Former U of S president resigns professor position

More than a year after being fired as the University of Saskatchewan’s president, Ilene Busch-Vishniac is leaving the campus.

Busch-Vishniac had been serving as a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, but sent a resignation letter to department chair Jim Bugg at the end of May.

A copy of the letter was provided to News Talk Radio. In it, Busch-Vishniac admits she wasn’t comfortable in a professor’s role, having spent her career focussed on administration. She said she feels “academically isolated” without a “strong teaching portfolio” or “potential collaborators for research.”

In addition, Busch-Vishniac says the trauma from last year’s firing has made it impossible to live an academic life.

“I remain in the news on a regular basis,” she writes, “and I have had to avoid the media multiple times this year as they have sought me out. That has frankly become too much to bear, affecting my ability to perform my job and my health.”

Busch-Vishniac’s resignation is effective Aug. 31.

Also leaving the campus is the former head of the School of Public Health, Dr. Robert Buckingham. His letter criticising the TransformUS cost-cutting program sparked the series of events that led to the firing of Busch-Vishniac last spring.

In an email to News Talk 650 CKOM, Buckingham confirmed he has resigned his faculty position at the U of S, but will return in September as a consultant to “finish up a few projects.”

Meanwhile, Busch-Vishniac continues to pursue a lawsuit against her former employer. She is seeking over $8 million in damages, claiming that her firing has made her effectively unemployable as a senior university administrator.

The filing goes on to allege improper interference by Premier Brad Wall and then-Advanced Education Minister Rob Norris.

kdoering@rawlco.com
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