Category Archives: EMU President Search

Come check out the Celebration of Student Writing on Thursday!

Posted on December 2, 2009 by | Leave a comment

A somewhat self-serving plug: tomorrow is the bi-annual (or is it semi-annual? well, twice a year) Celebration of Student Writing in the EMU Student Center, between 4 and 5:30 pm. It’s a sort of writing “fair/festival” for students in English 121, which is the required first year writing class, and it really is a lot of fun.

In the world of first year writing, it’s kind of a “deal:” lots of other universities have imitated what we started here. For example, as this article suggests, California University of Pennsylvania has their own first year celebration based on the EMU model a week from tomorrow.

And as a special bonus: come on by my section of 121 tomorrow and mention EMUTalk!

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Posted in Board of Regents, Buildings and Grounds, EMU Events, EMU Fund Raising, EMU President Search

Has Pray-Harrold funding been nixed?

Posted on June 26, 2008 by | 6 Comments

I heard a rumor today– mind you, just a rumor since I haven’t seen it reported anywhere, and I’ve been kind of busy wrapping up my spring teaching to do much “investigation” on my own– that the governor’s office has pulled the plug on the funding for remodeling Pray-Harrold and put that money instead into the Detroit Metro Airport.

Again, this is all rumor-land. For all I know, no decision has been made and/or the exact opposite decision was made and the PH renovations begin in the fall. But, the rumor goes, the governor was apparently not amused when her candidate for the EMU President position, Mike Flanagan, didn’t get the job, and she “retaliated” by pulling the plug on the funding. And, this same rumor goes, she also fired Roy Wilbanks’ wife from some kind of state board she was on.

Personally, I don’t buy any of this. If the decision had been made to not fund Pray-Harrold, I would have assumed we would have heard about it in a more public forum by now. And there are plenty of reasons beyond getting even for Granholm to not fund Pray-Harrold renovation– the fact that the state is super broke being but one example. Still, it is an interesting rumor. Anyone out there want to shed any light or guesses on this?

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Posted in Buildings and Grounds, EMU President Search

Building better EMU/Ypsi connections

Posted on June 2, 2008 by | 8 Comments

Here’s an example of the sort of thing that I would like to do more of on EMUTalk.org: link to and discuss posts from other blogs, especially posts from EMU and Southeast Michigan bloggers. See this post from Mark Maynard, “emu president dr. susan martin on town/gown relations.” Incoming President Susan Martin did an interview with the Ypsilanti Courier, and one of her “great ideas” for building better relations between EMU and Ypsilanti was to have an Easter egg hunt at the President’s house. Mark has some better ideas:

While an Easter egg hunt on the grounds of the President’s house would be great, I suppose, I was hoping for something more. I was hoping for talk of programs incentivizing new faculty to purchase homes in Ypsi. Or, how about a promise to revisit the development policy that has all new EMU construction taking place on the far end of the campus, away from the City? Or, how about instituting a monthly breakfast meeting with key stakeholders in the community? There are any number of things that she could do that would improve the relationship, and thus both the City and the University. Hopefully she’ll realize that once she’s been here a while.

Ypsilanti doesn’t have to be a negative, holding the University back. It doesn’t have to be something that they hide from prospective students. Ypsi could be a selling point. There are tons of things that college-aged students would appreciate, from the Ugly Mug and bands at the Elbow Room to the Shadow Art Fair and the Dreamland Theater. My hope is that Dr. Martin recognizes this and really gets engaged. What the people of Ypsialnti really need isn’t an Easter egg hunt, but a dedicated partner who sees that our futures are intertwined. We need a partner that wants to be involved in the development of Water Street, the improvement of our public schools, and the betterment of our local economy. We need a President that fights to bring good, sustainable businesses to Ypsilanti, creating jobs for their students and contributing to the economic vitality of our City. We need someone, in short, who gives a damn.

Well said.

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Posted in EMU President, EMU President Search, In the media..., Ypsilanti

“Ypsilanti boasts trendy, cultural downtown”

Posted on May 28, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Ypsi city council member Bill Nickels wrote a rebuttal to an editorial that ran in the Detroit News a couple weeks ago (and which I talked about/linked to here), “Ypsilanti boasts trendy, cultural downtown.” I don’t know if the adjectives “trendy” and “thriving” are accurate, but I do agree that Ypsi is not nearly as “troubled” a place as is often depicted in the local media. Of course, that depiction in the local media is usually from that quaint town to the west and not from that truly scrappy and occasionally troubled city to the east.

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Posted in EMU President Search, In the media..., Ypsilanti

“EMU 1, Gov: Zippo”

Posted on May 26, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Tim Skubick has some interesting observations about the EMU Presidential search on his blog, Skoop’s Blog, “EMU-1 Gov: Zippo.” Here’s a passage:

By going public with her endorsement of Flanagan, the governor put the board in a box. If they voted for him, it would look like the governor had “pressured” the board to make a decision.

That may have pleased the governor but might have been wrong for the university.

The fact is the EMU faculty wanted nothing to do with Flanagan who had neither a PhD nor any higher education experience to speak of. So from the get go, the governor should have know this was going to be a tough sell.

I think his assessment of the politics of all this are probably pretty accurate, and he goes on to say that “insiders” on the BoR were offended at the governor’s office strong-arm tactics. But it’s a little strong to say that the faculty wanted “nothing to do with Flanagan.” He was my first choice personally, and the voting/results reported from the faculty and union sessions suggested that the top two (maybe top three) candidates were pretty close. Interesting reading.

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Posted in EMU President Search, State Government

Besides setting “a new tone,” what else should Martin do?

Posted on May 20, 2008 by | 3 Comments

Even though I subscribe to and actually read this past weekend the paper version of the Ann Arbor News, I missed this editorial suggesting that incoming EMU President Susan Martin ought to set a new tone– here’s a link to it. On the whole, I agree with the points this editorial makes, but this line kind of made me snicker: “Any leader of a public university needs to embrace the institution’s economic role. EMU, with its close ties to the financially struggling Ypsilanti, can make a huge difference in that city’s future.” Riiiight, Ypsi is struggling, especially relative to the thriving and obviously far superior kingdom of Ann Arbor. Never mind that business about Pfiizer packing up its tent and leaving, Borders warming up the bus to get out of town/out of business, real estate prices falling, etc.

I agree with the editorial in that hiring Martin has prompted a “collective sigh of relief” on campus, but sooner than later, she is actually going to have to do something. So, in the spirit of unsolicited advice that often characterizes EMUTalk.org, what do you think Martin should actually start to do as EMU’s president?

Here’s a few thoughts I have, based largely on the notes I took during the presentations from all of the candidates:
Continue reading →

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Posted in EMU President, EMU President Search

More video welcoming President Sue Martin

Posted on May 19, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I think this is supposed to go with an interview in Crain’s Detroit Business, but I think that is a subscription only publication, even on the web. Still, it’s two nice minutes of video:

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Posted in EMU President Search

EMU President Q&A (and video– and accounting news)

Posted on May 15, 2008 by | Leave a comment

From the AANews, “For Martin, presidency ‘a dream job’ EMU’s new leader emphasizes stability.” Basically, she says all the right things– you know, emphasizing the positive, talking about the stuff she needs to learn, getting out there to meet with students, putting the past behind us, etc. All good, as long as she doesn’t talk about taking off the rear-view mirror.

Also, here’s 3:44 worth of video sort of summing up her time on campus Wednesday:

Susan Martin becomes EMU’s first female president

Oh, and hiring Martin has peeked the interest of the accounting world– at leastaccountingweb.com’s world.

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Posted in EMU President, EMU President Search, In the media...

Martin’s first action as president: giving EMU money

Posted on May 14, 2008 by | 3 Comments

I actually heard about this from someone coming out of the reception today with EMU President Susan Martin, but it’s reported in this mlive/AANews blog entry: “New president of Eastern Michigan University commissions excellence fund with $10,000 donation.” From the article:

Speaking at a press conference shortly after EMU regents formally approved her appointment, Martin noted the pride in the university cited by EMU alums, staff and friends of the university she talked to during the presidential search process. She urged EMU supporters to join her in contributing to the excellence fund.

“If you love EMU, take a dollar and send it too the office of the president. If you’re doing well, put in $5 or $20. Send it to EMU to show the world we are proud of our university,” she said.

Her remarks came after the Board of Regents meeting at 9 a.m. that lasted less than five minutes. All eight regents voted to approve the appointment of Martin, whose selection had been announced Sunday afternoon.

First off, I wish I had five minute meetings.

Second, Martin is definitely off to a good start here, taking a page from the Mary Sue Coleman play book, I think– didn’t she donate a bunch of money when she started over at U of M? And, as far as I can gather, Martin has now donated more money to Eastern Michigan than the last three presidents combined.

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Posted in EMU Fund Raising, EMU President, EMU President Search

A couple of more articles for the Martin presidental time-capsule

Posted on May 13, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I suspect the honeymoon articles for EMU President Susan Martin will continue for a while, as well they should. Pam Young sent around an email about a reception tomorrow (there’s a light lunch, so maybe I’ll stop by and try to sneak a sandwich before I go and meet my students who want to talk about making web pages), and Geoff Larcom has a piece in today’s AANews, “New EMU president inspires optimism.” It’s an exciting and anxious and even happy time with something like this. And it’s an important time; as the Detroit News put it in an editorial, “Wayne State, EMU leaders confront difficult problems” (who knew Wayne State was looking for a president?).

These two articles (not to mention some of the comments and articles in the last couple weeks) will go into the EMUTalk.org archives as we move on to other topics. And it seems to me that the real first test of Martin’s presidency will come in about a year or so. As I recall saying in the comments of a discussion at some point about all this recently, any search committee is a crap-shoot. I can think of many faculty or department head searches in my own department that turned out as a surprise in both good and bad ways. You just don’t know how these things don’t turn out until after the person is hired.

So let the honeymoon go on for a while, and let’s see how this turns out in about a year. Good luck, President Martin!

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Posted in EMU President Search, In the media...