David CookA degree of turmoil is unfolding in the president's office at Chattanooga State Community College.
On Sept. 19, the chief innovations officer resigned. Her academic background was in question. Violation of immigration law, a possibility.
Days later, she was given her job back.
Around this time, the Tennessee Board of Regents began a formal audit of either the college or its longstanding president, Dr. Jim Catanzaro.
Barely into the fall semester, Catanzaro is now having to answer a collection of questions about high-ranking, highly paid staff members and what actually makes a college degree a degree.
The story begins more than a year ago, on a sunny island 2,200 miles away from Amnicola Highway.
Barbados.
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It's a place Catanzaro loves. He strolls its beaches, studies its history, hobnobs with its leaders and even has created an academic partnership with the University of the West Indies.
There he met Lisa Haynes, a citizen of Barbados who in 2013 was managing a trio of businesses: a construction supply company, a private lending firm and a boutique-blog called "Island Girl Lifestyle" for Caribbean women living overseas.
Catanzaro was impressed.
In August 2013, he offered her a job as his senior executive assistant making $90,000 a year.
Months later, Catanzaro promoted her to the post of chief innovations officer, a job that put Haynes in charge of developing business partnerships near and far while transforming the college into a place of innovation and social entrepreneurship.
Then he gave her $1,500 a month more to run the college's small business development center and continuing education program.
It all amounts to a job with staggering responsibility and a top-shelf salary.
So why did he hire Haynes?
She has zero experience in higher education.
Before she began managing the three local businesses in Barbados, Haynes worked as a part-time, often unpaid intern while in college.
And Catanzaro chose her as the college's top thinker on innovation?
"She's an entrepreneur and a very successful one," Catanzaro said.
Perhaps.
But the more pressing issue?
Haynes may have been hired improperly.
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To get hired as the CIO, Haynes needed a college degree.
The job description required it.
So did federal law - to grant Haynes the Barbados-to-U.S. work visa she needed.
Yet until last month, Haynes had never given Chattanooga State an original, official college transcript, proving she graduated.
She didn't have one.
(It's a long story: Haynes thought she graduated in 2005 from Duquesne University, yet unbeknowst to her, had not met the course requirements for her degree. Nobody there told her until several weeks ago. That's when she resigned at Chattanooga State. Then Duquesne awarded her a new degree and conferred it retroactively. And then Catanzaro hired her back.)
So Catanzaro hired Haynes without having her official transcript, and she worked in that position for nearly a year without it.
That means Catanzaro skirted his own school's policy, and perhaps state (you can't misrepresent academic qualifications) and federal immigration policy, as well.
"David, I am very disappointed in you," Catanzaro said. "You are making nothing into something."
He is adamant: Haynes is a college graduate; end of story.
"You keep making this one huge mistake, David," he said. "The mistake is that when somebody earns all the credits and they have been notified by the president's office that they have earned 'X' degree, whatever that degree is, that is when they earn it. It isn't when they pick up a diploma or pick up a sheet of paper."
Catanzaro claimed Haynes is a most excellent chief innovations officer - overly qualified, even - and that I've got outsider eyes and am in no position to judge.
"This is the 36th year I've been president of a college, the 25th year I've been president of this college," he said. "I think I know something about selecting personnel."
But how could you - a college president, of all people - skip over the fact she didn't have an official college degree? Wasn't she working in your office without one, which means she was hired improperly?
"False," he said. "False."
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I wish Haynes the very best. Promise. I hope she's a brilliant and innovative person with a bright career ahead.
But the process Catanzaro used to hire her calls into question his own decision-making - is it that autocratic and risky? - and vision for the college.
"Take this to the bank. Of all the people I've hired in the 24 years that I've been here, she would be among the very best. Absolutely," Catanzaro said. "She's a tiger."
Umm, alright.
But aren't you supposed to be a professional?
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.