The University of Colorado announced a temporary replacement today for Patty Limerick, who was fired last month as director and board chair for the University of Colorado Boulder’s prestigious Center of the American West, according to several sources.

Officials named Interim Director Tom Zeiler, the former CU Chair of the Boulder History Department and director of the University’s International Affairs Program since 2013.

Zeiler will oversee the Center and a staff which, according to university spokesperson Steve Hurlbert, has whittled down to just six. 

“This transition is the result of a lengthy period of addressing repeat complaints from center employees regarding leadership of the center,” University spokesperson Andrew Sorensen said in a statement.

The Center has been in tumult since Limerick’s departure Sept. 23, as the entire five-person Executive Committee resigned following her termination.

In an interview with The Denver Gazette, Limerick said she is feeling deeply disillusioned with higher education, and  that she wishes she “had never seen the dark side of the University of Colorado.”  

Committee member Chris Whitney told The Gazette in a phone interview that they are “horrified at how this went down. “It’s a sad end to a 37 year brilliant career.” He said he would not be rejoining the Center, even if the ship got righted.

“I don’t want anything to do with it,” he said.

Limerick founded the Center, which is housed on campus in the Macky Auditorium building, after she was encouraged by Harvard professor Bernard Bailyn, a colleague and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who reframed our understanding of colonial America.

“He thought it would be a good idea,” she said. 

The Center prides itself as being a place to develop ideas and problem-solve issues which affect the Western U.S. In an era of polarization, the Center is a place bring out “the better angels of our nature by appealing to our common loyalties and hopes as Westerners,” according to its webpage.

Limerick, who ran the Center for more than three decades, was fired by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Glen Krutz Sept. 23. After it happened, Board of Directors member Sam Mamet said the Board received an email from Krutz informing them about the decision.

It “came out of the clear blue sky, thanking Patty for her service and the great things she’s done,” said Mamet. “I don’t know what becomes of the Center of the American West moving forward.”

Dr. William Wei, an Emeritus Board Member who worked with Limerick for years, told The Denver Gazette he always thought the Center would be named for Limerick.

“I thought she would be there forever. She is a CU institution,” said Wei, also a history professor at CU. “Patty deserved better than that.” 

But some staff members told a different story.

CU officials sent The Denver Gazette its Department of Internal Audit investigation report on the Center, which was released a week after Limerick was fired. It was launched after a tip came in last April from someone who worked for Limerick who reported mistreatment. The document is a glimpse into what some employees say was a world of uncertainty under Limerick. 

The 12-page document contains descriptions of interviews with eight staff members and Limerick’s response to their allegations. Staffers’ biggest gripes against Limerick were that she did not respect boundaries between her personal life and her work with the Center, often asking staff to do personal errands for her along with Center duties. 

The interviews reveal that many employees felt that even though Limerick indicated that she didn’t want to cross the line, she “continued to put staff in uncomfortable positions” according to Kurt Gutjahr, managing director for the Center.

Several staffers referred to a particular instance this past May where they say Limerick asked people who worked for her to help plan a combination birthday party for her with a Board of Director’s meeting.

Bernadette Stewart, who is described on the CU website as being director of personnel for Arts and Sciences and also the assistant dean of administration for the College of Arts and Sciences, was interviewed June 2. Stewart told investigators that Center employees were confused as to whether they should be required to work for the double-event, describing Limerick as “hostile, intimidating and unethical.”

Limerick was also interviewed for the audit. She provided statements Aug. 27. explaining that her employees were invited to the birthday celebration, which followed the Board meeting, but that they were not required to be there.

In another example of the supposed blurred line between professional and personal requests, Limerick was accused of involving members of her staff to plan her first husband’s 2005 funeral and also her marriage to her second husband. In another instance, staff member Roni Ires reported that she helped Limerick with her taxes, helped her with a social security fraud incident and wrote thank you letters to donors for Limerick’s late husband’s memorial fund. 

All of this, reported Ires, happened on University time and on weekends. She added to her June 16 comments a while later telling the investigation that Limerick did not misuse funds, but that she had “an insensitivity to the power dynamic of boss/employee.” The report said that there was not enough evidence to substantiate that there was any “financial misconduct.”

Limerick explained that there was a real difference in the vision and understanding of the work of the Center and of her role in it.

“I tried something that no one should try again, lending my reputation, credibility, connections and contacts to a unit of the University of Colorado for a couple of decades,” she said. “I would recommend that people not try that because then you may get accused of having an insufficient boundary between your personal and professional life. If I had maintained such a boundary, we would not have a Center of the American West.

“Be careful if you’re thinking of trying this, professors. It may not work.”

Wei described Limerick as a “whirling dervish” who could be a demanding boss because she was always so busy, but said he thought that she got on famously with her staff.

The audit provided a defense of the good Limerick has done during more than three decades at the helm, describing her as the primary mentor for the Center’s students, as a source of expertise and a “good steward of the Center’s funds.”

During her tenure, she secured grants from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation for the Center. Over the years, she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Center. 

Mamut said he feels Limerick’s firing could have been handled better: “That’s a helluva way to end a career.”