Who would suck enough to be president of Northern State University?
A university could not have a worse month. The president, who has brought $110 million worth of improvements to the Northern State University campus, suddenly resigns in what was obviously a forced resignation. Then the state university system in which he had worked is given a national ranking as the absolute worst in the nation. While this is going on, some faculty on the campus are trying to instigate a piddling war over who is and who isn't "woke."
What student with any intelligence would choose this as a college? What professor with any competence and self-respect would want to work there? What taxpayer who believes in higher education wants to support such a feckless institution?And why would a competent and honest administrator choose to be head of such a place?
Those are questions the regents and the administration at NSU--and all the other South Dakota regental institutions-- must face. Some answers must be supplied as Northern embarks on a search for a new president. Who but someone floundering to stay alive professionally would apply for the job as president of NSU? A place which is earning its own reputation as floundering?
This is not a good time for university presidents. Colorado regents hired Mark Kennedy a few years ago to head the University in Boulder. After being censured by the faculty, he is being given $1.3 million to leave a year before his contract is up. He had been hired by the Republican-dominated regents as their favored candidate. He was not favored among the faculty or the students. Now the regents have more Democrats on board and Kennedy is on his way out. The problem is in the rank politicalization of boards of regents. Academics are subsumed by cheap partisan politics. Regents act in the interests of the politicians who appoint them, not in the academic purposes of the universities.
In the case of Dr. Tim Downs at Northern, there has been no substantive report on the reasons and circumstances of his resignation. There was a report in the news that his efforts to establish diversity measures on campus resulted in some legislators composing a letter telling him to either desist or resign. There are many opinions circulating about the reasons for his leaving, but the news media and their audience seem to have little interest in determining the facts. As a result, no qualified person of integrity and competence would ignore the political climate at Northern and take a job there. The fallout from bad departure dissuades the kind of people who could restore a university's integrity from taking a job there.
To restore Northern's place as a functioning university, faculty and other stakeholders would have to make an honest explanation of the circumstances of Dr.Downs' departure and then take measures to correct deficiencies of policy and procedure.
Such demonstrations of honesty and integrity will never happen within a system ranked as the worst in the nation.
3 comments:
Who are the faculty members that are stirring the pot with who is woke and who is not on Northern's campus? It's depressing to read about the downward slide of Northern. We have local legislators that look at being a legislator for status and these idiots think that by supporting Northern is to post selfies of themselves going to a Northern basketball games. I doubt they would care if Northern closed, was downgraded or sold resulting in a dismal ending. With reciprocity what Minnesota colleges and universities would you advise a young South Dakotan to go to?
Was a regents appointment always so political rather than academically focused? Do other states place regents differently?
Today the Argus published the list of the three finalists. I swan the fix is in belike.
I was wrong. It's not the first time, and most assuredly will not be the last.
Post a Comment