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Archive for December 7th, 2006

Let it snow!

Thursday, December 7th, 2006
and more today and tomorrow!first real snow of the year

I won’t lie, waking up to a campus covered in snow this morning excited me entirely too much.

Usually by this time in the year, a few weeks shy of Christmas, snow on the ground in Ohio, especially in Kent, Ohio, is old hat, the norm.

But this year, today is the first real stick-to-the -ground, let’s go sledding and have a snowball fight snowfall of the season in Kent. We had a little bit earlier this week, but it only stuck a few hours and melted almost on impact. Everyone else came in the office complaining.

So, although everyone else seems to not be enjoying the “crappy weather” I am actually in a really good mood because snow, especially freshly fallen snow is peaceful and beautiful.

It’s a great last day of classes EVER. Ok, maybe I’m just in a good mood because it’s my last day of classes. It’s also the day Issue 5 goes into effect, which means tonight, which is my last Thursday out in Kent with friends as an undergrad will be SMOKE FREE! Ok, I guess it’s just a good day all around. But the snow definitely helps.

Harvard paper publishes presidential candidates

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

I saw on Romenesko that some very important people are upset about the Harvard Crimson’s printing the names of presidential candidates currently under consideration. Read Student Paper Prints List of Prospective Candidates for Harvard’s Presidency.

I understand why the people under consideration would be upset, especially if, as the article points out, they were not actively seeking the position and instead were being tapped as a potential candidate for consideration. However, as the veteran (wow, it’s hard to think that, at 21, I could be a veteran of anything) of one very tight-lipped, closed presidential search, I have to side with the student newspaper here. I think university presidential searches should be open. Without an open and ongoing dialogue about what the university stakeholders (including students, faculty, donors, alums, parents, etc.) want in a president and without face time with the potential candidates, how can a good fit be assured? Also, if you have a strong enough interest and real desire to lead an institution, then you should be willing to come forth and say so and not hide behind the cloak of a closed search.

Perhaps the Crimson did jump the gun a little soon and should have waited until the list had been narrowed to a smaller set of finalists. However, if they knew from past searches that the committee charged with producing such a list wouldn’t produce it for them, then where would they be? Plus, what if Harvard decided to be difficult and produce only one such finalist for consideration? (Hey, it’s happened.)

I don’t know or care enough about Harvard and it’s presidential search to look this up in more detail, but given the whole exam-week annoucement debacle here last spring, I thought this was something worth thinking about. Had the Stater been handed a list of such finalists last spring I can say with almost certainty that we would have published the list. In fact, I’d still like to know what the other names on KSU’s preliminary lists were.