The real problem at the University of Missouri? Former president Tim Wolfe wasn’t an academic— he only had a bachelor’s degree for goodness sake.
As the controversy at Mizzou continues to evolve, Inside Higher Ed says:
Our hope is that the Board of Curators will pick new administrators who see the University of Missouri as a public institution to which we have entrusted our children and our society’s future rather than as a corporation that puts money and skyboxes first.
Making this happen will be difficult. State governors appoint the boards, and the boards appoint the presidents and chancellors. Such a system, as we have seen recently at Purdue, Iowa, the University of North Carolina, and Florida State as well as at Missouri, has led to the appointments of businesspeople, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and politicians as university presidents. Such appointments do not bode well — but students, faculty, and staff at the University of Missouri have demanded something different.
We cannot thank them enough.
Heads up, newly appointed UNC system president Margaret Spellings. No doubt there’s a perceived offense brewing somewhere on campus, kinda like the one brewing at Ithaca College.