John Swallow is the president of Carthage College and is very “woke.” When he arrived at Carthage College, a Christian institution, he began to dismantle the religious program in his quest to make the school more secular. He is a strong supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion projects. He has published, but later removed a video attacking republicans on the Carthage College YouTube page, referring to the January 6 riots. He has suggested that Kenosha Police officers are racist, following the justified shooting of Jacob Blake. He was a champion of closing down the college during covid-19 and moving more classes online. He started a “robust anti-racism plan of action.”
Most of the professors are woke too. They didn’t complain about Swallow until it affected their bank accounts. According to a source, Swallow will be laying off about 10% of staff after the 2023/2024 school year. This source also says that Swallow’s salary of $607,000 will be increased by about $70,000. So, it appears that the reduction in staff will mean more money for him. The remaining staff will be asked to handle 30% more of the work load.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the professors voted 94 – 14 to censure the President, one step below a vote of no confidence.
and Democrat Activist
KCE reached out to Swallow many times, and he has never responded. We know now why. His woke wife isn’t a fan of KCE. She wrote a letter to the County Board chastising this publication. She asked him not to respond to me and he listened to her. He certainly seems very beta… I’m beginning to wonder who is running Carthage, him or her.
The professors refused to censure Swallow when he began to removed God from the College. They didn’t censure Swallow when a long-time employee committed suicide on the property and Swallow refused to offer kind words to the family. They didn’t censure him when he took “woke” to a new level and closed the campus. Only now, for selfish reasons, do they censure him.
He’s a bad leader, but not only because he cares about his own paycheck over that of his faculty and staff. He’s bad because he is using his position as a tool to spread his extremists political beliefs and indoctrinator students.
30 Responses
Fire his ass.
Then, get a new board for even having considered him..her..
Please pay attention!!! Swallow is draining the institution dry. Faculty take the hit to do more and get paid less, all while Swallow & administrators line their pockets. The board is useless, nobody on the board really does anything but act like their important. They say freshman enrollment is the largest class in history every year but once students figure out the BS, they transfer out and find out their college credits are useless elsewhere. What about year to year retention? How many freshman enroll vs how many end up graduating? Not only is he woke, he’s a thief! Hope the faculty and students keep pushing since the board won’t do a thing!
Carthage still isn’t a bad school and its credits do mean something elsewhere.
But Swallow isn’t a good president and like many other college boards this is largely an honorary position. They don’t engage in much governance — and it shows. With school boards there’s a saying that a good superintendent runs the board and if he or she is good, that’s good. But it’s no excuse for an utter lack of oversight. They swallowed his line when he was hired and continue to do so.
The are cooking the books there and everyone in Kenosha County knows it. That is why no one donates anymore, everyone knows the money is not going to the students. DONT COUNT ON THE BOARD MEMEBERS TO DO ANYTHING SWALLOW USED SCHOOL FUNDS TO TAKE THE BOARD TO CALIFORNIA WINE COUNTRY LAST YEAR!
Gen Z, cry me a river about paying back student loans when you chose to attend a school paying this clown $607K. Insane. Hopefully the Carthage Theater dept censured him in 2020 when he released that Christmas video.
That statement means nothing to most who went to public school where they aren’t taught Basic Economics, which is a part of the Whole Plan.
Years ago one of the provisions of a land swap between Kenosha and Carthage provided a couple of free rides for Kenosha students.
Always wondered is that disappeared or became a sweet deal for selected people.
Anyway—-Carthage is a mega liberal organization that perhaps has come to a point where even liberals begin sticking it to each other?
Everyone should start boycotting any business board members is affiliated with, the board should be embarrassed to be affiliated with President Swallow. He is stealing money from hardworking families and students. Kenosha County sees you Lee Plumbing, Palmen Motors, Haribo etc…
Founders are flipping in their graves. What a shame.
Anyone ever talk with Swallow? He’s an awkward, odd little man. Came from Tennessee and was known as the “mayor” of his small community. He and his wife think K-town is the big city. They are small town hicks living it up on the Carthage dollar. What a disgrace, I bet the former leaders who had far more integrity are spinning in their graves.
Carthage College is a private, liberal arts college. Whether it’s woke, asleep or in the Twilight Zone is not up to people outside the campus community, period. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s a liberal institution. There are private colleges with different philosophies, such as Hillsdale College in Michigan. Again, their business.
As for Swallow, he is another voodoo president that they brought in. There hasn’t been a good one in many years. As an alum I was never a fan of his hiring. I think he’s overpaid and ineffective. Again, not much new there. Just gets worse.
Carthage isn’t a bad school. In many ways it’s been more connected with Kenosha over the years than UW-Parkside. But it became too big, too expensive and less what it once was. The religious influence was always important at Carthage, even if you’re not Lutheran. It was part of the fabric of the college. Many of us remember fondly Dudley Riggle, long-time campus pastor.
Carthage is losing its way a bit and Swallow is part of that drift. It’s not a matter of being woke. It’s simply poor management.
I agree except for the statement on woke, woke is the enemy of truthful education and has turned colleges into indoctrination centers. Whether a liberal arts college or MIT, there is nothing to be gained by promoting far left idiocy as normal and making students repeat it in order to get a good grade for their overpriced tuition.
I thank Mr. Mathewson for writing this article. As someone well acquainted with Carthage College, I concur with his statement that Mr. Swallow is “woke.” He is not worthy of being Carthage’s president. This is because he is not an effective leader. For those who do not know, Carthage is supposedly a Christian school. At one point it was, but the woke mind virus has transformed the chapel in the middle of the campus into essentially being an aesthetic building. Evidence for this can be found in his actions. Under Swallow’s leadership the philosophy department was eliminated, and the religion department was essentially gutted. Talented and gifted faculty members were lost due to his actions. How can a president of a liberal arts college justify the elimination of the courses that are fundamental to a Chrisitan university? The truth is that he probably does not care. Afterall, who really needs to study the intellectual thought that Western civilization was founded on?
President Swallow has also fully jumped on the diversity, equity, and inclusion train. While these terms by themselves are typically good, the ideology of DEI is pernicious, malevolent, and narcissistic. It is Machiavellian in nature, because no matter the tactics, the axiom of DEI is that the ends justify the means. Mr. Swallow’s support for DEI is in part due to the shooting of Jacob Blake, the serial rapist that was attempting to stab an officer. To promote the DEI religion that replaced Christianity at Carthage, President Swallow and others supposedly devoted to inclusion promoted “anti-racist” ideology to help combat “systemic racism.” This is problematic because anti-racist ideology is the antithesis to truth and is often actually racist. For example, under Swallow’s leadership the anti-racist educator, Tim Wise, was invited to speak on campus. Do a little research on Mr. Wise and you will find that the only place he belongs is on a no-fly list. This is someone who has blatantly condoned violence towards his political adversaries. The man is a vile racist and charlatan who should not be hired to speak at universities only to spew hate to promote so called inclusion.
Speaking of charlatans, there was a book club created, with the help of Swallow, to read literature by “anti-racist” authors Ibram x. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and Nikole Hannah Jones. Kendi, in his book “How to Be an Antiracist”, calls for discrimination today to right discrimination of the past. DiAngelo is the author of “White Fragility” which tells white people that they are fragile if they do not agree that they are biased towards people of other races. Hannah Jones is the author of “The 1619 Project” that has been criticized by historians for being pseudo-history. If President Swallow was an effective leader, he would have brought in a variety of voices to talk about race if he truly wanted to have a meaningful discourse about race in America. Instead, he promoted far-left nonsense that has shown to be divisive.
Furthermore, President Swallow made a decision that can only be described as mind boggling. In 2021, President Swallow surrendered to student requests for the cancellation of finals for the Spring Semester. What prompted him to do this was the stress generated from COVID-19 (which was in part due to Carthage’s Draconian masking policies) and the Somer’s House shooting. Nobody from Carthage was harmed during the Somer’s House shooting. There were a few students there, and it would make sense to excuse them from finals…but the entire campus? Excusing students from finals should have been on a case-by-case basis. When times get tough it is virtuous to persevere, to shy away from difficulty is not. The decision made by him is reflective of the weakness inherent in woke ideology.
Lastly, in light of the recent attacks on Israel, so far I am not aware of any messages he has sent out to the student body. When the BLM riots happened in Kenosha he was more than happy to showcase moron race-baiters to promote a culture of “anti-racism” at Carthage. Where is the condemnation of anti-semitism? Where are the expert panels to promote reading materials to help combat anti-semitism? Where is the outrage? Is John Swallow just a man in an empty suit?
Hopefully Carthage becomes a great school again. There are faculty members there that are fantastic people and true intellectuals with a vast array of knowledge. Yet, a school can only be great if its administration is competent. Carthage has had many presidents and with luck a new one will take President Swallow’s place soon enough. Carthage College has a lot of potential and perhaps Carthage can make a return to the great university it once was. It is a running joke on campus about how he is a beyond incompetent leader.
You make some good points but sadly, higher Ed in general is struggling to stay afloat and Carthage may not make it out after he guts the place. The largest class size nonsense is a marketing ploy that has been going on for a few years now, and it’s a shame some believe that bs. Same with the tuition freeze BS. He’s using the endowment and gifts to run operations, overpaying his chronies in admin to do his dirty work and forcing faculty to do more work, with less pay, all while he continues to take huge pay increases and bonuses. He’s given his provost David Timmermann and his girlfriend Abbygail Hanna the keys to the castle, while he cuts the liberal arts programming. He is a small minded little man with an open checkbook. The college is broke, living on borrowed money, and borrowed time. He is a joke and so is the board for letting him get away with it. What a shame he’s ruining what once was a great institution.
One can learn things at a dog park, where people only share their first names and that of their dogs. One Carthage faculty member told me Swallow inherited a $7M deficit. No surprise. A young lady who was about to graduate had accumulated $100K in debt. She had majored in “Statuary”, and wasn’t advised to get an art teaching certificate to have a chance at making a living. Her sister, a Carthage grad two years older, was burdened with $200K. Federal guaranteed loans should require the recipient institution to provide employment statistics for the previous 10 years of graduates in the major. Morally, Carthage scammed these ladies, though how can people be so foolish as to borrow huge sums of money without a strong asset behind it?
I have met more than a few Carthage alums at the dog park, who swear by the school and are having productive work careers. Carthage is a private institution, perfectly capable of falling on its ass in the private sector of higher education. Taxpayers should only care that Kenosha gave Carthage those beautiful hills upon which their dormitories were built, speaking of which, Carthage restricts its out of town students’ living arrangements to on campus. Who wants to live in a socially stifling dorm for three years and eat crappy cafeteria food?
Faculty members complaining about Swallow trying to balance the budget might want to do an internet search on how many PhD’s are granted each year in their field of study. My alma mater, UW Madison, once bragged that half of their newly minted PhD’s in English found academic employment, though most of them were as “Adjunct” professors. Faculty members are free agents, not indentured servants, so they are free to anywhere or change careers, just like most people in the private sector.
So it’s the school’s fault these students don’t do research?
Carthage has always been way overrated. It’s basically a private school for Illinois residents whose kids weren’t good enough to get into Marquette or Loyola. No one has heard of Carthage outside of like a 30 mile radius and it sure as hell doesn’t hold any stature to large companies.
As stated, still not a bad school but Swallow is not much of a leader.
Another example of the Socalist taking over a educational institution and reinventing the indoctrination of Socalist ideals to the students . It’s not a surprise in Kenosha where most of the elected politicians are of Socalist ideology to begin with. Carthige needs to find its moral compass and get rid of this guy .
Wow, Carthage USED to be a fine faith-based college, but this guy is destroying it bit by bit. Someone like Swallow has no business running a college and influencing young minds-he needs to go and take his over-amped salary with him. What a con!
Don’t forget about former Superintendent of KUSD, Michele Hancock
who is Carthage’s is Vice President of College Culture for Inclusion, the one responsible for training KUSD teachers in ‘white privilege’. The education system reeks Marxism.
One can learn things at a dog park, where people only share their first names and that of their dogs. One Carthage faculty member told me Swallow inherited a $7M deficit. No surprise. A young lady who was about to graduate had accumulated $100K in debt. She had majored in “Statuary”, and wasn’t advised to get an art teaching certificate to have a chance at making a living. Her sister, a Carthage grad two years older, was burdened with $200K. Federal guaranteed loans should require the recipient institution to provide employment statistics for the previous 10 years of graduates in the major. Morally, Carthage scammed these ladies, though how can people be so foolish as to borrow huge sums of money without a strong asset behind it?
I have met more than a few Carthage alums at the dog park, who swear by the school and are having productive work careers. Carthage is a private institution, perfectly capable of falling on its ass in the private sector of higher education. Taxpayers should only care that Kenosha gave Carthage those beautiful hills upon which their dormitories were built, speaking of which, Carthage restricts its out of town students’ living arrangements to on campus. Who wants to live in a socially stifling dorm for three years and eat crappy cafeteria food?
Faculty members complaining about Swallow trying to balance the budget might want to do an internet search on how many PhD’s are granted each year in their field of study. My alma mater, UW Madison, once bragged that half of their newly minted PhD’s in English found academic employment, though most of them were as “Adjunct” professors. Faculty members are free agents, not indentured servants, so they are free to anywhere or change careers, just like most people in the private sector.
Why in these economic times do these people think they deserve a raise? How many people get a $70,000 raise? I am appalled of the fact this guy at this small college is making $607,000.00 a year. No wonder kids leave college with enormous debit. Administrators don’t need to be paid that much for overseeing a college. They are not that important to the education process. The biggest decision he makes daily is where lunch. This is just but one example of the diminishing return of a college degree. They are producing less qualified and indoctrinate entitled individuals with little skills for the workforce. Time for a change in Education as it is failing us just like useless leaders of these institutions. Time for people to reassess this once admired place of learning.
Heard from an insider that this guy Swallow is in it for the money and flying by the seat of his child size pants. All decisions are from his friends from back home or his provost. If administrators could speak their truth, nobody likes Swallow and all laugh at him behind his back. Same with all top leaders, VPs. They know he’s not qualified to lead this institution but when someone speaks up, they are walked out under false pretense so they all keep their heads down. The CFO role is a revolving door…after a Bill Abt worked 20 years, keeping them fiscally sound, there was a guy Randy who lasted a few months, then Abt came back, then they hired another guy, walked him out, then they hired Tina Schmitz (sound familiar? Her and Michele Handcock destroyed KUSD finances); she was walked out after 4 months on the job, then another guy……turnover all within three years…and their current CFO was their only remaining entry level accountant with zero experience, internally promoted way over his head. He’s now a marionette for Abigail Heinrich (Swallows side piece) and has multiple accusations on him from hr for inappropriate behavior, creating a hostile workplace, sexual harassment and the list is long. The finances are a mess from Swallows own doing. He hired and fired all these cfos and didn’t listen to anyone. One would expect more from a math prodigy?! Drain the Carthage swamp and get a president who won’t drain the bank accounts…Swallow needs to fly away fast and find another nest to raid. Time is up!!!
For running a college the size of a high school..
The Board is not doing its job! Swallow was not properly vetted for the position and that is becoming more and more evident. Carthage is now a political institution and needs to get back to educating students.
And we wonder what is wrong with higher education in America. Carthage is on a downward spiral, don’t believe the Swallow BS or the liberal mucky muck professors.
Just like everything liberal, it will eventually fail under its own stupidity. I say good riddance.
Someone mentioned Michelle Hancock working for Carthage. Swallow smacks a bit of Hancock at KUSD. Read what Republican Blogger Dick Ginkowski wrote in 2010 about Hancock’s hiring:
A few years ago Kenosha Unified School Board members got laptop computers. The current board sure needs a crash course on how to use them.
Had the school board performed due diligence it would have discovered that less than three years ago its newly hired school superintedent, Michele Hancock, was the center of controversy in Rochester, New York when she was the school district’s diversity chief, over her advocacy of Black English Vernacular (Ebonics) in school — an idea wisely flamed by many Rochester African-American community leaders, parents and students.
They would also have found out that while they were cutting a deal with Hancock she was embroiled in a battle with teachers at a Rochester school (blandly called School #41) who recently staged a “no confidence” vote in their principal, Roschon Bradley. According to WHAM-TV in Rochester:
Teachers say Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard and Chief of Human Capital Initiatives Michele Hancock held a staff meeting earlier this week and implied the teachers at School #41 are racist for banding against Bradley, who is black.
Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski said teachers who attended the meeting said Brizard and Hancock “berated them and lectured them. Teachers were shocked and hurt and disappointed that the district seemed to suggest that the problem wasn’t with the principal, it was with them.”
Urbanski said Hancock told the teachers their vote of no confidence was perceived as racist and as a bullying tactic.
Further investigation shows that these aren’t the only two storms of controversy surrounding Hanock, who will be paid $195,000 — $45,000 more than current superintedent Joseph Mangi, a career Kenosha Unified educator.
On May 21, 2008 WHAM’s veteran education reporter, Rachel Barnhart, wrote that Hancock was named the new human resources chief (later morphed into “Human Capital Initiatives”) for the Rochester district although Hancock “doesn’t have a background in human resources.”
Less than two years later Hancock — who received $36,000 from the Rochester district toward her doctoral degree studies — was applying for and ultimately accepted the Kenosha job although she has no experience as a superintendent or even an assistant superintendent.
Last year Hancock’s name popped up again in another WHAM report, this time defending the $18,000 taxpayers shelled out for a retreat attended by 29 Rochester school executives at a swanky resort:
The cost was $18,000. The trip took place from January 29 to January 31. The district said 29 staff members went on the trip, although the district paid for 40 to attend.
According to documents obtained by 13WHAM News, the district’s Chief of Human Capital Initiatives, Michele Hancock, booked the retreat in November. The trip was approved by Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard in December.
The purpose of the trip was to “enable team-building” among the district’s Dream Schools, according to Hancock’s request for a contract with Beaver Hollow. “The retreat will include instructional leadership, learning organizations, adult growth, and professional development.”
The menu for the staff members included Jack Daniels marinated steak with tobacco onions, shrimp fritters, cheddar corn muffins, and “enticing desserts.”
The district budget deficit at the time of the retreat was about $60 million. The school board recently approved cutting more than 200 teaching positions.
The $18,000 two-day retreat was just the tip of the iceberg. Barnhart’s investigative reporting last year showed that the financially strapped Rochester district spent $240,000 on catered meals since 2007 without school board approval.
So, what does this have to do about Kenosha? Plenty. Just look at what Kenosha Unified’s superintendent search job posting listed as criteria for the new superintendent:
KUSD seeks a superintendent who:
• Is strongly committed to a “student first” philosophy in all decisions.
• Will inspire trust, has high levels of self-confidence and optimism, and models high standards of integrity and personal performance.
• Possesses excellent people skills and presents a positive image of the district and will commit to community visibility with high interest in a broad range of community groups, organizations, and unions.
• Willing to listen to input, but can make a decision when necessary including appropriate participation of others in planning and decision making.
• Demonstrates effective communication skills to include speaking, listening and writing.
• Has demonstrated the ability to enhance student performance, especially in identifying and closing or narrowing the gaps in student achievement.
• Can delegate authority appropriately while maintaining accountability.
• Possesses the leadership skills required to respond to the challenges presented by an ethnically and culturally diverse community.
• Work cooperatively with the board of education.
• Is able to identify and select building and central office administrators who are capable of advancing the district vision.
• Has knowledge of and successful experience in sound fiscal practices and management of district resources.
Hancock’s lame defense of an $18,000 resort tab for a two-day conference for 29 administrators in a school district more than $60 million in the hole hardly qualifies as someone successful in sound fiscal pratices and management of district resources.
Although Hancock was a nationally recognized elementary school principal who successfully turned around a decaying and underachieving grade school, the Rochester district’s most recent high school graduation rate was only 46%, down 6% from the previous year. By contrast, Kenosha’s most recent graduation rate was 84.1%.
As for inspiring confidence and improving the district’s image, advocacy of Ebonics, defending wasteful spending and berating teachers doesn’t bode well and the latter brings into question her “people skills.”
This brings us back to the original point: where was the due diligence in the superintendent selection process? Maybe our school board members aren’t computer literate despite the investment in their laptops, but then why didn’t Ray and Associates, the Iowa consulting firm hired to conduct the nationwide superintendent search, pick up on these red flags?
Clearly, the ball was dropped.
Who says history doesn’t repeat itself? Have to hand it to Hancock for finding gigs even when she’s not qualified!
Mark Belling WISN Radio—now running the Carthage story.
https://newstalk1130.iheart.com/
He was ran out of Sewanee, as well. His actions and policies there were criminal. Just look at his history. Chaos follows him wherever he goes.