University of Colorado Presidential Selection Upsets Campus
The man nominated to lead the state’s flagship university is an oilman, not an academic. In a sea of Ph.D.s, he has only a bachelor’s degree. But he does offer this: A reputation as a formidable fundraiser.
February 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Newsflash: A PHD doesn’t make someone a good administrator/fundraiser. I can see why the educational establishment is so mad. Their new president is everything the liberal educational establishment hates:
White
Male
Heterosexual
Conservative
Republican
Mitt Romney supporter
Was successful in private industry
Former oil executive
Has proven himself through actual results in the real world, not writing academic papers
One complaint I found amusing:
“It’s good the search committee is looking for somebody who is going to be able to fix our funding crisis … but how can you fundraise for a business you know nothing about?” said Hadley Brown, a student government member.”
Given that he has already raised 1 billion dollars for the university, has deep political connections and is a generally intelligent, successful guy I’d say that he will do a great job. Shouldn’t we be celebrating the diversity of experience, education and political views he brings to the ranks of college administrators? Oh, liberals only value diversity that agrees with their pre-concieved notions of what is acceptable.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Mr. Hansen;
Normally I wouldn’t respond to this type of opinion–you’re obviously part of this ideological force that has brought on so many problems for our Nation and the world. You call yourselves “conservatives”. I call you terribly frightened. The good news is that we will get past it like a bad fever.
But your last remark–”proven himself through actual results in the real world, not writing academic papers”, pushes the button to respond.
Mr. Hansen, let me tell you about the real world, the world Mr. Benson and the politics he has personally funded to the tune of $12 million dollars of his own money. Every 15-seconds a child dies. 1-billion humans live on less than 50 cents a day and if anything goes wrong that day, a bad scratch, some particularly bad water, a bad storm, they find themselves dead.
The U.S. spends far more on its defense than on helping the world. We arm the world though and spend far more than all of the nations in the world combined on defense. Indeed the world is a dangerous place and we need to protect ourselves but we need to do it wisely and we are so far off the mark. America has changed in the past seven years from the light of the world to the perception you and your ideologues have created that we will kill anyone to defend our “interests”–although we will try to keep collateral damage to a minimum.
Now we are faced with the impact of our success, global climate change. It was no ones faulty really. But the people Mr. Benson contributed to have decided to let the rest of the world take the lead dealing with the problem while we gas up our Humvees.
Mr. Hansen, that is the real world.
As long as people like you equate success with financial success only, we will have severe problems. But I am optimistic. Our society has found the inspiration to set aside resources for people to have a clean, well lit place to write academic papers, extend our knowledge, speak freely and explore new ideas. Of course people you identify with in history put Galileo under house arrest, trashed Darwin, called Einstein a dirty “Kike”. Whenever and where ever change rear its head as it always does, and particularly progressive changes, the conservatives in history were there to stop it but that would take volumes to speak to.
The University will survive Benson just as it survived the firings during the “red scare”, the reduction of CO State funding to place us about 49th nationally in funding higher education, and the ill will of your sort who believe education is all about getting a job. If you went to college Mr. Hansen, or if you didn’t, I strongly suggest that you go back or start. You might be surprised what you will learn about the “real world”.