(05-23-2011 07:02 PM)Bucfaithful Wrote: Pardon my naivete, but what do our local elected officials know about leading a University like East Tennessee State?
Well, I must say I'm surprised to read this, and a similar sentiment from etsubuc.....
The answer is complex, and I could write a page on this, but let me just point out a couple of the major factors:
1) Rusty Crowe was in the ETSU administration for quite a while. He knows A LOT about it. He's had his battles with stanton, and they've agreed with some things. I think I'm not letting any cat out of the bag to say that his leaving the university wasn't exactly the way he envisioned it would go. Without exploring that tangent, let's just say he's got a very good handle on what it takes to do that job. I can assure you he knows stanton's weaknesses (and strengths, too, to be fair).
2) All these legislators, or at least the ones who've been in office more than a short while, are partly responsible for funding ETSU. stanton goes to them (as well as the TBR in general) with funding requests, pleas for as much education funding as can be found. On this one topic I think many of us can say stanton has performed reasonably well. (Not perfectly, as he's played favorites - but he felt he had to in order to retain certain people.) He's managed an EXTREMELY underfunded academic crisis and at least kept the ship afloat. But *all* legislators are heavily involved in knowing where the money goes for higher eduction at all TBR universities in Tennessee. Many of these legislators have close ties to ETSU. Now, all that is not the same as having *run* a university - but they know well the financial challenges, and how things must be apportioned to appease the most needy aspects.
I'll leave it at that for now, but also remember that RM has dabbled in politics himself. He's got some friends; if he's got political enemies I don't know of them. (Doesn't mean they don't exist.) I don't think RM carries a lot of political clout. I will also say he's done pretty well on the financial end of things, but that's mostly a result of being extremely conservative as required - not necessarily anything visionary there....
All that being said, I still go back to my initial comments on this thread. It seems very pejorative for Crowe, ramsey (yes, he certainly deserves lower case), hill (even more so lower case)
et al, to so proactively make this step. It almost seems a conflict of interest. I mean how can they know an absolutely perfect candidate isn't out there that they've never heard of? I do know Rusty knows RM quite well, and he *must* be aware of his weaknesses.
One could almost make a case that this is analogous to stanton hiring mullins as AD - it's someone he could easily control. It's possible (and I'm *not* saying I believe this) that these legislators think RM is someone they can work with, or control, or whatever. Let me emphasized again -- I'm *not* saying that this is what's behind this. But it's still a bit puzzling.
Wish MamaBear would come weigh in on this.........I can't tell all......