RWU board: A classic case of inaction

Got oversight?

July 18, 2007 5:45:25 PM

The trustee shakeup at Roger Williams University, involving businessman Ralph R. Papitto’s stepping down as chairman after his reference to the “N” word, is a good story by any standard. If you are a Rhode Islander who happens to know the principals, it’s a blockbuster.

Papitto founded Nortek in 1967 and made millions. He made even more buying diverse undervalued companies and turning them into money machines. Papitto has come a very long way from Burnett Street in Johnston, where he worked day and night as an accountant to subsidize his dream of making a fortune. He has made a lot of money, but gentility seems to have eluded him.

The heroes in this story are noted cardiologist Barbara Roberts, real-estate whiz Sally Lapides, and successful estate planner-philanthropist Joseph Caramadre. These are the trustees with enough guts to call Papitto on his slur. Anyone who knows them is not surprised. (I worked with Roberts at Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, know Lapides through her work for Residential Properties, and used to socialize regularly with Caramadre’s parents in the 1970s and ’80s.)

The Providence Journal’s coverage of Papitto’s demise as chairman indicates that his reference to the “N” word was perhaps nothing new on campus; RWU President Roy J. Nirschel had e-mailed Roberts that Papitto’s latest outburst came as no surprise since, “He has lambasted blacks, Muslims and Jews before in front of staff.”

So why didn’t Nirschel act before the three trustees? The prez is hiding behind a wall of silence.

The trustees at Roger Williams University — all male except for Roberts and Lapides, who are now thrown off — and exclusively white, have already caused the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) to issue the college a written “Notice of Concern.”

It’s 2007. Do these guys — all professional men — really need to have it spelled out how unrepresentative (and out of touch) such a group seems to the community that the college says it is committed to serving?

In answer to the questions, “When did they know?” and “How did they know it?” the answers seem to be: “A long time ago,” and “Because Papitto kept saying unacceptable things.”

The question of who will do something about this is harder to answer. The incestuous connections of too many trustees — dependent in one way or another on the chairman’s wealth and approval — may have gotten in the way of confronting Papitto’s prejudice and ignorance.

Rhode Island’s founder, the namesake of many local institutions, must be spinning in his grave. Like the inertia of the Roger Williams Medical Center board that eventually led to scandal, the Roger Williams University’s debacle sends up another flare about not-for-profit boards and the need to make them understand — and fulfill — their duty.