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I was surprised and quite disappointed at Prof. Henning Schroeder's recent commentary "Crowning a king — at the U of M" (May 12). The objective of the commentary was unclear. It struck me as peculiar because I had dealings with the university's new interim president, Jeffrey Ettinger, just last month. I had long known of his good works and credible skills and had asked him to speak to an assembly of students at St. Cloud State University, where I have been teaching occasionally after retiring as a full professor from the University of St. Thomas in 2006.
The gathering at SCSU was not large, mostly because so many of our students are not on campus but taking classes remotely. But the session was recorded and made available to the 96 students I have in classes and to other students and staff members. I explained to Jeff that there might not be many people there. His reply was "Don't worry about the size of the crowd."
Once there, he met and greeted every student, and not just briefly. He asked about their backgrounds and career aspirations. His visit was warmly received by the people in attendance and those who viewed the video.
My own time in academia was preceded by 25 years in the computer industry starting with IBM in 1955. Since the 1980s, I have taught at six universities, four in the U.S., including the University of Minnesota and two overseas. The U is an institution I hold in very high regard and where I have many friends. In addition to my own experiences, the children in our family have taught at Ohio State, Stanford, the University of Washington, University of California, Los Angeles and the University of North Carolina.
My expectation is that both the faculty and the students of the University of Minnesota will like Jeff Ettinger and be glad he is there. He is an experienced, evenhanded consensus builder who sets reasonable goals which he quietly arranges for organizations to meet. He is not a flash-in-the-pan, publicity-seeking hot shot. Instead, Ettinger has an established record of caring for his country, his state, his town of Austin and a great university from which four of his children have graduated.
Higher education does need a critique. There are many fine people involved and great universities have provided much knowledge, instruction and wisdom to all of us. But we in higher education do need to be more efficient, more innovative, less costly and more connected to our local communities. Our nation already has way too much uninformed partisanship. It is time for all of us to set aside out trivial personal preferences and pull together to provide a better product for the benefit of a society that does truly need a higher education.
