I do not think that a single finalist so far named by the search committee is worthy of serious consideration for the post.  No, I’m not going to advocate Interim President Hanson, who saved the University from virtual extinction by getting the University under way again after the Vice President for Business and Finance allowed the university to stagnate  because he didn’t have the courage to do his job.   Hanson is a good man, a hard worker, but i think he rather clearly is not qualified for the job.  But neither are any of the other candidates, in my view.

In his recent Bison Pride address, Interim President  noted that NDSU is the state’s land grant school, referring to the Land Grant, or Morrill, Act of 1852 which gave each state a grant of land to use for generating funds for a university for, according to Hanson, excellence in research and facilitating the work of the agricultural world.  NDSU is one of these, as well as one each in most, if not all states.  The exceptions are the former Confederate states that have two(formerly “separate but equal, don’t you know).

Dr., Hanson, while having spent some of his career at NDSU has spent most of his administrative life  at a small liberal arts colleges, most recently at Waldorf  College of Decorah Iowa, a 440 student 4 year libral arts college.  Such institutions tout excellence in teaching, I’m sure justifiably so.  However, NDSU’s faculty, as desparately underfunded as they are, are involved in nationally or internationally recognized research, for the most part, and their better undergraduates take graduate courses and are involve with the faculty in their research, opportunites not available at, for example, Waldorf.

NDSU is in serious financial difficulty.  Hanson has pretty much made that clear.  The next president is ging to have to deal with that reality. I submit that to do so, he’s going to have to understand what he’s chasing funding for, ande what it’s needed for.  I thinkk he also needs to underestand the intricacies of administering such a university. Hanson may not be qualified to do this, but look at some of the other candidates:

D. C. Coston, vice president for agriculture and university extension at NDSU.  I’m unsure of how much administration is involved in this position, but would point out that the Academic Vice President for Academic  Affairs and Provost, Dean of the Graduate School, several college deans, were all promoted from within NDSU.  Another internal promotion will indicate to potential funding agencies the desperate situation at NDSU.

Thomas Keon, dean of business administration at the University of Central Florida.  From dean at a regional, at least in name, university to president of a land grant school?  I don’t think so.

Dean Bresciani, former Vice President for Student Affairs at Texas A & M.  Texas A & M is a land grant school, but Vice President for Student Affairs is not a position actually involved in the administration of the university: no faculty report to him and he has no budget to administer to speak of.

Gene Hockfield Malandra, Malandra Consulting and former vice chancellor for strategic management, the University of Texas system.  None of this suggests actual academic experience to me,

Stanley Battle, consultant for the Connecticut State University and former president of North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical University. North Carolina A & T is the historically African American land school in North Carolina.  It is impossible to describe how underfunded
and therefore poor in other ways institutions like this are.  This is not a comment about the faculty, students, administration or supporters of such institutions: only about their funding.  Once again, appointment to NDSU president would be a huge leap.

Priscilla Nelson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology.  From professor to president in one leap?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

These are just some of the candidates, and some may not be candidates anymore.   I have nothing for or against any of fhem personally. But they indicate how bad the situation is, and I am extremely disappointed that Swiontek is “excited” about this list.  My feeling is that if this is the best we can do, we should close the search and try again next year with a new search committee.

There  are a couple of other things about this search that concern me.  One is that the profile of the NDSU president disseminated by this search committee there was a section on university athletics, claiming that athletics is an “integral part”  of NDSU.  Ii can’t seem to track down where in university policy this is established.  Most, if not all, NDSU faculty I’ve talked to don’t feel that this is true.  I wonder if it’s not a product of the search committee itself. Since most have no formal connection with NDSU, they have no business making NDSU policy.

Finally, remember when the Forum’s Man of the Year was considering another position?  We didn’t find out about it until he had already been offered the position.  According to those I’v spoken to experienced eith searches, qualified applicants sometimes don’t apply to NDSU since the Forum has a history of investigating the candidates on their own camp, and most don’t want it known they are looking elsewhere.  So, if we do have another search, the Forum should stay out of it.

“It is one of the big issues that, even if somebody wanted to practice in a rural area for their residency, there just are not enough slots for them. And research shows that when someone comes to a rural area to do their residency, they end up staying there, so that’s a really positive thing. ”

Wolking says she is sometimes discouraged by the politics around health care reform, but she thinks the benefits to people outweigh the benefits to corporations, if the outcome is that most people will be insured.

“More rural people are uninsured than people in urban areas, and people who are uninsured receive fewer preventive services. That’s part of why having 95 percent of people covered by insurance is so important, so that people can get the preventive care that they need.”

Critics continue to point out the costs involved, but Wolking says that while the House and Senate bills are being combined there’s a chance to work out the best possible compromise.

Menards Hall collapses at North Dakota State University.

Definition of “Creeping Meatballism” The idea of thinking individually has become a big joke. Old Thomas J. Watson of I.B.M. came up with the idea for a sign which just said: “Think”. And today, it’s a gag! This is the result of “Creeping Meatballism”.

On the first of December, Dr. Richard Hanson became the interim president of NDSU. I recall thinking at the time that he might becoming president of an institution on the verge of collapse.  I had no idea that it might happen literally.  I’m referring, of course, the collapse of the north side of that grand old structure Minard Hall.

For those unfamiliar with the NDSU campus, Minard Hall is the four floor yellow brick building with maroon trim across Albrecht Blvd from the NDSU Library, sandwiched between Askanase Hall(the Little County Theatre), the heating plant and Festival Hall.  It was built in three stages, the first being in 1901. It houses the College of Arts, Humanities and social Sciences, as well s the Mathematics and Psychology Departments of the College of Science and Mathematics.

For those not involved in higher education at a research university, this is a catastrophe of indescribable proportion.  To me, it is symbolic of the neglect  a state with a billion dollar surplus and its population treats its higher education system.  I don’t expect to make any friends by saying this, but for me, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I no longer care whether the youth of North Dakota get quality education or not.  Much as I love my students, the state just doesn’t deserve the effort.

So let’s return to Minard Hall, clearly one of the most important buildings on campus.  Currently it is closed to everyone.  There is hope to get the offices and classrooms not affected by the collapse ready for the start of spring semester.  There will supposedly be a window of opportunity for faculty with offices in the safe part of the building to return to their offices to retrieve important materials, such as books and papers, before the building is closed again.  I find that many don’t understand that NDSU is a research university, meaning that just because classes are not in session does not mean the faculty don’t need to use their offices.  I think the NDSU administration, in particular provost/academic vice president Craig Schnell, and, for that matter, some of the students, of publicizing the fact that many of the lost books and papers are irreplaceable.  I can only imagine how much research has been lost.

Bruce Frantz, who is in charge of the physical buildings on campus, would have us believe that this was an unforeseeable accident, and there were no mistakes made by his office or the contractor.  Snort.  This is an engineering school with a strong construction engineering program and excellent construction engineering faculty.  They just didn’t pay attention, in my view.  Franz is probably right to say the collapse happened at one of the few times no one would get hurt.  I’m glad, of course, that no-one did, but if someone had, I would have enjoyed the embarrassing national publicity that might have followed.

Franz would also have us believe that the damage can be fixed(for half a million.  The loss to the affected faculty, of course, can’t.  Even if it could, it turns out that NDSU carries no liability insurance).  I question whether Minard Hall should be repaired.  The building has been an expensive disaster for decades.  My office is in Minard Hall, but not in the affected area.  But my library and research papers and very probably my health has suffered much over the years.

Sometime in my first few years at NDSU the roof above(by a floor or two) sprang a leak and much of my library, carefully and costfully assembled while I was a graduate student and new faculty member, was drenched, rendering many of the books unusable, as the pages are all stuck together. This has happened so many times since that during a rain storm there is apparently a stand-by crew available  that can go rushing into faculty offices and cover everything with plastic if the roof leaks.  I read something about this once, but since I’ve observed it happening a few times, there’s no need to cite it.

Air quality has also been an issue in Minard Hall, due to its proximity to the heating plant.  In fact, the state health department once declared my office as uninhabitable.  My department and college administration was unable to find another office for me, but fortunately I was able to generate two invitations from departments in other buildings to reside there.  Yes, that is a dig at the problem solving abilities of the NDSU administration.

So, what we have here is an historic building that houses many important departments and in which many classes are taught that is virtually collapsing.  We didn’t have enough space for our 14,000 students before this happened.  And all of this at the end of an eleven year term of a president, Forum’s man of the year, that could raise millions for athletics, but couldn’t keep a major building safe in a state with a billion dollar surplus.

There’s many more problems Chapman left us with, but that could be the topic of another essay.