I sat through 80% of the open public forum late this afternoon with the final UI President candidate on campus to interview- Bruce Harreld. He is the "wild card" candidate of the four finalists that comes from more of a business background and has not held office in the academia world previously.
He was grilled and grilled hard after his opening remarks of 25 minutes or so. In the public forum, it's opened up until 6:15 for anyone with questions to get in line and ask them. As soon as he was done, they flocked to line up and ask--and most everyone of them was a faculty member (the vast majority) or student.
I dont know much about the academia world having never worked in it, but I can tell that if Harreld is named the President there will likely be uproar on the UI campus among faculty--mark it down! The Q & A session after his opening remarks was "uncomfortable" to say the least to watch. Lots of tension.
I don't have a dog in the hunt on this one, but I will say as an outsider:
I was embarrassed for the University as a whole in how many of the faculty and students asking questions conducted themselves. The facial expressions while several stood in line, the disrespect specifically one student showed when asking his questions, and some of the questions in general were just disrespectful. One faculty member was adamant in asking 1) Have you done consultant work with any members of the Board of regents? and 2) Have you already been offered the job?
Overall, Harreld held his ground against those who were disrespectful in their question asking--he absolutely has spunk. He told one in fact he "was not going to fall into the trap they were trying to put him in to".
My hunch is, however, after attending in person the open forum yesterday also of Joseph Steinmetz, the current Provost at Ohio State, will be named the President. The media and crowd in attendance really seemed to like him a lot.
I have only briefly watched online the open forums for the first two candidates.
The new President is to be announced Thursday.
He was grilled and grilled hard after his opening remarks of 25 minutes or so. In the public forum, it's opened up until 6:15 for anyone with questions to get in line and ask them. As soon as he was done, they flocked to line up and ask--and most everyone of them was a faculty member (the vast majority) or student.
I dont know much about the academia world having never worked in it, but I can tell that if Harreld is named the President there will likely be uproar on the UI campus among faculty--mark it down! The Q & A session after his opening remarks was "uncomfortable" to say the least to watch. Lots of tension.
I don't have a dog in the hunt on this one, but I will say as an outsider:
I was embarrassed for the University as a whole in how many of the faculty and students asking questions conducted themselves. The facial expressions while several stood in line, the disrespect specifically one student showed when asking his questions, and some of the questions in general were just disrespectful. One faculty member was adamant in asking 1) Have you done consultant work with any members of the Board of regents? and 2) Have you already been offered the job?
Overall, Harreld held his ground against those who were disrespectful in their question asking--he absolutely has spunk. He told one in fact he "was not going to fall into the trap they were trying to put him in to".
My hunch is, however, after attending in person the open forum yesterday also of Joseph Steinmetz, the current Provost at Ohio State, will be named the President. The media and crowd in attendance really seemed to like him a lot.
I have only briefly watched online the open forums for the first two candidates.
The new President is to be announced Thursday.
Last edited:
