Breaking: Dean Nail Resigns

Published: 4:20 p.m.

Last Update: 8:09 p.m.

Lance Nail, dean of the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration, resigned effective Dec. 31 following the results of an investigation into grade changes, according to a Texas Tech news release sent out Tuesday afternoon.

Screen shot from the committee report

Screen shot from the committee report

A committee formed by Provost Lawrence Schovanec found the grades of four graduate students, issued by Jay Conover, a Horn professor of statistics, were unjustifiably changed by Dean Nail.

Conover, reached by phone on Tuesday night, said he was disappointed the process took so long.

He said he was also disappointed Nail was “not relieved of his duties” and his resignation as dean will not be effective until the end of the year.

“My comment is that I am glad to see this resolved,” Conover said via email later. “Dean Nail has a lot of potential, but made a few bad decisions that question his moral fiber.”

Further, Conover said, the four students’ MBA degrees are “bogus,” and they should either complete the requirements or turn their degrees back in.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal previously reported Nail initiated Conover’s move from the Rawls College of Business Administration to the Department of Math & Statistics because he believed the statistics professor was not a “good fit” for the college.

Conover said he plans to show his new department trust and loyalty by staying where he is.

“I don’t care if they want me back in Rawls College,” he said via phone. “I like it here.”

Nail could not be reached for comment. An email request for an interview returned an automatic message indicating he is “out of the office with limited email access” until yesterday, Nov. 9.

The Rawls Career Management Center announced a networking event with Nail scheduled for Monday evening had been cancelled.

The committee that issued the report comprised seven faculty and an “ex-officio” member. It was formed in June, according to the committee’s end-of-October report to Provost Schovanec. The names of the members have been redacted for their protection.

Later in the summer, Nail was chosen to represent Rawls at the Convening on the Working Families Economic Agenda.

The committee found that five students were given an alternative exam at the request of Dean Nail after they complained to him, according to the report. This exam was not offered to other students taking the course.

Further, four of the students had “positive results” on the make-up exam, and those students’ final grades were accordingly changed without the professor’s knowledge, according to the report, which the committee asserts unjustifiably violates OP 34.03 regarding grade appeals.

“Although Dean Nail indicated that time pressure to graduation and the possibility of job opportunities being lost were the principal reasons for short-circuiting OP 34.03, there appears to have been sufficient time, approximately two months, for an appeals board to have been convened,” the report stated.

The committee members wrote that an informal conversation does not represent a formal grade appeals process.

“Given Dean Nail’s process the committee found no justification for changing the final grades for four students in Dr. Conover’s ISQS 5345 class in Spring 2015,” the committee report said.

Screen shot from the committee report

Screen shot from the committee report

Nail will remain chairman of the Texas Tech University Innovation Hub a Research Park Board of Directors and will continue his career with the college as a professor of finance, according to the university’s news release.

In an email addressed to the business students, Provost Schovanec thanked Dean Nail for “his contributions as dean and his dedication to building a successful college and elevating its reputation among our peers nationwide.”

Chris Cook, Texas Tech managing director of communications and marketing, said an interim dean for the Rawls College of Business is yet to be selected.

“I am in the process of selecting an interim dean and will notify you prior to public release when that decision is made. A national search for a permanent replacement will begin immediately,” Provost Schovanec said in the email to business students.

Provost Schovanec was not immediately available for comment.

Alicia Keene contributed to this report.

 

About Breann Robinson

Senior journalism major and Investigative Reporter for the Hub@TTU. Really good at making friends, really bad at math.

Comments

  1. It is November 30, and I’ve just learned about this through FB. As a Red Raider alumnus and Rawls grad, I must say that things like this really stink. What’s done is done though, and one must take into account all sides involved. This is Dr. Nail’s response to his resignation. Reading both sides of the story paints an interesting picture of intr-professorial politics and dynamics. Full disclosure: I had Dr. Nail for senior seminar and I loved him. He is great with the students. I love Dr. Goebel and took classes from him also. I never took Dr. Conover’s classes and do not know him. I graduated with BBA Finance May 2013 http://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/local-news/lance-nail-responds-to-report-that-contributed-to-his-resignation-as-dean-from-texas-tech