re: Roy King Fired

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I have heard this from a trusted source who has first hand knowledge.

Roy not only controlled the stipend money that every member of Tiger Band received, he also controlled the full scholarships that the Band used to recruit top high school musicians who were interested in playing in Tiger Band. These scholarships also include requirements for those musicians to participate in other wind ensembles within the SOM (Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Winds, or Symphonic Band).

Now, all of those ensembles were under the control of Frank Wickes, since he was Director of Bands. So, he routinely used the scholarships to bring in the top talent that built the LSU Wind Ensemble into one of the best in the country. However, when Wickes retired, the SOM restructured the Tiger Band job away from being the Director of Bands. This change is related to why Moorhouse left; she was not being given the same scope of responsibilities that Wickes was given.

When Roy took the Tiger Band jobs, he still had control of the scholarships, but someone else was the director of the Wind Ensemble. In certain cases, Roy threatened to take away scholarships from musicians who won a seat in Wind Ensemble or Symphonic Winds who then decided to not participate in Symphonic Band, the concert ensemble Roy directed. In other words, more money was available to provide scholarships to the third band than was available to the top band. That's an untenable situation, even though nothing was illegal in the situation.

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This is how it was explained to me as well.

In other words, the School of Music will now be the ultimate entity which has purview over the budget, and doesn't and hasn't wanted it to go to non-band entities like Color Guard & the Golden Girls.

Basically, they didn't like King not turning over control of the budget he had autonomy over and so when he balked they fired him.

How is this different than what's been said?

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Basically, they didn't like King not turning over control of the budget he had autonomy over and so when he balked they fired him.

How is this different than what's been said?

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Roy abused his power. Wickes would use Tiger Band as a tool to recruit great musicians to LSU and give them TB scholarships. Roy was doing almost the opposite by giving them to people and not allowing them to 'move up' within the symphonic bands.

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Why would F King need to fire the band director just to get a piece of 300K shifted from one department to the other?

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If an employee has been directed to do a specific thing and the employee refuses. That is insubordination. Grounds for termination. Repeated acts of non compliance dictate the terms and method of termination. The straw that broke the camels back

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I'm guessing the GG scholarship money will transfer to the SOM and the AD will pick up the tab for their scholarships and reduce the donation to the university by the same amount.

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They could move the GG's and CG to the Spirit Squads with Cheer/Tiger Girls/Mascots. Allocate more money to that unit to cover added costs. Although I don't trust the current head of spirit squads with that responsibility.

There's still a big problem here. If what some of you say is true about how scholarships where handed out and divided up, then LSU made a serious mistake in firing Roy for other reasons. They will now not be able to use insubordination as a cause in court.

If you read through the list of reasons he was actually fired for, they are petty and overblown.

- He was held responsible for money being stolen from someone who wasn't under his direct authority.

- He was accused of giving out scholarships to CG and GG members, but this has been done for DECADES. A former CG member of the Support Roy King group on Facebook uploaded a screenshot of her LSU acceptance letter detailing the scholarship she got years ago. Many others have spoken up and said they got them through the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s.

- The nepotism charge is also ridiculous. His daughter was hired by someone else, and her hiring was approved by Damon Talley, the current Director of Bands. She also wasn't under his direct supervision. And of course, if this goes to court, any cases of nepotism school-wide become fair game for justification. How many of those do you think there are?

Based on THESE CHARGES, the man should not have been fired. If the school wanted scholarships and awards to be handled differently, then they shouldn't have restructured the band department in such a way that power was divided. It is natural for conflicts to arise in those kinds of circumstances.

If the SOM had issues with what Roy was doing with scholarships, then they should have fired him for that cause. If they were disappointed with the progress or direction of the program, then they should have fired him for that. They didn't, and in the process they have opened themselves up to a lawsuit.

I'm sure LSU will do all they can to get Roy to settle and sign a non-disclosure agreement so all of this will stay hidden. However, I hope Roy will take it the distance. The discovery process will put a whole lot of information the administration would like to keep hidden out in the public eye, and some heads would likely roll for it. I think this is the best and easiest way to get rid on F King Alexander, so I am all for it.

According to one of my FB friends:

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He definitely had it coming. More details will get out to the public and people will actually see that he was in the wrong. Misallocation of funds at any job will get anyone fired.

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This person was also a music major, so I guess the whole ensemble factor with scholarships may be it.

To be fair, there's a lot of rumors going around about exactly why he was fired, but none have been confirmed and they shot down one. This just could have been handled a LOT better.

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This person was also a music major, so I guess the whole ensemble factor with scholarships may be it. To be fair, there's a lot of rumors going around about exactly why he was fired, but none have been confirmed and they shot down one. This just could have been handled a LOT better.

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That sounds like one perspective based on the information given above. However, people need to step back a bit when saying they Roy was holding people hostage and "blackmailing" them. If he was giving out scholarships from they Tiger Bamd fund, then there are terms that go with that, and that usually includes mandatory participation in a certain number of ensembles for a certain number of semesters. One could look at this situation and say Roy is wrong and holding students hostage. Another could look at the same thing and come to the conclusion that he was defending his budget.

It sounds to me like this entire mess was created when the SOM divided the responsibilities of the band program. They divided the loyalties along with it, and pushed a very capable director in Linda Morehouse out in the process. If the scholarships were handled by one director, then none of this would be an issue. When I was there, Wickes was in charge of everything, so it didn't matter which band you were in. As long as you were meeting the terms of your scholarship, you were fine, because there weren't any of these divisions.

The way things were done in the past also encouraged more music majors to be last of the band, and for more years when they did. I was in TGBFTL for all 4 years thanks to the stipend, but I also did Wind Symphony (I think that was the name of the middle band) and Wind Ensemble both semesters, too, as well as Percussion Ensemble, Jazz Band, Orchestra, and others. I was very busy in the Fall, but I loved it. Unfortunately, it sounds like this would not be possible, or would be very difficult today.

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That sounds like one perspective based on the information given above. However, people need to step back a bit when saying they Roy was holding people hostage and "blackmailing" them. If he was giving out scholarships from they Tiger Bamd fund, then there are terms that go with that, and that usually includes mandatory participation in a certain number of ensembles for a certain number of semesters. One could look at this situation and say Roy is wrong and holding students hostage. Another could look at the same thing and come to the conclusion that he was defending his budget.

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True. I never really got a lot of those details as a non-music major who didn't have any ensemble scholarships, just the Tiger Band stipend. I know there's a kind of ensemble participation requirement.

It does seem like a lot of music majors aren't exactly upset that he's out.

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Now maybe they will bring back Neck.

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STTDB

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