In other words, Caldwell didn't resign voluntarily. He was pushed out. But you won't get anyone to say that on the record. The official story is that everyone loves everyone and, skipping hand in hand, will live happily ever after.
This is, after all, Utah.
Caldwell's forced departure from Dixie had nothing to do with his character. By all accounts, he's as clean as the Glock in a legislator's shoulder holster. But by the standard of behavior sometimes characterized as "Utah nice," Caldwell was a sinner just the same.
You see, Caldwell did not wait to speak until he was spoken to. He was not suitably subservient to the grandees atop the state system of higher education who don't like upstarts from a southwestern Utah border town telling them what to do and when to do it.
Caldwell, according to some of his many supporters in St. George and among the Dixie College faculty, was too aggressive. He wanted Dixie to graduate from its long-standing status as a two-year junior college to a four-year institution. He wanted a partnership between Dixie and the University of Utah to develop educational programs, particularly in the medical field, and to use Dixie as a catalyst for economic development in Washington County.
He pushed hard. And most of the Dixie faculty and the business community in St. George loved him for it. But when you kick up your heels and dance, instead of knowing your place along the ballroom wall, you likely will step on some self-important toes. And that's why Caldwell is "pursuing other opportunities."
Southern Utah University in Cedar City is a four-year institution, and it's no secret there is resistance there to Dixie gaining equal status. There also is some pushing and pulling between legislators from the St. George area who want Dixie elevated, and the State Board of Regents, which can't abide being pushed.
Those supporting Caldwell's ouster say there were style issues with the Dixie boss. He was, they say, too much the bull, willing to break china to get things moving faster than the Board of Regents wanted them to move.
While higher education officials implied with straight faces on Thursday that Caldwell's departure was voluntary, it was fairly well known on Capitol Hill several weeks ago that there would soon be a change at Dixie College. In fact, rumors were rife among Republicans that Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, was in the running to succeed Caldwell, though Urquhart told me last week that this was "unequivocally not true."
Still, Urquhart proudly noted in an op-ed for a St. George publication that, due to his efforts and those of his fellow Washington County legislators, "Dixie actually brought home more state money this year than any other college or university in the system."
Dixie faculty and members of the St. George Chamber of Commerce, however, give much of that credit to Caldwell, and now feel that the Board of Regents is making sure that the powers in Salt Lake City, not the lesser ones in St. George, will decide what's best for Dixie.
The regents already have an interim replacement for Caldwell, another indication that this has been in the works for a while. The choice is telling, too: Stephen Nadauld, former president of Weber State University and a one-time general authority of the LDS Church.
With that background, it can be safely assumed that Nadauld comprehends, as Caldwell apparently did not, the futility of trying to buck the higher-ed chain of command. You just don't do that in Utah. It isn't "nice."
