A leader (manager, president, general, etc.) can only be successful if they can, by action and words, convince those who report to them to give discretionary effort. People that report to the leader (manager, president, general, etc.) always have some discretion to work just enough to stay out of trouble. The underlying problems at USM are not just the high profile ones that make news, they are small things that are not getting done at the University. Things that used to be handled routinely are not getting done. It is happening in both the academic areas and the non academic areas such as accounting, grant processing, requisitions taking longer to process, personnel paper work taking longer to process, etc. There also is some indication that we are spending money faster that it is coming in, i.e. loss of fiduciary control. Disgruntled employees stop paying attention to details and often it is a long period before the results surface. For these reasons, the exit of SFT, while cause for great celebration, will not have any immediate effects other than emotional relief. Of course, his exit would prevent a new round of stupid behavior. However, it will take several years to repair the damage SFT has done to USM.