CSU Faculty Voice: Am I Missing Something???

Monday, November 28, 2016

Am I Missing Something???

So this story in the Chicago Tribune raises a couple of questions for your humble narrator. Some years ago, Chicago State University was positioned to receive the papers of Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks. Of course the president at the time was unable to close the deal so those papers ended up at the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign. Now, another history maker, the first Black Illinois Senate President, is donating his papers to a public university but not the one with his name on one of its buildings, but another university. Hmmmm.

Does Senator Jones know something about the future of CSU that we don't? Or is this a feud between the now departed failed ex-president and the former Senate President? Or is it simply the decimation of CSU's infrastructure makes it impossible to take on major projects like this one? With only three reference librarians and a brand new archivist, and the perpetual state of financial exigency, what public figure in his right mind would make a contribution of this magnitude to CSU? None, not even one who spent his career, protecting the institution from administrative stupidity and incompetence. Whatever the reason, it's another sad day for CSU and bad way to thank a long time friend of the university. If this is how we treat our friends....

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Thanks to Haki Madhabuti

"1. He/she must be a scholar of national note, with significant peer review publications and books in his or her field. There must be no doubt as to his/her standing in the community of scholars. This would also include a history of the candidate’s participation in the appropriate professional organizations.

2. He/she must have served with distinction as the administrative head of a major unit within an institution of higher learning or at the important position of Provost and/or Dean. Of course, prior service at the presidential level is preferred.

3. He/she must have a documented history of raising significant monies from the private and public sectors. At most major and research one universities it is not unusual to expect the president to come with a plan to raise in excess of half a billion dollars or more in the first few years.

4. The prospective president must have a consensus buy-in from the faculty, students, administration and staff, therefore, arriving with a unity mandate to lead by joining a University community that has bought into his or her vision for the future."

From an open letter to the CSU Community, 2009.