UA still hunting for new president - or maybe not

And so, dear reader, we begin a new week with the University of Akron Board of Trustees still unsure of the identity of the school's next president.

Presumably the gestation period began back in August, 2013, when President Luis Proenza announced that he would move on.    You can find more than one person on the campus who believes the required institutional "search" for Proenza's successor ended in 2011 when the school hired dethroned OSU football coach Jim Tressel and put him on
a fast-track career projectile that would seat him in the president's office when it was finally vacated.

The Board's  game plan appears to be drawn from the playbook of another OSU icon, Woody Hayes, known widely for a  grinding  offense relying on "Three yards and a cloud of dust". The trustees must have read about it somewhere.

The search, such as it has been,  has been  a pro forma exercise that finally drew a dozen and half or so applicants with Tressel prominently among them after a  series of coy responses on whether he was actively seeking the job.  Not only that job.   It has since been revealed that he has applied for the presidency at Youngstown State University. Has  the situation now opened to auction bidding for his services between the two schools?

There's been little coming from the Board, although I'm told that three Republican members, and maybe more,  are solidly behind hiring Tressel for the  top job.  That group is led by Jonathan Pavloff, Board vice chairman and chairman of the Summit County Republican executive committee.

Meantime, the next  president may have to demand hazard pay. He (or she?) will quickly be challenged by a projected $15 million budget  shortfall, a four percent decline in enrollment and a two percent increase in tuition. Tressel would find the challenges much greater than defeating Michigan.

College, anybody?

Walter Hixson: A critical look at UA's priorities

WALTER HIXSON'S op-ed piece in Sunday's' Beacon Journal was more than a shot across the bow of the University of Akron administration. It hit the bow.

Hixson is a distinguished history professor who serves as president of the UA American Association of University Professors that is in overextended contract negotiations with the

school's front office. Some might argue that in his union role he would be expected to attack the administration for its alleged financial shortcomings. But that would merely summarily deny the validity of his criticism without giving it a wide- screen analysis.

Here are a few points in the Hixson column that should remain on the table:

The university's priorities have shifted from its self-proclaimed "landscape for learning" to a "landscape for earning". In the meantime, Hixson asserts, the new landscape "benefits a bloated administration and local contractors but no longer serves the best interests of the university to teach them."

Money budgeted for teaching and research has declined from 37 pct. in 2004 to 34 pct. in 2009. At the same time, student tuition as part of the university's income has risen from 32 pct. in 2002 to 43 pct. today. UA is also ranked near the bottom of salaries of associate and full professors - 10th and 11th among Ohio's state-supported schools.

So what do we make of this? Is UA failing as an attractive campus for educational talent that is heading somewhere else? Is it losing its competitive edge as it further engages in a massive building program on the campus rather than human talent?

As a rule, university administrations think corporately and resist responding openly to public criticism other than, at best, a canned statement from a beleaguered media information department.

Don't the points made by Hixson and other critics (yes, there are others) call for a forthcoming response from President Proenza and certainly from the Board of Trustees that has ratified the administration's initiatives ? Has the UA become top-heavy with management with vice presidents reporting to vice presidents?

Is there anyone on the board willing to take a serious look at the financial as well as image problems? Hixson's Sunday column should serve as the road map for anyone still in doubt about UA's need for accountability. After all, it is a public university.