Why Did OU Vice-President Dennis Aebersold Leave William & Mary?
Michael Phillip Wright
Norman, Oklahoma
Copyright 2002
All Rights Reserved
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April 20, 2002

Dennis Aebersold, Vice-President for Information Technology at the University of Oklahoma, began his employment with OU in May 2000. One would think that he would be proud of his earlier employment at a distinguished institution such as William and Mary, the nation's second-oldest College, but he makes no mention of it in his online biography.

He had been at W&M immediately before coming to OU. An April 2001 article in The Flat Hat, the College's newspaper, offers clues as to why he isn't trumpeting his history there. The highlights of the article by Ambi Biggs and Sara Brady are:

1. While Aebersold was Director of their information technology system, W&M contracted with Systems, Applications and Products (SAP) and Align Consulting to implement some major changes in their computer service. The contracts were signed in the spring of 2000.

2. Michael Stump, director of the office of internal audit, later reported problems with Align Consulting in a memo to the College President and Board of Visitors, its governing body. One of the tasks of the project was six months behind schedule.

3. Stump's memo also expressed concern about a possible conflict of interest involving Aebersold and J. Michael Ault, described in the news article as an "independent consultant" on the project.

4. The Board of Visitors requested an investigation of the questions raised by Stump's memo.

5. The Attorney General was requested to rule on the issue of conflict of interest and found that there was no conflict, "according to the legal definition."

6. The College suspended work on the system's implementation indefinitely pending a reassessment of the College's capabilities.

7. The news article reported "significant operating problems" in the student information system.

8. In the midst of these difficulties, Aebersold departed from W&M and was appointed to the Vice-Presidency job at the University of Oklahoma in May 2000.

Did the Attorney General Have All the Facts?

Of special interest is the question of how Michael Ault was represented to the College. The news article described him as an independent consultant. As I understand the phrase, the role of independent consultant would mean being contracted by the College to support its interests in dealing with the two vendors, SAP and Align, and perhaps also for purposes of evaluating the vendors' performance. Ordinarily, an independent consultant relationship would be based upon these three conditions being present:

1. the consultant would have no association with the vendors SAP and Align;

2. the consultant would be paid only by the College; and

3. the consultant would neither anticipate nor accept any reward from the vendors for his service on the project.

Was Ault truly independent of the vendors in the spring of 2000? Of interest in the record are these two facts:

1. According to the 2000 Annual Report of Align, he became Managing Director of that company for all its U.S. operations in July 2000. (Since I created this website, the Report has been removed from the Internet).

2. In October 2000, Ault attended a professional conference which identified him as the President of Align (scroll down the list and click on his name).

Was Assistant Attorney General Joan Murphy aware of this when she decided there was no conflict of interest? Did Aebersold know of an association between Ault and Align which was concealed from other College administrators?

If Ault had no prior association with Align in the spring of 2000, then his rise to a position of high corporate leadership in that company by mid-summer was extraordinary, to say the least.

Aebersold at the University of Oklahoma

At the University of Oklahoma, Aebersold enjoys the title of Vice-President and an annual salary of $180,000. Additionally his wife Jane was appointed to the position of Professor of Art at a salary of $60,000. Her only previous teaching experience reported by the OU website was having taught ceramics at Bennington College in Vermont from 1972-1993. The OU website personnel search also identifies an Elizabeth Aebersold working for the Office of Public Affairs. Dennis Aebersold's PhD was in chemistry, not computer science.

Aebersold brought Pitou Devgon with him from William & Mary. Devgon had been a senior there in the spring of 2000, and was credited by the campus newspaper for having founded the Student Information Network there. Devgon is now the Director of Sooner Information Network (SIN) at OU.

Since Aebersold's arrival here, Admissions Director Marc Borish has left the University. Borish had been employed at the Admissions Office since the 70s. He had been chairman of the Administrative Computing subcommittee of OU's Information Technology Council.

From using the computer system frequently at the OU library, I know that it is very flawed. Crashes are not uncommon, sometimes the screens freeze up, sometimes it disconnects from the Internet and signs off for no apparent reason, and the print defaults are not set to print out web page URLs and dates, which would normally be considered basic reference information needed for academic documentation. During Internet use, the OU library terminals are continually plagued by advertising pop-up screens, and the IT department has not remedied this situation with filters. Another problem I sometimes experience is the disabling of the PRINT command on the FILE menu for no apparent reason.

Align Consulting at OU

Did Aebersold bring OU into a contracting relationship with Align Consulting after his arrival in Oklahoma? From information I was provided by the OU Office of Procurement Services during an April 23 visit, the answer is unclear. I was told that Align Consulting of Princeton, New Jersey, was on the University's vendor list, and that the company had supplied services in the past. The time periods in which any contracting relationships between OU and Align existed were not disclosed. A C/TAC-Align Annual Report (no longer online) confirmed that Align's headquarters were in Princeton before the merger.