Leadership Symposium On Lessons From Leaders of the Past

The title should read, "Principles of association, fopish group-think and pseudo-consensus,hiring your spouse and pals a.k.a. nepotism and cronyism, particularism, and authoritarianism. there hasn't been independent thinking on this campus for decades.

Grad students at Potsdam? why, you should read the Raquette archives on William Merwin, former president of the college, 1989-1996. he was quite a leader: a campus rife with union problems, quashing free speech, pimping for the cameras over the notion of a student centered university, oh yes, the public ivy, ha ha. Next, there's the student protest on Benny Raymond day, the 175th. and last but not least, Billy had problems in Florida with free speech and, fidelity. "Trust me..."

I remember him, but the current crop of grad students should exalt the efforts of John Fallon III, anyone remember him? what a leader: FERPA violations, enabler of campus procedural due process violations, EMU union problems, no confidence, teaching faculty rally protesting Fallon, CLERY violations, and oh yes, blame the other guy for everything. Now that's leadership a la Potsdam.

merwin and Chapple tried to prevent the wearing of honor cords at graduation, but a group of students would have none of it--on Mother's Day.

SUNY Potsdam's Guarantee February 2005: Another leadership trimuph--5,6,7 years to earn a bachelor's degree from a suny school. Chuck Kelly was pleased to see that John Fallon III had taken steps to guarantee parents and students on time graduation rates. Leader Fallon did not see a problem with graduation rates, but people argued: "Students could not get into required classes they needed to graduate on time." A january 205 state report criticized suny potsdam as having the lowest graduation rates in the suny system, paired with suny brockport.Chuck Kelly thanked Fallon for tackling the issue up front. the question remains, what is the graduation rate for undergraduate students right now--5,6,7 years? Promises made promises broken--it must be the fault of the economy. Now that's leadership!

Enrollment leadership: The only reason the campus is going to open enrollment now is to encourage lots of unqualified high school grads to spend GSL and PLUS loan funds and other federal and state aid packages for up to 3 semesters--resulting in academic warning, academic probation, and finally, kicking them out. The consequence being, the taxpayers fund this "poor academic effort" while the college touts with media help "enrollment numbers and access." The administration needs to be open and honest about the reason for open enrollment--maintain the number of jobs on the campus. It's about the existing jobs on campus and what those dollars mean in SLC. Maybe we should ask the merwin Institute to initiate a study on this issue; oops, I forgot, money gone for the Merwin Institute. Oh, and the SL Aquarium too... Given these circumstances, what leadership principles are being used to promote success at suny potsdam?

what a farce