EDITORIAL: Where Is It?

The Trustees set up the CommissionThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toeffect sweeping change across theThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toeffect sweeping change across theUniversity, but its recommendationsThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toeffect sweeping change across theUniversity, but its recommendationshave been conspicuously absent fromThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toeffect sweeping change across theUniversity, but its recommendationshave been conspicuously absent fromRodin's agendaThe Trustees set up the Commissionon Strengthening the Community toeffect sweeping change across theUniversity, but its recommendationshave been conspicuously absent fromRodin's agenda_____________________________________ The Board of Trustees, responding to public pressure and outcry, set up the committee to end all committees -- the Commission on Strengthening the Community. Its objective was to design a comprehensive plan that would steer the University into the next millennium -- a plan designed to unify and heal a broken campus. Under the guidance of Gloria Twine Chisum, vice chairperson of the Board of Trustees, the Commission was given broad powers to draft specific recommendations to be implemented according to a strict timetable. A few months later, the Commission issued its report and it was approved by the Trustees. Since then, save for a few exceptions, there has been nothing but silence. President Rodin's administration has made very little progress toward implementing the Commission's recommendations. Rodin claims she is not snubbing the recommendations -- on Sunday she said "There certainly is not inattention to moving the Commission's agenda forward." And Executive Assistant to the Provost Linda Koons adds that "A lot of things are in process," although "not much has been actually accomplished." But these words do little to quell the lingering suspicions that the Commission is not exactly a top priority in Rodin's mind. If it were, she would not be so lukewarm about it. Furthermore, Rodin is supposedly a "woman of action" -- or "decisive enabler," as she likes to call herself. If she had any intention of embracing the Commission's recommendations she would have done so already. As it stands, April -- the one-year deadline for implementing many of the Commission's changes -- is rapidly approaching and it looks as if little will be done. When the Commission was first set up, many feared that it was going to be little more than another paper pushing University committee, making recommendations to a lame duck interim president. As soon as Rodin took office, conventional wisdom went, she was going to make a clean break with the past and dump what was Fagin's (if not Hackney's) committee. It seems these doubters were right. Rodin's administration has not fully implemented any of the recommendations and there is little indication that it will. All this inevitably begs the question of why the Commission was set up at all. The Trustees knew a new president was going to be on the way in and they still guaranteed implementation. If they weren't willing to make sure the new administration was going to implement the Commission's changes, why set up a Commission in the first place? Why invest tremendous amounts of time, money and resources towards producing a comprehensive plan that was going to be ignored? Every indication is that -- barring some last minute intervention -- the Commission will be remembered as a fiasco. We hope the University has at least learned something from this.