AU president announced

As expected, the AU Board named Neil Kerwin as president of the University today. I was at the announcement, which was in an auditorium stuffed to the gills with staff, faculty, and students (plus alumni like me probably blended in). As soon as Kerwin's name was announced, the audience burst into loud applause and cheers that lasted for a few minutes. During his speech, Kerwin promised that a new process of planning for the future would begin soon, which will involve all constituencies on campus. That prompted even more applause. Kerwin also stressed improving governance and transparency. That certainly makes me feel better.

For a good governance geek like me, entering AU right as the Ladner scandal broke was pretty unnerving, and the two years of uncertainty that followed were simply disquieting. I'm glad that has now been resolved. I think this brings the kind of positive closure for my grad school experience that, unfortunately, I didn't get on Smurf Day. All in all, this is a good thing.

Update: Link to news coverage from the Post.

Finally, some progress in the AU president search

The Post gave us this little teaser this morning saying that the recalcitrant American University Board of Trustees might actually bother to pick a president tomorrow, and that it will probably be the interim president the University has already had for two years.

Well gee guys, it's about damn time.

My woes with AU governance started just shortly after I enrolled there as a graduate student. I watched in horror as President Moronic Asshole Thief stole a lot of money, was caught, and then was given severance pay. After all, I was a student rep to the Board of Trustees when I was in college, and I got a nice tutorial in college and university finances. I also enjoyed, and helped improve, a fairly open and transparent system of governance back when I was a lowly undergrad at liberal arts college. That hey day ended as soon as I got to AU, and I realized how good I'd had it before.

I also got really damn pissed off. And I said so. And it got me nowhere. So I shut up. Anyway.

I think Neil Kerwin will be a fine president at AU. He hasn't had a lot of leverage in the past to years, as he's basically been seen as a caretaker, and as the Post reveals, hasn't really been taken seriously by the Board until just recently. But he seems to be an amiable guy. He actually can be seen walking around on campus, smiling and saying hi to people, which is something his predecessor didn't do (probably because his fat ass was being driven around everywhere).

Nonetheless, this search has been run in a smoke-filled room, with as little transparency as humanly possible. Indeed, there were student, faculty, and alumni reps on the search committee, but no one was allowed to talk about anything. The only public forums on the subject dealt with characteristics various constituencies would like to see in a new president, which of course led to a lot of "we'd like someone who isn't a crook, please." I understand being sensitive to candidates' needs to keep things quiet, but I don't think it's unreasonable to at least name the finalists and bring them to campus for general ogling (sans press).

Even this process would have been more tolerable if the Board had been more transparent to begin with. In spite of going through a big governance reform process during 2006, it seems that most changes were cosmetic. Although a student and a faculty member were added to the Board (without vote), the process of selecting those individuals was done completely in private, after the initial solicitation of applications. In short, who the hell knows what the AU Board will do, except the Board itself. It was telling when, after completing its so-called reform, the Senate Finance Committee wrote back and said "not good enough," to which the Board basically responded "tough." Frankly, inviting a couple more people to your meetings and publishing a very, very brief summary of meetings doesn't quite make Board operations transparent. There needs to be actual effective communication back and forth, and in that regard, the AU Board is still seriously lacking.

Nonetheless, I'm excited about tomorrow's announcement. AU left a bad taste in my mouth at the end of two years. While I think it's a fantastic institution academically, the fact that it's managed by idiots/assholes at the highest level rather casts a negative light on the whole thing. If we could get a forward looking president with the genuine best interests of the University in mind, and a Board that is willing to exercise its responsibilities while neither grandstanding nor micromanaging, then things will be in good shape. If Neil Kerwin is given the authority to do that, then I'm all for it. I guess now we wait and see.

Tra la, la la la, la, la la la, la...

Picked up my academic regalia today. It's totally Smurf blue. And the hood? A big red, white and blue panel surrounded by peacock blue (for public/international affairs types), which basically looks like Uncle Sam threw up all over it. But back to the Smurfs.

Compare:

A Smurf

An AU-SIS MA Recipient

See what I have to look forward to at the asscrack of dawn on Sunday? If only my crazy mother weren't coming (T-minus 20 hours), we could skip all this.

I'm here, but distracted

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, kids. I'm busy finishing my final project so I can graduate and move onto a new life completely lacking in promise or fulfillment. :) This endeavor will take me a few more days to complete (at least in draft form).

In the meantime, there are two fun things in the world you should pay attention to:

First, we have the elections going on in Nigeria. Now if these go well, and aren't totally rigged, all will be good. If, however, these go badly, and are totally rigged, shit will probably go down. And that means lots of things, including higher gas prices for the American driving public. So far, so shaky.

Second, we have elections going on in France this weekend. It'll be curious to see who emerges for the second round of voting next month. The Post ably pointed out this morning how France continues to play a major role in the world, but how the French feel their nation is in steep decline.

Entertain yourself with these fun events. I'm gonna get back to frantically writing now. The woman riding a Segway up and down Harvard Street, though, is a distraction. I'll be back after Tuesday.

Smithsonian Board takes governance lessons from AU

Our great national museum is doomed to never change. After the ouster of Lawrence Small (whose expenses have been described as Ladner-esque, a term I hope doesn't enter local parlance) as head of the Smithsonian, its Board of Regents did exactly what the American University Trustees did a little over a year ago: they created a governance committee! And what do governance committees do?

They say the problems are so big that they can't possibly be resolved until well after the media feeding frenzy is over. They may eventually call for some token transparency to appease the still-incensed, but only after at least six months have passed. After that, it's back to closed-off smoke-filled rooms to find a new leader who will again be allowed to run amok. Nothing will be done to address institutional culture or repair the broken processes that allowed for such gross misspending to occur.

Corruption doesn't exist in a vacuum, especially not at the top. If a leader is tossed out for ridiculously abusing his expense account, you can probably bet that somebody somewhere down the chain is following the dear leader's example, and will probably be the first to speak up and say the problem was only at the top. Maybe, maybe the Regents of the Smithsonian will really learn from AU and see that token change isn't good enough. If not, I hope that they at least raise the ire of Chuck Grassley and company, who, at least in AU's case, weren't too shy to say that proposed reforms weren't good enough.

And now, cue the wild speculation about who the next Smithsonian Secretary will be. For the record though, former Mayor Anthony Williams has yet to be named AU's president, so careful with the speculation.