Spring Break
Archaic ways must go: Time to end centralization
Christian Matheis
Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: Forum
During a recent presentation to a group of student leaders I explained the concept of the debt culture into which they have been born. In the contemporary United States, it is a common assumption that most of us will live with between $5,000 to $20,000 in immediate debt for much of our lives. Students, and in fact most of us, are too comfortable with this - as if it is just how things ought to be. It is a flimsy rationalization that teaches us that middle class debt is going to produce sustainable outcomes. Hopefully, within the last 12 months bad economic ideologies have become easier to recognize. In that time many of us have begun to wonder about the competencies of political, economic and industry leaders who met problems of the day by leading from their talents, sometimes sincerely and sometimes not, when overall they were leading into the past. The economy that once was is no more.
Last week I attended a special session of the Faculty Senate wherein some of the financial challenges facing OSU were summarized all too briefly and a vision for the future structure of OSU was consolidated into a few slides. The officially recognized challenges that were summarized were only a few among many broader challenges we actually face, and some of the most politically uncomfortable topics were conspicuously omitted. I hope to draw your attention to at least one or two of the challenges that have yet to be discussed publicly.
As faculty and students posed questions in the forum, senior administrators provided charismatic responses, but they did not provide substantive answers. The meeting last week mirrored a similar gathering in the spring in a joint session between the ASOSU Senate and the Faculty Senate. Behind the veil of these open forums, months apart, the planning and strategizing has continued. In the span of time between the two meetings it seems that most faculty, staff, students and alumni have stopped just short of publicly asking key questions about competency, leadership and governance. The questions typically posed in recent forums focus on bits and pieces of structure and funding. While these are of utmost importance, and while the questions are becoming more fine-tuned, something critical is missing from the conversation.
Last week I attended a special session of the Faculty Senate wherein some of the financial challenges facing OSU were summarized all too briefly and a vision for the future structure of OSU was consolidated into a few slides. The officially recognized challenges that were summarized were only a few among many broader challenges we actually face, and some of the most politically uncomfortable topics were conspicuously omitted. I hope to draw your attention to at least one or two of the challenges that have yet to be discussed publicly.
As faculty and students posed questions in the forum, senior administrators provided charismatic responses, but they did not provide substantive answers. The meeting last week mirrored a similar gathering in the spring in a joint session between the ASOSU Senate and the Faculty Senate. Behind the veil of these open forums, months apart, the planning and strategizing has continued. In the span of time between the two meetings it seems that most faculty, staff, students and alumni have stopped just short of publicly asking key questions about competency, leadership and governance. The questions typically posed in recent forums focus on bits and pieces of structure and funding. While these are of utmost importance, and while the questions are becoming more fine-tuned, something critical is missing from the conversation.
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