UA President Mark Hamilton admitted that an endorsement for school board candidate Kip Harmon violated school rules, according to a KUAC story that aired Wednesday.  Harmon went on to win in the election.

"Our regents say you can't do that," Hamilton told KUAC, "You can support people, you can give them money, but you can't use your rank or position as, this is, President Hamilton can't do it; Mark Hamilton can do whatever he wants."  

Hamilton was in Anchorage, and unavailable for further comment.

When contacted by the Sun Star to discuss the violation, Harmon, who is also Associate Athletic Director at UAF, said that he had "heard nothing about it." But Harmon gave on-the-record testimony to KUAC on October 1 in which he states that using Hamilton's title wasn't discussed, and that he just sent Hamilton's picture and statement to an ad agency.

Harmon told the Sun Star that using President Hamilton's school affiliation "was never discussed," and said that he was not aware of any controversy surrounding Hamilton's endorsement.

"That's who he is," Harmon said.

The endorsement in question ran in the Daily News Miner, and included President Hamilton's name, job title, and photo. According to Board of Regents policy, an employee cannot imply that he or she is unofficially representing the University.

However, the rules do allow the President to allow any employee to represent the University politically with his express permission .

In early September, UAF students and employees were warned via email to not use school resources or affiliation to promote personal politics.

In the KUAC story Hamilton admits that he broke University Policy, and that he didn't realize the endorsement would include his title.  Without the title, the endorsement would have been acceptable, Hamilton said.

"It isn't that we don't want people to know who people in the University are supporting, that isn't it, it's not having people believe that the institution supports these individuals.

Hamilton went on to say that he would follow the policy guidelines in the future, and that similar violations by University employees occur about once a year.  He said these violations are usually unintentional, and he didn't think that anyone had been formally punished.

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