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Monday, June 19, 2006
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Let Us Not Be Snowed… …by the Association of Governing Boards of University and Colleges. Recall one university trustee’s description of this group, which UD has called “the official national trustee party planner": “[The Association’s] overwhelming message is for trustees to cheerlead for the campus administration. It has been my experience that AGB too often adopts the proposition that any disagreement with the administration is micromanaging or intolerable failure to support the president. If there were any doubt, recent problems at American University, where the board essentially gave a blank check to the president, should surely settle the matter: American University has been a member of the AGB for decades.” But now Richard D. Legon, the president of this do-nothing group, has roused himself to produce an opinion piece in the Examiner in which he attempts to deal with congressional fury at Ladnerian events at AU, events fully enabled by a corrupt and/or indifferent board. The Association’s president calls the AU trustees’ decision, under incredible pressure from the government and from national ridicule, to reform itself a little (recall that it’s been unwilling, despite demands from politicians and others, to remove even one trustee from the board, even though everyone knows who the dirty players are), an example of “courage and dedication.” In Orwellian fashion, the president decrees that the still-shameful behavior of AU trustees demonstrates that “college and university boards are capable of tapping their own resources to recover from a crisis. Consequently, proposed federal remedies aimed at the congressionally chartered AU are unnecessary and could inappropriately affect the wider nonprofit world.” I’ve read and listened to a lot of arguments, but I’ve never seen a person get to consequently quite this fast. This sort of polemical high-handedness, founded upon a conviction of other people's stupidity, is what you'd expect from a clueless, self-preening organization like President Legon's. He should stick to party planning. |