Two Cal State Presidents Assail Chancellor : Accuse Her of Mistreating Dominguez Hills Campus Leader Who Died

The presidents of two large campuses in the California State University system have strongly condemned CSU Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds for her treatment of the late President Richard Butwell of California State University, Dominguez Hills, who died Feb. 18 of a heart attack two weeks after Reynolds suggested that he find another job.

In a letter written to Dale B. Ride, chairman of the Cal State Board of Trustees, and made available to The Times, Thomas B. Day, president of San Diego State, said Reynolds’ behavior toward Butwell was typical of her “brutalizing” treatment of the 19 campus presidents in the system.

“All presidents learn to live with the reality that the Board of Trustees can call them to account at any time,” Day wrote. “But the chancellor’s behavior toward presidents, exhibited repeatedly over the years privately and publicly, creates a continual apprehension that one will suddenly have to deal with surprise personalized attacks and erratic charges with bizarre overtones. This creates an added dimension to executive tension which is unnecessary, unfair and bitterly resented.

“There is no doubt in my mind that such behavior contributed to a good man’s distress.”

In another letter to Ride, Cal State Long Beach President Stephen Horn said he had five telephone conversations with Butwell between Feb. 4, the day after Reynolds suggested he resign, and Feb. 16, two days before Butwell’s death.

“In my judgment, the treatment of him, as described by President Butwell, is unconscionable and unprofessional,” Horn wrote. “The damage which has been done to this decent human being deserves the full attention of the board. His lifetime of integrity and his memory deserve no less.”

And in a letter from Butwell to Ride, written five days before his death, Butwell said Reynolds had “very strongly advised me to resign” at the Feb. 3 meeting, “urging me to inform her within 48 hours that I would do so.”

According to the Butwell letter, Reynolds wanted the president to announce his resignation July 1 and to leave his post by the end of the year. He also said Reynolds “urged me to tell absolutely no one, which would include the trustees, of our discussion.”

Butwell asked Ride about “the authority of the chancellor to force a president’s resignation” and about “the propriety of the chancellor in instructing a president not to discuss a matter, even one as major as a presidential resignation, with anyone.”

Day, Horn and Ride--none of whom was the Times’ source for the letters--all declined to comment on their contents

Ride has appointed a trustees’ committee, headed by Theodore A. Bruinsma, to look into the Butwell affair. This committee’s findings will be made available to the trustees before their May 12-13 meeting, a meeting at which some observers expect an attempt will be made to remove Reynolds as head of the 19-campus, 340,000-student system, the nation’s largest university system.

Not all of the CSU presidents agree with Day and Horn.

In another letter to Ride, President Ellis E. McCune of California State University, Hayward, said “to use President Butwell’s death and his grieving survivors as pawns in a political power play is unconscionable. In particular, to suggest, as does the recent letter sent some trustees by a president, that the chancellor caused Dick Butwell’s death by subjecting him to undue stress, is not merely nonsense it is a shocking and cynical use of others’ misfortune to further a political agenda.”

Late Wednesday, Reynolds issued a statement saying, “I categorically deny that I have ever mistreated any president, either as a result of the evaluation of the performance of that president or in the context of any meeting where personal differences may have occurred.

“All evaluations and discussions in which the board and I participated have been handled in a professional manner and were designed to serve the best interests of the California State University. I believe they have been accepted as such by responsible leadership throughout this system.”

Last week the chancellor said she had been instructed by the trustees’ Personnel Committee “to talk with President Butwell about other career options, in view of the tremendous problems at Dominguez Hills that had come to light in the fall of 1986.”

These problems included a sharp enrollment drop, a budget deficit, poor results on the state qualifying test for teachers and strained relations between Butwell and key faculty members.

One of the three trustees on the Personnel Committee said Reynolds was told not to “dilly-dally” with Butwell but to persuade him to resign or else the full Board of Trustees would fire him.

But Ride said Reynolds was instructed only to discuss the problems, and possible solutions, with Butwell, not to ask for his resignation.

3rd Person Present

When Reynolds and Butwell met at Cal State headquarters in Long Beach on Feb. 3, a third person was present--Cesar Naples, vice chancellor for faculty and staff relations.

In a memo describing the meeting, Naples wrote that Reynolds discussed the Dominguez Hills problems with Butwell and “suggested that he should consider voluntarily stepping down as president so as to preserve his career and avoid public embarrassment to the campus and to himself.”

If Butwell did not resign, the chancellor said, the trustees would be forced to review his performance and “in view of the enrollment and budget problems and in view of the lack of faculty support, the chancellor observed that she doubted whether President Butwell would fare well in such a review,” according to the Naples memo.

Reynolds described her meeting with Butwell as “quite calm and rational” and said he agreed to consider taking a trustee professorship at a different CSU campus. Butwell asked for time to consider his decision and another meeting was set for Feb. 11.

Naples said the chancellor did not order Butwell to keep quiet about the meeting but that the Dominguez Hills president expressed concern that news of the session might get out. Reynolds, according to Naples, replied that “if President Butwell didn’t want the nature of this conversation to spread, he would be well advised not to discuss it with persons” other than the few who already knew.

Butwell then called Day and Horn and several other campus presidents, as well as Ride and other trustees.

As a result of these discussions, Butwell decided not to attend the scheduled Feb. 11 meeting with Reynolds, for which, according to the Day letter, he received “a three-sentence note . . . castigating him.”