M. Peter MacPherson chooses to go out in the same manner he came in - in a hail of controversy. MacPherson, the president of Michigan State University, announced at today's undergraduate convocation that he will be stepping down at the end of fall semester, 2004. How tactful. A fellow office person suggested that was like going to a birthday party and telling the celebrant that they have cancer. Maybe that was a hint to Condoleeza Rice, who gave the commencement speech - tell George I need a job. (He's apparently quite chummy with BushCo. That's why they sent him to Iraq last fall to help build their economy.)
When MacPherson came in, it wasn't under the best of circumstances. The Board of Trustees met in secret, violating the state's Open Meetings Act. He was a business man, not an academic. He certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He did manage to smooth things out a little by coming up with some good ideas - the 20/20 Vision program that defined some long-range goals, including reducing traffic and making what traffic remained more efficient. His wife was a one-woman fundraising machine for the MSU Safe Place, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
The last six months have seen MacPherson stir up an ugly hornet's nest in the proposed expansion of the medical school. (There's also the proposed reorganization of the Liberal Arts college that's got a lot of us up in arms too, but that's actually the Provost's idea.) There were rumors before the announcement that he would leave, and further rumors still that say that the faculty is pissed and they wanted him out. I could imagine why - they tried to rule from the top-down, and we all know how well that works. He's also leaving in a very big budget crisis, which doesn't appear to be getting brighter any time soon (in fact, it will most likely get much worse). The administration has already mothballed some courses of study and even departments (bye bye, Linguistics), yet the stadium is getting a new expansion. (Grr....!) Perhaps the cancer comment is appropriate, but it's not going to kill, just deform.
