work being done here.”

Mark A. Welsh III, dean of A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, will serve as A&M’s acting president until a national search can find a successor.

A&M’s announcement of Banks’ resignation said she “denied knowing about the changes in the job offer but took responsibility for a flawed hiring process after a wave of national publicity suggesting McElroy, who has done research on diversity and inclusion, was a victim of ‘anti-woke’ hysteria and outside interference in the faculty hiring process.”

McElroy, A&M Class of 1981, told The Eagle last week that soon after her hiring was announced on June 13 she thought A&M’s leadership was forced to listen behind the scenes to outside influences with “great concerns” on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Benjamin L. Hall, a Houston-based attorney who is now representing McElroy, told The Eagle on Friday that McElroy’s representatives were trying to continue negotiations with A&M officials.

After Banks met with faculty Wednesday, amendments were added to an original resolution for the Faculty Senate to appoint a fact-finding committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding McElroy’s failed appointment and that the Faculty Senate remained skeptical and lacked confidence in the answers provided by the administration. The resolution was ratified later that day.

After Banks’ comments, which were stated on a public stream, faculty members said they felt they were lied to. On Thursday afternoon, Sharp sent a letter, which was obtained by The Eagle, to the Faculty Senate and said he agreed with their concerns about outside influence on faculty hiring and promotion. Sharp also noted he supports the faculty’s role in shared governance and valued their counsel on these matters. He also stated the only academic hires he is involved in are the president and vice chancellors of agriculture and engineering.

“Outside influence is never welcome, nor invited,” Sharp wrote. “It also is frustrating when outside groups try to take credit for some action, sowing doubt and discord among the Aggie family.”

Blanton’s statement said he initiated McElroy’s recruitment last year due to her “excellence” as a journalist, researcher and educator. Blanton noted it was an “added bonus” McElroy was an A&M graduate. Blanton said McElroy applied to be professor and director of journalism and standard administrative procedures were followed during the search.

“The failed effort to hire Dr. McElroy is a great loss to A&M and surely caused her great unnecessary suffering,” Blanton said.

Banks’ time leading A&M was filled with big changes and controversy.

Six months into the job, Banks released 41 recommendations for organizational changes she called The Path Forward, which received pushback from A&M faculty and staff. The recommendations were based on a 130-page consultant’s report compiled by MGT Consulting and Martin+Crumption Group. The four-month review began soon after Banks began her tenure.

In August 2022, A&M’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution that said “shared governance is no longer functioning as envisioned by faculty at Texas A&M University.” The resolution added Banks didn’t seek enough faculty input in The Path Forward. One faculty member said at the time, if things continued it could have led to a vote of no confidence.

“There was a lot of change and a lot of change very quickly, in terms of The Path Forward,” said Tracy Hammond, speaker of A&M’s Faculty Senate. “I think that a lot of The Path Forward changes were for the better. Now, there’s always some things that were not necessarily for the better, but there were many that were for the better. But in general, change is always hard. And it was very, very fast change. Faster than maybe [a university this size could] handle.”

One of the key changes under Banks was the creation of the College of Arts & Sciences, a move that disgruntled A&M faculty members.

A letter to Banks from Chemistry Professor Karen Wooley, in December 2022, which was obtained by The Eagle, listed three major issues with her initiatives, which included failed leadership and lack of honoring commitments and adequately supporting the research enterprise.

Wooley said in her letter that Banks had a strong record as a visionary, executor and leader in A&M’s College of Engineering when she started as A&M’s president, but that there seemed to be no group of students, staff or faculty who were inspired by and excited for her leadership and initiatives.

“It was expected that you would have gained perspective, responded to and acted upon questions, criticisms, advice and recommendations that you’ve gathered from meetings held with various stakeholders over the past several months,” Wooley wrote. “However, apparently little to no changes are occurring to your initial intentions, as were laid out in the MGT report released more than a year ago. Disturbingly, your discussions with stakeholder groups have actually led to increased issues with morale and decreased confidence that TAMU is on the right path.”

Ultimately, it was under the College of Arts & Sciences the botched hiring of McElroy fell beneath, a situation that also led to the resignation of the college’s interim dean, José Bermúdez.

In February 2022, Banks fell into hot water after she directed The Battalion, A&M’s student newspaper, to immediately cease its regular print edition and become a digital-only news outlet. After meeting with Battalion staff, Banks revised her decision and said The Battalion could print as scheduled through the spring semester. The Battalion has continued to print on a weekly basis during spring and fall semesters.

Banks was just the second woman to serve as A&M’s president as she joined Elsa Murano, who served in the role from January 2008 to June 2009. Banks’ tenure as university president was the second shortest in A&M’s history, ahead of just Murano. Prior to her time as president, Banks served for nine years as vice chancellor of engineering and dean of A&M’s College of Engineering.

When A&M’s Board of Regents confirmed Banks’ hire in March 2021, she said, “I can’t ever imagine leaving. This is my home, and I think it will be for many years to come.”

With Banks now gone and A&M left searching for its next president, Hammond said she feels it will be difficult to find a new person to lead the university until a way forward is found.

“I hope that whoever gets put into the role of president really cares about shared governance and recognizes the importance of shared governance and creating an effective and preeminent university,” Hammond said.

“ … We have some work to do ahead of us to get through this.”