Just a quick reminder: It hasn’t gone away.
Oh sure, it may be quiet out there now. Convocation brought smiles across the campus. Chatter among staff has turned to vacation plans. Even once-screaming headlines have faded in one community newspaper, as its reporters turn their attention to salacious trials and a city strike instead of this university and questions over presidential pay.
But don’t let silence muffle the importance of the next few weeks.
We cannot usually say that kind of thing around here in the summer. We don’t shut down, but we certainly enter a kind of summer stasis with regard to politics. We maintain until the madness returns.
But just picture the next two months: We’ll see the Board of Governors reflect on its processes and transparency, hear the president present his takeaways from his consultation tour and read the Goudge Review of university executive compensation practices. All this sets the stage for one of the more critical falls in recent memory.
In fact, I dare say we will be a far different university by time classes return this September. Our campus community will have a decision to make, one that will set the tone for the entire year – perhaps the tone for the remainder of President Chakma’s tenure.
How will we move forward?
Certainly, we are not going to put this behind us. Not fully. And that’s a positive thing. We have learned far too many lessons, opened up too many important dialogues and, yes, made some important changes already – with, hopefully, a lot more to come – to pretend like this never happened. The fallout from those few weeks this spring will cause pause for many years to come.
And we will be a better university because this happened. All of it.
What we need to remember, however, is the next few months should be about construction, not further demolition. Where we go from here is not about vengeance. Not about axes to grind – or to bury in backs. Not about personal agendas. Or old scores. Or gotcha moments. Or grandstanding. Let’s have no more groveling and apologizing. No more position papers. No more drama.
Let’s listen, learn, plan and move forward.
I consider myself like many on this campus – disappointed, unwilling to forget but full and willing partners in moving on in a positive direction. However, if we chose to re-litigate the past, drag it on further and further without resolution, then I am afraid of what our future holds.
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Bon voyage to our friend
We’re happy for her. But things just won’t be the same without her. With this Western News issue, our last of the season, our friend and colleague Denise Jones heads off into a well-deserved retirement next week. She will be missed by this team.
Denise started at Western in the Physical Plant in March 2001, and then joined Communications and Public Affairs in August 2004. Since that day, she has, at least officially, managed advertising and production schedules, as well as countless other production and archiving tasks, for Western News and Alumni Gazette for the last decade. At least, that’s what the job description read.
For those of us who worked with her every day, she has been so much more.
Part drill sergeant. Part cheerleader. Part gatekeeper, task master and institutional memory. Part personality. Part town crier. Part insider, greeter and momma bear. She was the first – and, occasionally, the last – point of contact for hundreds of Western News advertisers and readers. She was the first face I saw on my first day.
She has been so many things to each of us.
Thank you for everything, Denise. You will be missed.