MOUNT GAY The Board of Governors for Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College has unanimously agreed to a thorough third-party investigation into ongoing allegations amid a potential state takeover – the first of its kind in West Virginia.
Members of college faculty and staff, as well as family and friends of Southern’s president, Doctor Pamela Alderman, gave her a standing ovation as she entered the room prior to a Board of Governors meeting Wednesday evening.
The board voted in that meeting to limit Alderman’s authority and initiate an independent investigation into allegations against her administration and the board, following advice from the West Virginia Community and Technical College System.
In a 5-5 split vote, the board rejected a move to enter executive session, leaving the meeting open. College System Vice Chancellor Chris Treadway, citing ethics complaints and allegations against Alderman and the board, said the state was considering taking over the college.
“We don’t take this lightly. We’ve never been brought to the point where we are right now,” Treadway said.
“We go out of our way to try to be supportive of our institutions – to try to make sure that all the press we see is good press, because there are a lot of good things that are happening out here at the institutions. But all of the good things that are happening out here – your faculty, staff and students – are being overshadowed by this ongoing situation. Headlines like this cause lots of problems for institutions. Beyond just direct impact of enrollment issues and just public perception, you could lose donors, people who are just fed up and don’t want to give money to an institution with this kind of trouble. It’s more difficult to attract qualified staff. In West Virginia in general, it’s really tough to attract people to come here and take some more specialized jobs that we have available, and that’s especially true if you’re hiring senior position. The president, for example – someone who’s applying for the president’s position, they’re going to research this institution at length; they’ll spend hours and hours learning about this institution. And when they Google Southern, what are they going to see when they click on the news button at the top of the search engine? They’re going to see this. If they look up issues with accreditation, what are they going to find? It’s a situation that has to end.”
Vice Chancellor Treadway described an alleged pattern of poor decision making on the part of President Alderman and her administration, ranging from claims of nepotism and mismanagement of funds to retaliatory firings. He said the College System’s council had been increasingly involved since August 2024, citing Alderman’s placement of her ex-husband, Bill Alderman, into a senior leadership position. Bill Alderman applied at the time for the open position of Chief Academic Officer, a position for which applicants are interviewed by a committee.
Treadway also pointed to a reported effort to buy a $90,000 vehicle with public funds and obstruction of board requests for information. He also noted faculty concerns sent to the Higher Learning Commission, Southern’s accrediting body.
Southern recently received a renewal of its accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, which is a process the college goes through every ten years. However, the commission grew increasingly concerned as complaints flowed in from college staff regarding both President Alderman and the Board of Governors. According to Treadway, a response was sent to the commission by college administration, which he says attempted to place all responsibility for the ongoing issues onto the Board of Governors. He cited a post, which was made on Southern’s official Facebook page, detailing a recent vote of no confidence in the board. That same post also highlighted an overwhelming majority of those who voted who expressed their confidence in President Alderman. Treadway described the move as a “monumentally bad decision.”
“We have lost all confidence in the president’s ability to continue to lead this institution,” he said. “Our board is the board that would have to approve any further contract renewals, and it is our recommendation to our board that, if a contract comes back to us for this president, that they not approve it.”
President Alderman was given the opportunity to respond to the claims made during Treadway’s presentation, and once she started, she didn’t stop.
“Yes, serious concerns have been happening since August 2024. Ten members of our Board of Governors have resigned since August 4 of 2024. That is huge, when you have 12 members on the board and three of those are from the institution: the student representative, the staff representative and the faculty representative,” she said.
Alderman said she has not driven a government-owned vehicle or had a reimbursement for mileage since August. She said that she did previously receive a monthly stipend of $1500 for a personal vehicle as Treadway had said, but after she was told that she could not receive it because it was not stated in her contract that way, Alderman said – and attending faculty attested – that she offered to pay back every dollar of the money she had already received. She also provided documentation disputing a claim previously made Board of Governors Chair Jarrod Fletcher.
“Mister Fletcher, however, tried to slander me in some newspaper articles last week and said I was driving a $93,000 vehicle. I brought my window sticker and my bill of sale for every one of you to see and I will pass it around to you. My Nautilus cost exactly $67,250. My bill of sale from Thornhill Ford was $63,775, a long way off from $93,000, Mister Fletcher.”
A state Ethics Commission agreement found Alderman improperly signed off on a pay increase for her son, William Alderman, II, and discussed his employment with this direct supervisor, Dr. Michael Jiles, who advocated for Mr. Alderman. However, the error has been attributed by the president to a practice which has since been stopped, in which she would receive a stack of personnel documents which needed her signature. Her signature approved sending her son’s application to the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education for final approval. That application included a pay raise and allowed for Mister Alderman to maintain the position of Interim Director of Arts and Science, a position he was appointed to by the college’s previous president, Doctor Robert Gunter.
President Alderman also made claims of harassment she said she has received from Board of Governors member, Doctor David Lemmon, and claimed he had shown up at her home, leaving her “feeling threatened.”
“June 7, Mister Lemmon came over to my house and he sat down – he was half drunk, so you know – and he said after a little bit of conversation, ‘I want you to make me your chief of staff and fire Bill Alderman. I said no,” Alderman claimed. “He threatened me. He said he would arrest me when he became U.S. Marshal. He said he would laugh at me when he took me to jail and put me behind bars. He told me that he could make people disappear and no one would find me.”
Following that exchange, Chairman Fletcher ordered an audience member removed for disruptive behavior.
Speaking on the post and graphic issued on the college’s Facebook page about the vote of no confidence in the board, Alderman said that post was up for no longer than fifteen minutes and was immediately removed at her direction once she received the call of concern from the Vice Chancellor.
President Alderman said she feels her reputation has been called into question and that she has been slandered by members of the board. She also claimed calls for help from her to the state went unanswered, and that she was not informed of what the state’s issues with her were as a whole until the special meeting Wednesday.
“You said you have lost confidence in me, but I have lost confidence in the commission,” she said. “I’ve called numerous times asking for help. I called numerous times to talk to the chancellor and was told ‘we don’t get into that, you have to handle that, you have to figure that out, we cannot give you that information.’ I was given no information at all. So, I have failed? I believe you have failed because you didn’t come down to help me. Now, you want to relieve me of my powers and my duties prior to giving me any training or any help at all. You want to listen to a few people without getting the facts straight and you don’t want to listen to the truth.”
The recommendation of the council was to let President Alderman serve the remainder of her term, which runs until the end of June. In the meantime, it was recommended to limit access to official social media and websites by Alderman and her administration, to which she had already agreed. The board was also advised to restrict her authority to make personnel decisions, including hiring, firing, promoting or demoting. Moreover, it was recommended that any correspondence with the Higher Learning Commission should be approved by the state council.
Most of the council’s recommendations were adopted Wednesday, with the exception of a council proposal which would have required any purchases over $5,000 to be approved by the Board of Governors. The board did, however, vote to strip President Alderman of her ability to sign off on spending decisions, transferring that power to Board Chair Jarrod Fletcher.
The Classified Staff Representative for the board, Chris Gray, proposed bringing in an independent third party to investigate the allegations by the state before making any further decisions. Fletcher instructed Gray to find three independent sources to do an investigation of the entire college and all of its departments.
PHOTO | A. M. Stone