Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 82]

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Picking a College President

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be a man of action, unafraid of cliques or factions within or without his institution; he must command respect so that he can have a dignified discipline among his faculty and students for only thus will he secure the support necessary to promote the best interests of his university. The job calls for rugged individualism tempered by the good sense that prompts a man to ask the advice and the help of his colleagues, his trustees, and the people of his state. If his institution is a state university supported by public funds, he must have the ability to approach the legislature with a program and a budget that is almost obviously for the best interests of all concerned. The legislature is always a cross section of a state just as Congress is of the nation. There are representatives of the hilly sections as well as those of the fertile valleys; there are the smalltowners, the medium-size townsmen, and the people of the big cities. There are broad-minded men with a desire to be fair, and there are the narrow minds with a desire to destroy. There are understanding souls and mean souls. There are fanatics and liberals but with it all, they generally represent very well the people who elect them, and a good college president is a man who can get along with all of this heterogeneous assemblage. You can see that he must be fair, fearless, and resourceful. Like the story of the man who goes out west to get rich and comes home to find a gold mine or an oil well on the old farm which he gave away, committees appointed to pick a new president for a university begin by looking everywhere but at home. This is perfectly natural for was it not said a long time ago that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country," and please remember that every person on this committee is actuated by one desire, and that is to get the best man in the country for president. So investigations must be made of the many men all over the land whose names have been brought to the committee by alumni and friends of the university. These investigations reveal much that is intensely interesting. It is easy to see that there are institutions of learning where practical politics has worked to the detriment of the faculty. The alumni of state universities can't be too careful in their efforts to keep the selection of trustees out of the hands of the state central committees of the two leading parties. It is obvious that these central committees will name men and women for trustees who are entitled to