by: Diane Benjamin
Patrick Murphy was fired from ISU after the altercation with former President Flanagan.
Patrick Murphy isn’t just some maintenance guy. He is an ISU grad with a degree in horticulture. Patrick came back to Normal just to work for the school he graduated from. He was just weeks away from being off probation as a new hire. Murphy was fired just days after the incident.
Some ISU students are outraged at not only the Board of Trustees paying Flanagan off, but at the Murphy firing. They are staging a protest on the Quad Monday-Friday from 12-3 pm every day getting petitions signed asking ISU re-hire Murphy. They started with 2 people on Monday, by Thursday many more students joined in.
Patrick Murphy was very respected by the people he supervised and the people he worked with. I’ve talked to employees who want Murphy re-hired, no one believes the firing was justified. New President Dietz promised to look into his firing. There is a lot more to this story that I can’t print yet. Dietz could do a lot to end this disaster by giving Murphy the justice he deserves. The students are standing up for a good guy.
Dr. Sullivan of ISU wrote the following story for the school paper. It is mostly about the Flanagan payoff, but Murphy is mentioned in the comments.
If you can, stop by the Quad and support the student by signing the petition. They are doing a good thing.
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This is great! They couldn’t of picked a worse person to fire then Patrick Murphy. I’ve worked out there for over 15 years and have seen supervisors who used their power in unethical ways to demonize, suspend and even fire good workers that they did not personally like and who had no inside connections. This is why I have “no trust” in them and I’m just getting in my time to get my retirement and get out of there. I’ve said this before and I will say it again, the upper administrators at ISU does not create better workers, they create bitter (hurt) workers!
Is there a way for alumni not on the campus to sign? Support staff play an integral role in keeping the university running and this is no way to treat them. Its shameful.
Sure. You can walk on the quad – it’s all open. Look for students with signs.