We hope that the newly installed Chancellor Sean O’Keefe is settling in nicely. As students, we all know how difficult the process of starting out in a new place, away from the familiar confines of home-life is. Still, on day four of O’Keefe’s tenure there are a few questions that we would like to ask him, as well as some requests that we would like to make. O’Keefe’s tenure begins at a moment of great change for the University. For several years now, the University has been consumed with the flagship agenda. The University has been attempting to change its image from that of a third-tier party school into an institution on par with the country’s great public institutions, such as the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California-Berkeley. Part of of O’Keefe’s duty is to follow through on this charge, which was started under the watch of former Chancellor Mark Emmert. This issue has been extremely contentious, with complaints being raised on issues such as tenure review and the removal of a significant amount of instructors from the English and math departments. Our question in this case is whether O’Keefe will continue with the flagship agenda as it stands, or open it to modifications? Another question that has been brought up by many students is whether or not O’Keefe will continue to be as open and available to students as his predecessor. Though the position of chancellor is certainly one that requires a great deal of energy and time, dealing with everyone from the governor down to his own staff, O’Keefe must remember that without the students of this University his job wouldn’t exist. We’d recommend for O’Keefe to set aside a certain amount of time every week in order to receive student visitors, that he keep the tradition of The Chancellor’s Pancake Breakfast and that he walk the campus in order to become accustomed to those that he serves. Indeed, walking the campus may be more than an important symbolic gesture for our first chancellor without a Ph.D. Now this lack of a doctorate should not be held against O’Keefe, whose experience both in education and as a public servant make up for his lack of the usual credentials. Still, it has been a while since O’Keefe has been in an academic setting and must realize, if he already hasn’t, that he isn’t dealing with a bunch of rocket scientists anymore — physics majors excepted. Beyond our advice to O’Keefe is our advice to students and faculty. The new chancellor is human just like all of us. He will make mistakes, especially in the beginning, and we should accept that fact and move on. When judging him, we ought to look at ourselves and ask how successful we were when we first arrived at this University. Indeed, we would imagine that very few of us made it without a few false starts in our academic careers. In this case all we ask the University community to extend to O’Keefe is patience and a sense of neighborliness that he might well have missed while living in D.C. At this point, so early in O’Keefe’s tenure, we cannot guess what will happen, or what difficulties we will face. The University as a whole will no doubt experience great changes during the next few years, both good and bad. O’Keefe’s legacy will be built on how he helps the University weather such things. Let us all hope that his service here will be the stuff of legends.
The Daily Reveille Editorial Board is: Scott L. Sternberg, Editor-in-Chief; Mark F. Bonner, Managing Editor; Ryan Merryman, Opinion Editor; Dorothy E. Paul, Online Editor; Jason Dore’, Columnist.
The Editorial Board produces weekly editorials written by the Opinion Editor which express the views of the Editorial Board. However, the opinions of the board do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of The Daily Reveille’s staff.
This editorial was written by the editorial board of The Daily Reveille. The views expressed are those of the board and do not reflect the views of the entire staff.