THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 6, 1994 TAG: 9412060339
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Chancellor Jimmy R. Jenkins of Elizabeth City State University told a trustees committee Monday that Professor Carol S. O'Dell was involved in campus controversy within 30 days after she went to work as a mathematics professor in 1992.
O'Dell appeared before the three ECSU trustees for an initial hearing on her petition to be reinstated to her $37,000-a-year faculty job.
O'Dell, a 47-year-old white Ph.D. in mathematics, claims she was discriminated against by faculty members at the predominantly black university because of her gender and race. Her contract was not renewed for the 1993-94 academic year.
She now is head of the mathematics department at Chowan College in Murfreesboro.
``The records clearly show that (O'Dell) has established that employment with the university is, in her opinion, untenable and further supports our request that the decision (not to reappoint her) be upheld,'' Jenkins said in a 19-page reply to O'Dell's reinstatement arguments.
As a condition of her reinstatement, O'Dell is demanding $1.2 million in damages and various guarantees and apologies from Jenkins and other ECSU staff members, as well as a salary increase comparable to ``the average raise paid to black faculty of equivalent rank.''
Jenkins, in the documents submitted to the hearing committee, revealed that in September of 1993, O'Dell was offered a 1994 contract - at the same $37,000 annual salary - and accepted the proposal.
But in November of 1993, Dr. Helen Caldwell, vice chancellor for academic affairs, notified O'Dell that she would not be reappointed because of a subsequent unfavorable report from O'Dell's ECSU department head.
O'Dell repeatedly mentioned her difficulties with Dr. Sohindar Sachdev, the ECSU professor in charge of the mathematics department, in a legal petition submitted to the three trustees.
Many of the her exhibits reflect O'Dell's continuous appeals for computer equipment.
In a letter to Caldwell, O'Dell describes Sachdev as having ``a negative attitude'' toward female faculty members.
O'Dell attracted national attention in newspapers and academic publications when she accused Jenkins of making racial remarks at a faculty meeting in 1993.
O'Dell said in her reinstatement petition that she still believes the chancellor's comments were a hint to white faculty members that they should seek teaching jobs elsewhere if they didn't like conditions at ECSU.
Jenkins later apologized for the remarks but told O'Dell he had been misunderstood.
``We hope to report our findings to the full Board of Trustees on Dec. 20,'' said William T. Davis, an Elizabeth City attorney who is chairman of the special trustees hearing committee.
Serving with Davis are John Morrison, another Elizabeth City lawyer, and Stanley Green Jr., a Raleigh banker.
O'Dell said last week she would not be represented by counsel at Monday's closed hearing in the G.R. Little Library conference room at ECSU.
``I prepared my case myself,'' O'Dell said, ``And representatives of a law firm I planned to retain recommended that I submit the petition just as I drafted it.''
If the ECSU trustees and Jenkins turn down O'Dell, the West Virginia math scholar may then appeal to the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina system.
In another ECSU faculty disagreement last year, O'Dell helped Dr. Carol Kerr, a child education professor, win reinstatement after Kerr was fired in a dispute with another ECSU faculty department head.
The UNC Board of Governors ordered Kerr be reinstated with full back pay, but Kerr soon left, saying she was uncomfortable on the ECSU campus. by CNB