In Shortlidge's own words, “as an industrial college, we are a failure”;[2] however, the three-professor panel was staffed with faculty whom Shortlidge believed would be lukewarm toward reorganization. The exception proved to be Thornton Osmond, professor of physics, who launched his own unofficial reorganization study – with the support of sympathetic faculty and trustees – due to the slowness of the Wickersham Committee and the entrenched stance of the other faculty on Shortlidge's panel.[21] The very existence of Osmond's “committee” demonstrated how strained relations between the president and faculty had become,[21] and Shortlidge presented his resignation in 1881 “couched in terms so offensive […] that the [trustees] accepted it forthwith.[20]”