FROM MAY 2008: Eastern Michigan University regents are poised to hire a new president, marking what they hope will be a new chapter for the Ypsilanti campus that has been dogged by scandal over the cover-up of a student's murder. Dr. Susan Martin, provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs for the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus, will become Eastern's 22nd president. She also will be the first woman to lead the 159-year-old university. (Detroit Free Press)
FROM APRIL 2008: A Southfield, Mich., man has been found guilty of murder in the 2006 slaying of an Eastern Michigan University student in her residence hall room. Orange Taylor III, 22, was convicted of killing Laura Dickinson, 22, of Hastings, Mich., on the Ypsilanti campus. The university's widely criticized response to the December 2006 slaying triggered a federal probe and led to the ouster of the school president and other top administrators. The school failed to disclose that a murder had taken place on campus until Taylor was in custody two months after Dickinson's death. (Detroit Free Press)
FROM DECEMBER 2007: The federal government has fined Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti $357,500 for "serious, numerous and repeated" violations of a campus security law in the cover-up of the suspected rape and killing of a student in her residence hall room. The fine is the latest cost associated with how EMU handled the murder investigation of Laura Dickinson, 22, who was found dead a year ago in her Hill Hall room. In all, the campus death and the ouster of three university officials accused of covering it up will cost the university an estimated $3.8 million in severance packages, legal fees and penalties. (Detroit News)
EARLIER: Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti will pay $2.5 million to the family and estate of Laura Dickinson, the student killed in her residence hall room a year ago. Dickinson, 22, was found dead Dec. 15, 2006, but university officials withheld details about her death from her family and the public for two months. Dickinson's death and the university's response to it spawned an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. That led to the firing of university President John Fallon and the resignation of two other officials. Orange Taylor III, 21, of Southfield, whose first trial on charges that he murdered Dickinson ended in a hung jury, faces retrial next month. (Detroit Free Press)
Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti committed "serious violations" of federal campus safety laws by failing to alert students to a residence hall murder investigation and failing to accurately report the number of campus crimes for three years, according the final report by the U.S. Department of Education. The 26-page report reiterates the findings of the department's preliminary investigation this summer into violations of the federal Clery Act, which requires universities to issue timely warnings of campus crimes. This time, the Department of Education reviewed the corrective actions EMU has put into place since the university drew the national spotlight for what's been dubbed a murder cover-up. University leaders at the time said no foul play was suspected in the death of student Laura Dickinson, 22, when, in fact, police were investigating her death as a murder and rape. (Detroit News)
John Fallon, former president of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, contends in a lawsuit against the university that he was fired because he was about to expose wrongdoing at the university. Fallon's termination stems from how the university handled the murder and rape investigation of student Laura Dickinson, who was found dead Dec. 15 in her residence hall. The Department of Education found that the university violated the federal Clery Act when it said there was no reason to suspect foul play. (Detroit News)
Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti has launched a new branding campaign, dubbed "Education First," that leaders hope will propel the university to positive heights after months of negative scrutiny. The university had been researching new image strategies long before the coverup of a campus murder led to the ouster of the university president and brought unwanted attention to the school earlier this year. (Detroit News)
Former Eastern Michigan University President John Fallon says his former vice president of student affairs covered up a campus slaying. Fallon says he may consider legal action to clear his name. Fallon contends that former Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Vick told him that student Laura Dickinson's body was found in her residence hall room Dec. 15 with no evident signs of foul play. (Detroit News)
EARLIER: Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti plans to repair its tattered image by carrying out a 16-point security plan and assuring the community, students, parents and others that its mission of educating students is unwavering. The announcement comes after federal reports found the university covered up details of the 2006 murder of a student on campus. The coverup cost three administrators, including the school president, their jobs. Executive Vice President Donald Loppnow, who has assumed the president's duties, acknowledges that the university's actions after the murder of Laura Dickinson, 22, undermined confidence in the institution. (Detroit News)
Three Eastern Michigan University administrators forced out of their jobs amid a scandal for covering up a student's murder will receive at least a combined $542,000 in salary and other pay. Severance agreements indicate that Jim Vick, vice president for student affairs, and Cindy Hall, public safety director, will be allowed to retire and collect pension and benefits. They also will receive a year's salary under the agreements, totaling $245,253 for the two administrators. Ousted university president John Fallon will collect a year's pay of $225,000.(Ann Arbor News)
Eastern Michigan University President John Fallon has been fired by the Board of Regents in a unanimous vote, ending weeks of speculation across the embattled campus. The dismissal comes after widespread criticism of the university's handling of information following a student's death on the Ypsilanti campus. Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Vick and Public Safety Director Cindy Hall also have left the university by "mutual agreement." (Ann Arbor News)
ALSO:
Eastern Michigan University regents say the dismissals of three top administrators and the reprimand of a fourth sends a strong message that they are serious about restoring the university's damaged credibility after the school hid the circumstances of a student's slaying last year. (Detroit Free Press)
The Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents has pledged to move toward a more open, honest and cooperative environment at a campus plagued by turmoil long before the murder of one of its students. (Detroit News)
A U.S. Department of Education report says Eastern Michigan University violated federal law on numerous occasions by failing to alert students of a homicide in a residence hall and by underreporting campus rapes for three years. The report paints a picture of a university that has widespread problems with campus security laws and contradicts previous statements by the university's president, John Fallon, that he wasn't aware the campus death was a homicide. (Detroit News)
An independent investigation has concluded that several officials at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti deceived the public, withheld information and violated federal law to cover up the on-campus killing of a student. A report by a Detroit law firm says university officials quickly learned foul play was a possibility in the death of Laura Dickinson. Despite that information, the university issued a statement the next day stating that "there is no reason to suspect foul play." Among the acts highlighted in the report was a university official's decision to shred a detailed police report, the university's violation of federal law by not telling students that Dickinson may have been killed, and the university's standing by the initial claims until someone was charged in the slaying. (Detroit Free Press)
FOLLOWUP: James Vick, Eastern Michigan University's vice president for student affairs, says he is the scapegoat in a homicide cover-up that unfolded following the December death of student Laura Dickinson. An independent report on how the case was handled generally blamed Vick for failing to inform university president John Fallon of the details in the case. Vick is on paid leave from his $144,000-a-year job. (Detroit Free Press)
The slaying last year of an Eastern Michigan University student in her Ypsilanti residence hall has many students and parents taking a closer look at safety on college and university campuses. Some may not consider the issue of campus safety when they make those choices. But officials at Security on Campus, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit organization that advocates for accurate crime reporting and for safer campuses, say incidents like the Eastern Michigan slaying shows that they should.(Detroit Free Press)
A nonprofit group has filed a formal complaint against Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti asking whether the school violated federal law by not immediately informing students and faculty of the slaying of a student on campus. Security On Campus Inc., a national campus-crime watchdog group, filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. It alleges that the university may have violated the federal Jeanne Clery Act by not informing students and faculty that the death of a 22-year-old student in December was being investigated as a homicide. (Detroit News)
A vice president at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti has been placed on administrative leave while a probe has begun to determine whether there was a cover-up in the school's handling of the death of a student in December. Jim Vick, a 33-year university veteran who has been vice president of student affairs since 2000, is on paid administrative leave while an outside legal counsel investigates how the university disclosed information involving the death of Laura Dickinson, 22, whose body was found Dec. 15, 2006, in her residence hall room. The university stated soon after the death that "there is no reason to suspect foul play." However, in February, a student was charged with murdering Dickinson. (Detroit News)
Eastern Michigan University President John Fallon has apologized to the EMU community and offered his sympathy to the family of Laura Dickinson in the wake of the university's handling of the investigation into her death. In a written statement, Fallon said the university "got it wrong," shamefully so, in the aftermath of Dickinson's death. She was slain in her residence hall room, but the university did not announce that fact for about two months. (Detroit Free Press)
