Central State president under investigation, faced backlash at previous university

The president of Central State University is staring down a state investigation along with calls for him to be placed on administrative leave by five employees —and it's not the first time he's confronted such backlash as a college's top leader.

Jack Thomas, who has led Ohio's sole historically Black public university in Wilberforce since July 2020, is under investigation for a complaint filed against him by five female employees with the school's board of trustees. In the complaint, the women claimed Thomas caused them mental, emotional and financial stress, "effectively killing the careers" of each of them.

The employees are accusing the president of wrongful termination, improper demotions, discrimination, defamation of character and creating a toxic work environment, among other things, according to a complaint submitted last August to the board of trustees that was obtained by The Dispatch.

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At the request of the university's board, the state Attorney General's office hired the Ohio-based law firm Taft, Stettinius and Hollister to investigate the accusations against Thomas.

"There's an investigation that's going on and I can't comment on it at this, at this moment," Thomas said in an interview Wednesday with The Dispatch on campus. "Hopefully, it'll be over soon."

David Duwel, a Dayton attorney for the women who complained about Thomas, said the investigation is likely in its final stages and he expects a detailed report to be issued soon, possibly as early as this week.

Duwel said his clients have all been interviewed by an attorney for the law firm that is investigating. He's also referred investigators to others who provided information after the Dayton Daily News first broke the story of a state probe in late November.

The five women who signed the complaint emailed to the board of trustees are Isabelle Cayo-Sanders, former director of admissions and enrollment management; former registrar Felicia Harris-Nagel; Wendy Hayes, previous vice president of student affairs who now serves as a liaison for honors and international student affairs; Ieesha Ramsey, former executive director of Central State's undergraduate student success center; and communications coordinator Lena Fields-Arnold.

Duwel said his clients were fired or demoted and replaced with acquaintances of Thomas who were unqualified, or at least less qualified than his clients. He declined to make one of his clients available for an interview and said he feared doing so could interfere with the investigation.

"The complaints are genuine," Duwel said. "They were there; they were working and all of them were replaced by the president's fraternity brothers."

Presidential problems

This is not the first time Thomas has faced calls for disciplinary action against him.

While president of Western Illinois University (WIU), Thomas faced backlash over his handling of the top job, including issues of infighting, racial hostility, declining enrollment and the departure of senior administration officials, The State Journal-Register, a Gannett sister paper of The Dispatch, reported when he resigned in 2019.

During his eight years as president at WIU, Thomas' administration received a vote of no confidence from the faculty senate and an alumni council reportedly voted to approve a resolution asking for him to be fired. He also received pushback for firing a 35-year WIU employee who was the vice president of advancement and a star basketball player in the school's athletic hall of fame, the Journal-Register reported.

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"My only question is, that information was available at the time you interviewed this guy (for the Central State job), so why would you hire him?" Duwel said.

Mark Hatcher, chairman of the Central State board of trustees and a business attorney who leads BakerHostetler's Columbus office, declined to comment for this story. He canceled a previously scheduled interview with The Dispatch "based on the interview with Mr. Thomas," according to an email.

Thomas was placed on what was intended to be two years of paid leave from his $270,528-a-year position at Western Illinois University beginning in July 2019, according to a settlement agreement The Dispatch obtained through a public records request.

After two years of leave, Thomas would have had the option of returning to WIU as a professor, records show. But he was hired as Central State's president about a year after reaching the settlement with WIU. He now earns a base salary of $300,000 annually at Central State.

Like much of his career as a leader in higher education, Thomas told The Dispatch he viewed his time at WIU as a "learning experience."

"As a part of the job, you're going to deal with all kinds of things, and the issue is: how do you handle them?" Thomas said when asked whether the complaints against him were standard criticism for a college president — or something worse.

Thomas' tenure

The allegations against Thomas come as Central State is rebounding from a financial hole it fell into eight years ago.

Central State was placed on state fiscal watch in 2015 and eventually removed in 2017.

Ohio measures the fiscal health of its public colleges using an annual rating of 0 to 5. Schools that fall below a 1.75 rating two years in a row risk being placed on fiscal watch.

Central State scored a 1.3 in 2013 and a 1 in 2014.

To get removed from fiscal watch, a university must meet or exceed a score of least 2.4 and must address the issues that led to its financial trouble. Central State achieved a rating of 2.8 during fiscal year 2016 and was removed in April 2017.

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As a historically Black college or university, Central State isn't alone in its recent fight to get on sound financial footing. Several HBCUs have closed in the last few years and some are still struggling to remain open.

Despite the difficult national landscape facing HBCUs, Central State appears to have prospered during Thomas' time in office.

Thomas wants to eventually increase enrollment to 8,000 and under him students enrolled at Central State jumped from around 2,000 to more than 5,000 following the launch of online class offerings dubbed "CSU Global."

The program allows students who have completed their associate's degree through Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville to finish their bachelor's degree online at Central State. But, the program is in jeopardy of shutting down after the U.S. Department of Education sent Eastern Gateway a letter in July ordering it to halt enrollment due to a possible violation of federal law regarding how it pays for students to attend classes.

The university has also expanded its agricultural education and received a $10-million federal grant to conduct extensive research on hemp. Thomas was named to a U.S. Department of Agriculture task force.

An honors program was launched and a new residence hall for honors students opened in 2022. More on-campus housing is expected to be finished in 2024.

The successes and growth, Thomas insisted, make it unlikely that Central State will return to its troubled financial past.

As for Thomas himself, he said he's not sure whether he'll remain president after his contract expires in July 2023. If the five employees who called for an investigation get their way, Central State's board won't consider renewing his contract until the probe is finished.

"You learn from those things and then you try to do better as you move forward ..." Thomas said of his time in higher education. "I think that, because of some of the incidents that have occurred over my 30 years, I have lots of battle scars."

mfilby@dispatch.com

@MaxFilby

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Investigation of Central State president expected to wrap up soon