What We Don't Want in a President

Once again our Board is engaged in a search for a new President. Once again, students, staff, and faculty wonder what kind of leader will come out of this search. Each group of University constituents has its own idea about what qualifications and experience are important. We all have a clearer idea of what we do not want.

We have wasted two years since the campus felt optimism with the selection of Thomas Calhoun, making this search perhaps the school’s last opportunity to avoid the dustbin of history. To the Board, here is what you must not do this time.

1) Don’t give us some political hack unqualified on any level to run a comprehensive university. The Board did that in 2009 with Wayne Watson, more on the scope of that catastrophe below.
2) Don’t give us someone with any ties to Watson or local politicians.
3) Don’t give us anyone associated with the current university administration.
4) Don’t give us someone with questionable academic credentials.

In 2009, the Board decided to award the presidency to a total academic fraud. The devastation wrought by that decision has put the university at risk for its existence. Continuing to immerse the school in local politics, continuing to use it as a patronage dumping ground, continuing to hire friends, relatives of friends, friends of friends, relatives of employees, and anyone else hired for political reasons will simply replicate the disaster of the Watson years. Here are some visuals from the Chicago State Fact Book that underscore that point.

In fall 2009, the University enrolled 7235 students. That number grew to 7362 the following fall. This past fall, the University enrolled 3101 students. That number has dropped to 2850 in spring 2018.

The enrollment loss from its peak in fall 2010 to fall 2017 amounts to 4261 students, or a 57.8 percent decline. Because the majority of our students are African-American, it seems appropriate to look at their enrollment changes. In fall 2009, CSU enrolled 5670 black students, a number that grew to 5832 in fall 2010. By fall 2017, only 2073 black students attended CSU, a 64.5 percent drop. Black student departures account for 88 percent of our enrollment losses.

Another useful indicator of the complete failure of political hacks as university administrators (along with disastrous media relations, toxic relations with faculty, and a total inability to raise money)is our plunging Freshman graduation rate which will surely expose the University to negative media attention. The figures are in for the first three Watson cohorts: 11 percent for the 2009 group, 13 percent in 2010, and 12 percent in 2011.

Anyone selected must be given free reign to make whatever changes s/he deems necessary to save the school. Of course, in Thomas Calhoun we had the person almost everyone on campus supported. However, he never had a chance with that iteration of the Board. Can that mistake be rectified?