SUNY Oswego’s Officer-in-Charge Mary Toale is one of five presidential candidates potentially moving forward to the final round of interviews for the position, though as the only internal candidate, she has faced questions about whether she should have been able to apply for the job. 

Toale first came to SUNY Oswego in 2014 to create a new communication studies graduate program and was named a Faculty Fellow in the President’s Office by former President Deborah Stanley in 2017. Following Stanley’s appointment as interim SUNY Chancellor on Dec. 20, 2021,Toale was named officer-in-charge effective on Jan. 1, 2022. 

As one of the five finalists, Toale participated in a series of open forums that were held on March 20 and were available to faculty, staff, students, alumni and the public at varying times throughout the day. At the faculty open forum, questions about Toale’s past at SUNY Oswego were raised, specifically about her time as chair of the communication studies department and how she dealt with conflicts of interest. 

Ulises Mejias, a professor of communication at SUNY Oswego, asked Toale directly about these topics, citing previous issues he saw when Toale’s spouse, Katherine Thweatt, was hired to the communication department. His question was stopped under the premise that the topic was illegal to inquire about. 

“Dr. Toale suggested that my question concerning her role during her spouse’s hire was illegal, because it disclosed her marital status,” Mejias said in an email. “On the one hand, Dr. Toale mentioned that … her marital status was public knowledge prior to the hiring of her spouse and on the other, she claims that a public question referencing her marital status is illegal.” 

Toale was contacted for comment but declined at this time due to confidentiality of the presidential search. 

At the second faculty open forum with Karin Ruhlandt, the next presidential candidate, Frank Byrne, chair of the history department at SUNY Oswego, asked a similar question to what was asked of Toale in regard to issues of conflict of interest, as Ruhlandt and her husband both work at Syracuse University. That question was permitted in that forum.

“We have two couples in our department, so this is not an unusual thing,” Byrne said. “It’s just unusual when protocols are not followed and people are not aware of what’s going on.” 

Other questions to Toale included how she was eligible to apply for the presidency, as she previously was not able to under her title of officer-in-charge.

Toale first announced she was able to apply for the presidency on Feb. 13 at a Faculty Assembly meeting, but did not disclose if she was in the running. When asked by Byrne at the meeting how she was able to apply for the presidency, Toale said it was a confidential process and she could not comment on it.

“The problem with that is she is an inside candidate,” Byrne said. “She benefits from that; that is one reason that [officers-in-charge] are generally not allowed to apply for a job because there is an extreme benefit to having that role.”

Byrne said Toale acknowledged at the acceptance of the officer-in-charge position that she would not be eligible for the presidency and it was very unclear why she was able to apply during the second round of the search.

“The transparency of everything, including the previous [presidential] search that failed, is off,” Jennifer Fogel, a broadcasting professor at SUNY Oswego, said. “We didn’t understand why it failed, we seemed to have good candidates … That on top of the [officer-in-charge] title meaning something different, that’s where the confusion lies.”

The current presidential search is the second attempt by SUNY Oswego to fill the vacancy. The first search was conducted in spring of 2022 and ended with no candidates advancing to the final round on Aug. 26, 2022, according to a statement from Jim McMahon, chair of the search committee and chair of the College Council. 

“The whole point of going with an officer-in-charge and not an interim president was so the officer-in-charge could just focus on running the institution and they were not going to be a candidate,” Lisa Glidden, professor of political science and director of global and international studies, said. 

Glidden continued, saying that officer-in-charge was supposed to be a short-term position and Toale’s title should have been altered to interim president before she was able to apply. 

“Her classification didn’t change and it should have. She should have gone from being officer-in-charge to being interim president,” Glidden said. “My main concern is that it was very unclear from the beginning. No one could answer that question.”

SUNY does not offer a publicly available description of an officers-in-charge or an interim president’s role or responsibilities and was not available to comment at this time. 

Due to the lack of information about Toale’s eligibility, a group of 35 faculty members, including Glidden, Byrne and Mejias, signed and sent a Statement on Process Concerns for the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Candidacy to the presidential search committee, dated March 25. 

“We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about the Officer-in-Charge’s (OIC) candidacy for the position of President, and what it means for the future of our university,” the statement reads. 

The letter also states the difference between officer-in-charge, acting president and interim president: “An initial condition of being OIC was not applying for the position of president … The end result is that we now read this as the OIC being dishonest with the faculty and the institution as secretly changing the rules when it applied for the waiver.”

“A lot of the target of the statement was SUNY,” Glidden said. “SUNY has had problems because they have not officially outlined what this officer-in-charge role is … There’s so much that is bad optics and you don’t want to be starting a presidency with that, you want to be able to start with a strong foot forward. And starting with questions has eroded so much trust.”

According to the SUNY Guidelines for Conducting a Presidential Search, “Interim Presidents may not be candidates for the presidency unless they have received the written permission of the Chancellor to participate as candidates.”

These guidelines do not provide information about restrictions for an officer-in-charge. 

The Statement on Process Concerns focused on the lack of clarity surrounding Toale’s ability to apply for the presidency and the presidential search process, Fogel said, not Toale’s career history.

“I feel that Dr. Toale’s failures to disclose information and irregularities in declaring her candidacy for the job of President are part of a larger pattern,” Mejias said in an email. “The Chancellor, the College Council, and our campus community need to take these facts into account when considering the appointment of someone to any office … that demands accountability, transparency and integrity.”

The presidential search committee recommended three candidates to the SUNY Chancellor John King, as announced at Faculty Assembly on April 17, though names were not announced. After a series of interviews, King will submit one candidate to the SUNY Board of Trustees who are scheduled to meet in June.

**Some information in this article was provided by Abigail Conpropst and Spencer Bates.**

Photo via: SUNY Oswego