MUNCIE — During his final three months in office, Ball State University President Paul Ferguson ordered a meal — chicken tenders, $10 — from room service while attending a conference at the JW Marriott Indianapolis Downtown.
Other than that information, BSU has released very few records so far to media organizations seeking clues to why Ferguson resigned on Jan. 25, less than 1½ years after becoming the university's 15th president.
The Star Press, The Associated Press, the student newspaper, Indianapolis Business Journal and a faculty member have filed numerous requests under the Access to Public Records Act (APRA) for emails, memos, cell phone/office phone records, text messages, appointment calendars, expense reports, invoices and other information related to Ferguson's resignation.
The university said many of the records do not exist and initially denied the email requests on grounds that they were not "reasonably particular," citing a prior interpretation by the Indiana Public Access Counselor that "frankly prevents a fishing expedition and prevents a requester from casting a wide net to capture a voluminous amount of emails."
The reason for placing parameters — such as sender, recipient, time frame and keywords — on public records requests is to manage and balance large volumes of those requests with the discharge of all of the university's duties, BSU General Counsel Sali Falling told journalists. "If you would like to provide a key word, the request will be reviewed," her office said.
That led to a guessing game.
Joined by Dan Kane, an instructor of biology at the university, journalists flooded Falling's office with requests for various emails and memos containing keywords, including "severance," "resignation," "Bracken House," "terminate," "salary," "personnel," "leave," "president," "separation," "appropriate," "circumstances," "health," "voluntary," "cooperation," "non-disparagement," chairman of the board "Rick Hall," chief of staff "Julie Hopwood," "alumni," "gearbox," "athletic," "14.2.4," "enrollment," and trustee "Thomas Bracken."
Out of all that, there was only one "hit" — an email sent at 10:50 a.m. on Jan. 22 from Ferguson to Hopwood, his longtime assistant, that Ball State declined to release, citing the "deliberative document" exemption to public records. It says that intra-agency or inter-agency advisory or deliberative materials "that are expressions of opinion or are of a speculative nature, and that are communicated for the purpose of decision making," may be disclosed "at the discretion of the public agency."