The no-confidence vote by the faculty holds no sway over the president’s employment and cannot force the school’s board of trustees to take action. Voting members, however, said that as long as Jordan remains president, they will continue efforts to have him removed.

A day after nearly two-thirds of King University’s faculty members voted that they had no confidence in the performance of current President Greg Jordan, a university spokeswoman said there were no plans to oust the administrator.

According to leaked results of the confidence vote at a Monday evening faculty meeting, which are generally held in private, 30 members voted that they had confidence in Jordan, 62 said they had no confidence and nine abstained from voting.

Of those votes, five were from vice presidents in Jordan’s administration, who are given voting rights, and five were from new faculty at the college’s Knoxville campus, who likely abstained.

Faculty members, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of termination, said the vote showed overwhelming opposition to Jordan’s leadership, which has been rumbling near the surface of the Bristol campus for months.

“There are a number of concerns,” one associate professor said. “I would say first and foremost, it’s a lack of credibility. He has lost the team and with that, the moral authority to rule.”

Last year, discord began to grow at the private Presbyterian college among some students and staff members, who said they felt marginalized by Jordan, who was elected to head the school in 1997.

Read More

Further developments: On the day of the faculty vote, an online fundraising drive organized by a former student pledged $1 million to the university over five years, contingent on Jordan’s removal from office.