Liz Horgan (lizcharl@bellsouth.

net)
Grayson – COMM 633
June 13, 2009
Assignment: Crisis Detection and Communication – Mary Easley and NCSU

The Crisis: a public outcry over political crony-ism and excessive compensation
regarding Mary Easley, wife of former Governor Mike Easley, at North Carolina State
University (NCSU).

The problems began when Mary Easley was hired in 2005 for a special position at
NCSU. Media coverage at that time raised questions and alluded to political
connections as reasons for Mary Easley’s appointment. In 2008 the State of NC faced
significant budget problems and was cutting programs and costs; over at NCSU Mary
Easley received an almost $80,000 raise for added responsibilities for a total
$170,000/yr. in compensation. Negative comments from the State Teachers
Retirement spokesperson and others surfaced in the press and on the Web regarding
the large salary and issues of unfairness. Mike Easley’s statements, when asked about
his wife’s salary, sounded arrogant and out of touch – he felt his wife was unique and
sexism was actually a factor. Mike Easley’s term ended as Governor and investigations
into his travel expenditures began to gain traction. The questioning by the press and
investigators tainted and strengthened a perception that Mary Easley’s high paying job
was a special, politically motivated deal. Mary Easley never responded to questions or
concerns directly, instead comments came from her lawyer. When key people at NCSU
involved with her hiring and her compensation were asked about Mary Easley, they
gave her perfunctory support (seemingly towed the party line) and appeared to hope
the whole thing would go away. However, the issue developed and grew with the lack
of transparency and information and the sense created in the minds of stakeholders of
a possible cover-up. The now-problem-turned- crisis was affected by the political
power shift in North Carolina (and possibly beyond), which weakened the ‘old-boy’
network, and by the public/taxpayer sentiment regarding fiscal unfairness in the tough
economic times (stoked by the on-going media coverage). As these factors converged
and built strength, no one at NCSU seemed to be in charge of dealing with events. The
crisis grew and finally resulted in the resignation of several key figures and the firing of
Mary Easley.

The Stakeholders: NCSU employees, alumni and students, North Carolina taxpayers,
the public at large, the media, the University of North Carolina System, the
government.

Had NCSU been practicing and following a Crisis Management Plan (Plan), signal
detection actions would have raised this situation as having the potential for
developing into a crisis. Prodromes of political family members with ‘appointment
problems’ should have been identified when Mary Easley was hired back in 2005.

With the purported expansion of Mary Easley’s job and her dramatic pay increase in a
time of budget constraints in 2008, the crisis management team should have gone on
Liz Horgan Page 2

high alert. Signals were coming from the press, and also likely from the NCSU
community and politicians in Raleigh (my speculation). Yet at NCSU there seemed to
be no sense that a crisis was building. No one stepped forward to address perception
changes, no one was in charge of the situation. Disparate attempts to downplay the
situation were done by a variety of people representing a variety of groups/factions.
Had there been a Plan, a team with a communications plan, the crisis might have been
averted. Three things should have been done at that point.

1. A plan regarding openness and transparency should have been made. Because
there was legitimate concern over Mary Easley’s position stemming from special
treatment and political jockeying/favors, decisions on how to manage the
problem going forward needed to be made and an action plan created. The
school’s integrity was at risk.

2. Communication (press releases, publicity, web based pushes, on-and off-

campus promotions of events, etc.) detailing the increased scope of Mary
Easley’s role, her job performance and any other justifications for the large pay
raise and additional duties should have been disseminated to the media, NC
State employees, alumni and students. Initiating communication and reaching
out could have reduced a perception gap on the part of stakeholders.
Communication effectiveness should be monitored. A focus on fostering open
and regular communications between NCSU and the stakeholders would be
important aspects of the Plan.

3. Direct discussion with Mary Easley regarding her role and the seriousness of the
financial concerns raised could have possibly changed her behaviors and
impacted the growing perception gap. Some of the things she could have done
to alter stakeholder views of her and reduce the perception gap: voluntarily
stepped down from the position; become more visible and accessible to the
press and more aware of public opinion; donated part of her salary to an
appropriate cause or deferred some of it in the spirit of the hard economic
times; or increased her time and efforts on the job.

If the situation had continued towards crisis, as it did and as was evidenced by the
Federal investigations and the continued media coverage, NCSU should have “come
clean” in April and May of 2009 (Step 1 above). This would mean activating the Crisis
Team. Communication of NCSU’s full cooperation with any oversight investigations,
and NCSU’s goal of getting to the bottom of the allegations and understanding exactly
what happened should have been announced. Consultation and dialogs with key
stakeholders, including the entire community of NCSU (professors, students and
alumni) and the UNC Board of Trustees, should have occurred. Media contact should
have been initiated by the NCSU Crisis Team. The message should have been about
integrity, not ‘no comment’ or ‘talk to my lawyer’ or ‘oops, I forget the details’, as was
the case from Mary Easley, her lawyer and Oblinger et.al.,. Upon findings from the
Liz Horgan Page 3

NCSU investigation, swift action should have been taken and the responsible parties
removed from their positions.

Now that Mary Easley, Nielson and Oblinger have been fired or repositioned, NCSU
should look ahead to future concerns and ramifications from this crisis.
Acknowledgement of errors and a revitalized commitment to NCSU values,
transparency and openness should be publicized in an effort to buttress the overall
reputation of NCSU. Creation of a task force to analyze system failures and
recommend changes to practices would be a good faith effort as well. NCSU should
reach out to all stakeholders and begin the process of improving NCSU’s reputation.

While no actual laws may have been broken, the overall outrage over hiring and
compensation improprieties and political crony-ism grew to such proportion that,
because a problem was ignored and then poorly addressed, the Mary Easley situation
escalated to a crisis.
Liz Horgan Page 4

Research for paper:

7-7-08 http://www.ncsu.edu/bulletin/archive/2008/07/07-10/easley-
statement.php

• Historically, NC State has interpreted Board of Governors policy to mean that

salary increases associated with fixed-term appointments such as the one
offered to Mrs. Easley do not require Board of Governors approval. UNC General
Administration has advised us that our interpretation of board policy differs
from theirs and that of other UNC institutions. Therefore, all such affected
contracts, including Mrs. Easley’s, will be reviewed in the ordinary course by the
UNC Board of Governors at its next regularly scheduled meeting.

• NC State Board of Trustees has unanimously endorsed Mrs. Easley’s new

position and compensation level, as has the Chancellor.  President Bowles has
said, “I join the Board of Trustees in expressing my delight that Mrs. Easley will
consider continuing her public service through her work at NC State. She will
continue to be a tremendous asset for NC State in her expanded position and
will bring additional depth to an already strong faculty and leadership team.”

6-13-09 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1087185.html

• Mary Easley's $170,000-a-year job at NCSU — which seems to be vanishing one

big bite at a time — is an unusual mix of politics, insider connections and
academia, according to a picture of her work that emerges from internal
university e-mail, documents and interviews

• unclear from the records and interviews whether it ever was as big or as difficult as
billed. Easley sometimes picked up the phone and ordered a speaker from an agency. She
keeps irregular hours. There are serious questions about whether she has performed all
the duties required under one part of her job description. And the salary she gets for
teaching is far above the amount that another instructor is getting for the same work.
• Her job is at the center of a mushrooming series of resignations and other inquiries,
including a federal probe. It was strongly backed for years by Oblinger and Nielsen.
• Schiller said Friday that he had just reviewed her personnel file.
• "If there is a single negative word in there, it's written in invisible ink," he said.
6-13-09 http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5317868/
• Interim North Carolina State University Chancellor Jim Woodward says admitting that
mistakes were made in the hiring of former first lady Mary Easley is part of repairing the
university’s reputation
• Perception of coverup
Liz Horgan Page 5

6-8-09 http://www.charlotteobserver.com/597/story/768908.html
Mary Easley's $170,000-a-year job at N.C. State University is an unusual mix of politics, insider
connections and academia, according to a picture of her work that emerges from internal
university e-mail, documents and interviews.
Amid calls for her to step down, the state's former first lady has held on to the job. It bears a
single title – executive in residence – given when former NCSU provost Larry Nielsen retooled
her post and gave her an 88 percent raise last summer.
NCSU Chancellor James Oblinger has said she was unique for the position. At the time of her
raise, UNC system President Erskine Bowles called it “a big, complex job.”
nd the salary she gets for teaching is far above the amount that another instructor is getting for
the same work.
Her job was strongly backed for years by Oblinger and former Provost Larry Nielsen. Now it is
the center of a swarm of resignations and other inquiries, including a federal probe.
Oblinger and Bowles have called on Easley to resign. She has refused.
A week and a half ago, the university put a moratorium on new academic centers like the public
safety effort Easley was to lead. Then on Thursday, a House budget committee voted to cut the
funding for the speakers series. If that effort is successful, only tasks that had been billed as
35percent of her workload will be intact: her teaching and academic programming work.
Easley didn't return calls seeking comment. At a news conference last month, though, her
attorney, Marvin Schiller handed out positive reviews she'd received in the past from Nielsen and
Bowles.
The university justified hiring Easley in 2005 without a job search by saying that she was
“unique” for the speakers job. Her connections – many developed while her husband, Mike
Easley, was the state's attorney general and two-term governor – would help lure top names to
campus, university officials said.
Easley hasn't responded to a request made more than a week ago for her work calendar, which is
a public record.
Even with accurate records, it may be tricky to understand where Easley has been and what she
has done on any given day. Schiller, her attorney, said during the news conference last month that
Easley's supervisors understood she would work at odd hours and outside the office.
Another part of her job is to develop new seminars and internships for law students. But the
university's lone pre-law adviser, Mary A. Tetro, has seen little of Easley. The two were to work
together.
Jerrell D. Coggburn, chairman of the Public and International Affairs Department, said that he
and another faculty member did most of the nuts-and-bolts work, but that Easley performed well.
June 9 http://www.newsobserver.com/2972/story/1561550.html
N.C. State Chancellor James L. Oblinger resigned and former first lady Mary Easley was fired
Monday in a stunning new round of fallout over her job at the university.
Liz Horgan Page 6

They join two earlier casualties: the provost who hired her, Larry Nielsen; and McQueen
Campbell, the trustees' chairman and Easley family friend who suggested the idea to Oblinger.
Both stepped down last month.
University trustees said that it's not clear whether anything illegal occurred and that most of the
problems could have been prevented if those involved had been forthright from the beginning.
Oblinger's resignation came minutes before the university released documents showing that he
had conferred with Campbell and members of then-Gov. Mike Easley's staff to secure a job for
Mary Easley in 2005.
Oblinger originally maintained that he wasn't involved. He said in a resignation letter Monday
that he had simply forgotten his role and had not intentionally done anything wrong.
He said he was quitting "because that is what leaders do when the institutions they lead come
under distracting and undue public scrutiny," he wrote. "This is particularly true for leaders of
public institutions."
His resignation came after days of shifting explanations about a buyout deal he struck with
Nielsen the day before the provost quit.
In 2005, Nielsen, then the interim provost, hired Mary Easley. He gave her an 88 percent pay
increase last year that took her annual salary to $170,000. The raise violated UNC-system policy,
and later the system's Board of Governors had to review it, and then voted to approve it.
In an emergency meeting Monday afternoon, the N.C. State trustees voted unanimously to end
Mary Easley's contract, which had four years remaining. Trustee Burley Mitchell, a former state
supreme court chief justice who moved to terminate the contract, said it was in the best interest
of the university and because Easley's duties no longer exist.
University leaders ended one project last month that was listed as 35 percent of her job, citing
budget cuts. A House committee voted last week to end funding for another component of her
post, a speakers series that she ran.
Easley's attorney, Marvin Schiller of Raleigh, said Monday that he might issue a statement, but
not immediately.
Bowles said that he had believed Oblinger, but lost confidence in him after reading e-mail
messages that show how Oblinger, Campbell and others had worked to secure the N.C. State job
for Mary Easley.
The university has provided those e-mails to a federal grand jury conducting a wide-ranging
investigation of Mike Easley
"I understand that the University will be making public today the documents that it is providing
to the grand jury in connection with the federal investigation," Oblinger wrote in his resignation
letter. "A handful of those documents -- all emails -- indicate that I was made aware of Mrs.
Easley's potential availability as a faculty member by McQueen Campbell in April 2005. I did
not recall those communications until reviewing the emails last week. The emails themselves
indicate that I referred the issue to the appropriate university officials and they indicate no
impropriety in the process in which Mrs. Easley was hired to come to NC State."
Liz Horgan Page 7

6-10- Letter from Mary Easley to NC State – said nothing, no culpability.

July 3 2008 http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1129052.html
First lady Mary Easley got a $79,700 pay raise from N.C. State University this week.
Her salary as an executive-in-residence and senior lecturer -- a job created for her in 2005 --
went from $90,300 to $170,000.
Her job title has not changed, but university officials said they have greatly expanded the duties
for Easley, a former prosecutor and lawyer who has taught law courses. Her new duties include
directing public safety training and co-directing the pre-law services program.
Dana Cope, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, said
Easley's raise is way out of line compared with what state employees might expect.
"It looks like there is obviously preferential treatment going on," said Cope, whose organization
represents 55,000 state employees and retirees.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are trying to hammer out a budget, and a contentious point between the
governor and the legislature has been raises for state employees and teachers. Also expense
irregularities Easley, wife of Gov. Mike Easley, has been a hot topic among state residents
because news reports revealed she was among the state's delegation on two trips to Europe that
cost taxpayers more than $109,000.
Mary Easley did not respond to a request made through the governor's press office for an
interview. She and the governor told WRAL-TV on Wednesday that they did not understand the
uproar over her salary.
"It's not a raise. She's taking a new position," Gov. Easley told WRAL. "She could go out with a
law firm and make a lot more money, but she's decided to stay with public service."
Mary Easley said, "What people have to understand is that I bring something unique to N.C.
State," WRAL reported.
Gov. Easley, who is paid $135,854 a year, said he sensed sexism in his wife's critics.
"If she were a man, it wouldn't be an issue," Easley told WRAL.
Jim Martin, a chemistry professor at NCSU and the elected faculty chairman, said there is sexism
at the university. A 2006 report from the American Association of University Professors said that
just 18 percent of the university's tenured faculty are women. At UNC-Chapel Hill, the figure is
28 percent.
"Yes, we have sexism problems," Martin said, "but it's not paying the first lady $170,000."
The average salary for a full professor at NCSU is $110,000, said Martin, who is paid $101,000
as a full professor of chemistry.
Teach or go private?
Unfortunately, many faculty members must also choose between their jobs as teachers and
lucrative careers in the private sector, he said.
Liz Horgan Page 8

"When I see an adjunct faculty being paid, you know, half again, if not close to double the salary
of a faculty member, you can't help but say, 'Why?' What is that telling all the rest of us who
have made this commitment to public service?" Martin said.
In a statement Wednesday, the university's provost and executive vice chancellor, Larry Nielsen,
defended the 88 percent pay increase, which was first reported Wednesday by the Carolina
Journal, a weekly publication owned by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank.

appearance of impropriety that is the problem. That's why the uproar when her salary was almost
doubled. There's too many connections, too many questions. I agree they put her in an impossible
spot by asking for her resignation in the press –

5-21 http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5188562/
Despite increasing calls for her to step down, former North Carolina first lady Mary Easley
intends to continue her job at North Carolina State University, her attorney said Thursday.
The controversy over her hiring and promotion already has led to the resignations of two top
university officials.
Easley stood silently at her attorney Schiller's side, allowing him to answer all questions.
After her appearance, several political and education officials said Easley should leave N.C.
State: Erskine Bowles, Bob Jordan, newly named chairman of the N.C. State Board of
Trustees: Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger
It is time for Gov. Perdue to stop watching and act to bring this regrettable act of political
favoritism to a close. If Gov. Perdue cannot prevail upon her fellow Democrats to do the
honorable
Gov. Beverly Perdue deflected calls for an independent investigation, saying only that she hopes
the case can be resolved soon.
"I am as eager as you all to bring this whole discussion to a conclusion," Perdue said. "It is a hard
day for North Carolina. I want to see it end quickly."
N.C. State officials said Mary Easley's continued presence undermines the university's integrity
and is becoming a distraction at a time when the university should focus on dealing with the tight
state budget.
Dudley Flood, a member of the UNC Board of Governors, which approved Mary Easley's five-
year contract a year ago, said he has no regrets about the move.
"At this minute, a contract is in place, and a contract is a contract," Flood said, adding that he
doesn't expect the matter to come back before the board. "I suspect there will be discussion and
talks about how that ought to play out."
Provost Larry Nielsen, who hired Mary Easley, decided last week to step down, citing the stress
over questions about the hiring and his subsequent promotion to provost. His resignation takes
Liz Horgan Page 9

effect on Friday, when he will take a faculty position in N.C. State's College of Natural
Resources.
A day later, McQueen Campbell stepped down as chairman of N.C. State's Board of Trustees.
Mike Easley twice appointed Campbell to the board, and The News & Observer newspaper has
reported that the former governor often flew in Campbell's private plane.
Neilsen and Campbell have maintained they did nothing wrong in Mary Easley's hiring, although
Campbell did tell Bowles last week that, when N.C. State officials were looking for someone to
oversee the speakers series, he mentioned to Oblinger that Mary Easley was looking for a new
job.
May 18th http://www.myfox8.com/wghp-chancellor-easley-090518,0,5285262.story
The chancellor of North Carolina State University said Monday it would be best for the
university if former first lady Mary Easley resigns her position at the state-supported college.

Chancellor James Oblinger was asked during a groundbreaking ceremony on the Raleigh campus
whether the wife of former Gov. Mike Easley should step down, said university spokesman Keith
Nichols.

Oblinger replied that quitting the $170,000-a-year job was "in the best interest of the university,"
Nichols said.

The chancellor wouldn't say whether he had asked her to resign and said he couldn't discuss
other details because it was a personnel issue.

A call to Mary Easley's office wasn't immediately returned.

Mary Easley has a five-year contract that will pay her $850,000 to run a campus speaker series
and public safety center and to serve as a senior lecturer. She previously taught law at North
Carolina Central University in Durham.

She is the wife of former Gov. Mike Easley, whose use of private aircraft before and during his
two terms as governor is a subject of a federal grand jury investigation. The former governor has
said he's confident the investigation won't show any wrongdoing by him.

Two university officials resigned last week following accusations they acted inappropriately in
the hiring of Mary Easley. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

The chairman of the N.C. State trustees, whom Easley appointed to the board, and the
university's provost resigned last week over a flap involving how Mary Easley was hired by the
school. Both university leaders said they did nothing inappropriate.

Former board chairman McQueen Campbell resigned Friday following accusations that he acted
inappropriately in the hiring. Campbell said he did nothing wrong when he mentioned to other
Liz Horgan Page 10

officials that she was available for a job.

N.C. State Provost Larry Nielsen resigned a day earlier, citing scrutiny of his role in hiring Mary
Easley. Neilsen has been criticized for creating a new faculty position that he used to hire her.
Creative loafing blog,
.