#julie hermann

[yourdailyqueer]

Julie Hermann

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: N/A  

Ethnicity: White

Occupation: Athletic director, former prof volleyball player, volleyball coach

Note: In 1997, she was the assistant coach for USA Volleyball, helping the National Team to a silver medal.

Problematic: Reports of being verbally abusive to players

[chlostertalks]

Rutgers had a female AD? Did not know that.

[itsthacover2]

Rutgers Fires AD Julie Hermann & Head Football Coach Kyle Flood

Rutgers Fires AD Julie Hermann & Head Football Coach Kyle Flood

Rutgers is cleaning house, starting with to of their biggest issues, AD Julie Hermann and head football coach Kyle Flood.

Both have been fired according to ESPN.com.

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/671025712657211392

View On WordPress

[mariopgrant]

Rutgers AD Makes Tasteless Sandusky Joke In Staff Meeting That You’ve Got To Read To Believe

#BroCode http://bit.ly/1roeGrG

[diannahworld]

She's Still There?

I was almost driven to scratching my face off when I read about Julie Hermann's recent 13 minute, 42 second press conference at Rutgers. I could only think--Are you kidding me? She's still there? Not only there, but securely there. And those who could change that are not changing that.

Prior to feeling scratchy, I was ready to give her a break when she said that the lessons of her past work experience, including (I assumed) the wealth of complaints about her behavior in those positions, make her "uniquely qualified" to become athletic director at Rutgers. Was she actually copping to her behaviors? Nope.

"I've been in every spot that existed in an athletic department and I understand the challenges, and I've been successful with them." (Quoting from 6/5/13 article in New York Daily News by Christian Red with my emphasis.)

What?! That's so "I-don't-see-myself-that-way." (Refer to my previous post on this topic to get this reference.)

Although listening to descriptions of her behavior by her former student athletes in Louisville--which allegedly includes calling them whores, learning disabled, and alcoholics-- was "heartbreaking," she asserts confidently "I am not a name caller." Apparently that she can remember.

Her appointment has been met with criticism from New Jersey politicians; Rutgers donors, boosters, and faculty; and the media. Nevertheless, she "can't wait to get started."

I'll bet she can't!

It is rather aggravating if not surprising that if released from her five-year contract, she'll still be paid its promised $2.5 million, according to news reports. Yea, I could live on that for the next five years.

If you've wondered how bullies and psychopaths rise to positions of authority and power in organizations, this is how.

[christopherj151515]

Rutgers University AD fisaco shows how incompetent college administrators can be

No one can really blame Julie Hermann for taking the job of Athletic Director at Rutgers when it was offered to her. After all, it wasn't up to her to divulge any details of "negatives" in her career history that might have prevented from being hired in a new job. That would be the responsibility of the people in charge of hiring - i.e., the college administrators at Rutgers University.

The level of incompetence of administrators and faculty at colleges and universities when it comes to hiring people for jobs borders on the bizarre. The situation at Rutgers is only one example.

First, the university wastes thousands of taxpayer dollars by paying an "executive search firm" to try to find a suitable candidate as its next athletic director. When in reality, the search committee of Rutgers administrators, faculty, and students could simple have advertised the opening and contacted other athletic departments at colleges around the country to inform them of the open position for minimal expense (not to mention, most people who work in college athletics would have known that there was an open position at Rutgers just by listening to the news).

Then, one of the members of the search committee on her own identifies Hermann as a candidate. So much for paying the search firm to provide a service. How come they didn't identify Hermann?

According to one published report, the process of hiring Hermann was rushed through the search committee, to the dismay of several committee members. Plus, no one at Rutgers did any kind of background check, which may have turned up the controversy of her tenure as a volleyball coach. The Star Ledger newspaper found out about the volleyball coaching controversy. Apparently, Rutgers did know about the discrimination lawsuit that was filed against Louisville when Hermann was there. It didn't seem to matter in the decision making process, as do many outlandish things that occur in the college sports world. College coaches and sports administrators get paid millions, jump from one job to the next, all the while claiming that they are working in the best interests of "student athletes." Yeah right.

Rutgers president Robert Barchi did the politically convenient thing by firing former athletic Tim Pernetti. Defending the hire of Hermann and not publicly admitting that Rutgers fouled up the vetting process is also a politically convenient move. But why should we expect anything more from the incompetent college administrators?

[diannahworld]

On Mean Girls in the Workplace

The recent events at Rutgers involving their new athletic director, Julie Hermann, brought viscerally to my mind a number of my own experiences working with mean women. Don’t get me wrong. Please. I have had positive working experiences with women and still, for some reason that only a well-qualified shrink could interpret, prefer working for and with women despite some very painful experiences in my work life. Today I’m just talking about the mean girls.

The allegations against Hermann by those who were caught in her web are achingly familiar to me. I’ve never been called a whore or learning disabled (to my face), but I have certainly been coldly insulted and cuttingly disrespected by women who I came to believe slithered to the top of their organizations by ensuring that no one around them appeared as competent as they.

Hermann’s complete memory loss as to her own behaviors isn’t uncommon, in my experience. One of the last women I worked for had a memory that could go synaptic toe to synaptic toe with Hermann’s for selective amnesia. This would be okay if the result weren’t always, coincidentally, not an admission that she had forgotten something but that I or another of her staff had done wrong.

One time I spoke to her about transporting some office equipment from an out-of-town work event back to the office as I could not do it. She cheerfully agreed. When the day came, she was unable to do it. Later on she chastised me for even thinking she could do it, what with her bad back and plans to go elsewhere after the event, two complications of which I had had no knowledge. When I reminded her that she had agreed to take care of this task, she said, “Why would I have agreed to it?”

Say what? One is hard pressed to respond to these folks. Or even to describe what they're doing.

On another occasion, for example, as we sat with my union rep and I struggled to explain how her passive-aggressive behavior and attitudes toward me and my work were creating an extremely stressful work situation, her  face and voice transformed into those of an angel and—seemingly in real emotional pain—she said, “I just don’t see myself that way.”  My male union rep’s conclusion was that we simply had a communication problem and should talk more.

But, enough about her, other than to say that mine wasn’t the only block she sought to knock off.

Workplace bullying is common enough to be covered in the traditional media, studied in academia, and discussed among social media denizens. A Google search for "bullying in the workplace" brings in more than seven million hits. Seven MILLION! I guess neither I nor Julie Hermann's targets have to feel lonely.... Although that's no consolation, certainly; being the target of bullying is a very lonely business.

And another thing--workplace bullies? Let's call them what they are--psychopaths in the workplace. For those who study this stuff, it's common knowledge that psychopaths are far more likely to be working in leadership positions someplace in America than committing grotesque crimes that become plot lines for Criminal Minds. They will stab, torture, flay, and ultimately kill your spirit with words, looks, and actions, leaving you with nary a bruise, cut, or abrasion to prove your case to others--or  even yourself.

With leadership positions comes money, of course. Hermann has been offered nearly a half million dollars by Rutgers. Oh, that hurts. It really does. It's bad enough to be bullied; but to be bullied by someone who makes the big bucks while you have to make a long-term plan to get your winter electric bill paid definitely adds psychic insult to psychic injury.

Your bully doesn't have to be your boss. In another office, I was not the target but stood by helplessly as one of my sister employees was "mobbed" by three or four other women. When I complained to our boss, his attitude was that people need to take care of their own interpersonal problems. I never could get him to intervene, and eventually the target employee was transferred, contrary to her will, to another department. As much as I hated being targeted myself, watching a kind and sensitive woman being beaten down day by day was far more painful.

I certainly hope Rutgers' higher ups rethink their hiring decision. Replacing someone who failed to reign in a bullying coach (i.e., the previous athletic director) with a bully might be newsworthy and the stuff of ironic fiction; but to do so is to tell those who will work for and with that person that their lives and careers are of no value.

I predict they'll have to back off, given the media attention and the evidence (that includes a wrongful termination suit that Hermann lost).

Meanwhile, back on the West Coast, I continue to reserve hope that the women who have tormented and scarred me will read about Julie Hermann and have a come-to-Jesus moment of self-realization. No. I lie, folks! I don't reserve hope. Honestly, I doubt any of them will "see themselves that way."

[therallycaps-blog]

Really, Rutgers?

Rutgers could have hired Sergio Garcia. Or Amanda Bynes. Or Steven Miller. Anyone but Julie Hermann as athletic director would have been a better choice. For a school still dealing with the repercussions of an abuse scandal, there are millions of reasons why hiring an athletic director with an abusive past is a bad idea. Apparently, Rutgers’ president Robert Barchi looked right past all of those.

It’s not that Julie Hermann is unqualified--heck, she could be the Babe Ruth of ADs (which she is not. Hermann has never been AD before: at Louisville, she was the Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director, whatever that is.), and this still wouldn’t be OK--, and it’s not that people don’t deserve second chances. It’s the lack of judgment at Rutgers. Whether or not it’s said out loud, the goal of Rutgers’ new AD is to do some serious image fixing. Any high schooler considering playing a sport at Rutgers would have thought twice about attending the school after the Mike Rice scandal even if Gandhi was the new AD (for those unaware, a videotape was discovered of basketball coach Mike Rice hitting players, calling them homophobic slurs, and beaming them with basketballs at point-blank range. Rice was fired along with Tim Pernetti, the athletic director. Barchi stayed at Rutgers although everyone agreed he should have fired Rice when the tape was first brought to the president’s attention.). Now, a former Tennessee Volunteer volleyball coach, who called her entire 15-player team “whores, alcoholics, and learning disabled,” is the most powerful person in the athletic department. Rutgers and Julie Hermann are a match made in hell.

When Hermann coached women’s volleyball at Tennessee in the ‘90s, she reportedly called members of her team whores alcoholics, and learning disabled. A former player also accused her coach of punching her mid-game. Players had enough, confronted the coach, and Hermann resigned. Her last words to the team after hearing their complaints were simply, "I choose not to coach you guys.”

Hermann’s past was revealed through detailed episodes by Craig Wolff of the Star Ledger who Hermann tried to soften her past record. “This was not an abusive environment. Was it challenging? Yes,” she said. “It was incredibly challenging.”

It was incredibly challenging.

It was challenging when all 15 of Hermann’s players squeezed into Hermann’s office to confront her.

It was challenging when Hermann hit a player in the gut during a game.

It was so challenging that no players from the 1995-6 team have made contact with their coach since.

It has been incredibly challenging for Hermann to deny it 18 years later.

The most horrendous part of Hermann’s hiring is the hypocrisy it displays. Look at the first sentence of Rutger’s Code of Conduct: “All members of the Rutgers University community are expected to behave in an ethical and moral fashion, respecting the human dignity of all members of the community and resisting behavior that may cause danger or harm to others through violence, theft, or bigotry.” Notice the phrase ‘all members of the Rutgers University community.” Not just students. Not just athletes. Everyone. Julie Hermann hasn’t displayed ethical behavior, she hasn’t respected human dignity, nor has she resisted behavior that may cause danger or harm to others. Just read what Abbey Watkins, a member of the 1995-6 Tennessee team, coached by Hermann, had to say about her former coach: “I pray that each of my teammates are happy and well despite what we went through. […]She had made me hate the game I loved.”

Pretty harsh, huh?

President Barchi should have been fired when it became clear that he knew of Mike Rice’s unacceptable actions. Now, with this latest fumble, Barchi needs to go ASAP. He showed everyone that he cannot control his employees, and apparently he can’t choose suitable employees either. For Rutgers to move forward, they must clean the slate. They have to own up to their mistakes. They have to move on.

As former New Jersey Governor Dick Codey told the AP, "[Tim Pernetti’s] successor is someone who is an obvious liar, a flat-out liar. She shouldn't be the AD anywhere, whether it's Rutgers or anywhere else. She should stay in Louisville and not come back to the state, and Barchi should go to Louisville himself, because he is not a leader. It's dumb and dumber."

 Julie Hermann, your hiring at Rutgers will bring unneeded attention to the school and yourself. Step down. Rutgers only has room for a carry-on. You have too many oversized bags with you.

Own it.

Robert Barchi, your past 6 months at Rutgers have been the worst that any college has ever seen. Step down. Allow the school to move forward. There is no possible way that Hermann was the best of 63 candidates for the job, frankly, you botched another one.

  Own it.

  Chris Christie, your state controls the university.

  Deal with it faster than you’d deal with a box of donuts.