Now to the other corner of the state. By now this game of musical chairs has become a tradition at the University of Arkansas as chancellors and chief fund-raisers follow each other in dizzying succession. The personnel may change, the upheavals don't. "Top UA solicitor of gifts resigns," said the front-page headline in Tuesday's Democrat-Gazette.
That bold-face hed ought to be kept in type, for this is scarcely the first time there's been a big shake-up in the Division of University Advancement. Though it might be more accurately called the Division of Retardation, for this is an era in which fund-raising trumps all in higher education.
The latest shake-up brings back scarred memories of the university's years with G. David Gearhart at its shaky helm. When those years finally came to a merciful end, he'd left his administration awash in disarray, strewn with the bodies of fired, suspended and "resigned" subordinates calling each other names. At first the deficit in the fund-raising division was estimated at "only" $3 million, but it had grown to more than $4 million-plus by the time the auditors filed their report.
The name of Brad Choate, head of the so-called Advancement Division back then, became all too familiar to constant readers during those tumultuous years. So did the name of Joy Sharp, who was in charge of seeing that the division kept within its budget. As it obviously hadn't. The mutual name-calling was something to behold--and pay for. Vendettas can be expensive things.
Now their successor, Chris Wyrick, whose arrival was hailed in such glowing terms, is leaving. Happily, he's leaving like a gentleman after making a statesmanlike farewell statement. ("It has been an honor to serve as the vice chancellor of Advancement ...") But leaving he definitely is. What else could he do after 18 members of his staff were removed from his control and nine of the senior ones began reporting to other deans and administrators?
The volleys in that old War of the Administrators continue to echo, though ever more softly as memories fade. They shouldn't. For the past may prove only prologue, and the Gearhart Era remains a cautionary tale about the dangers now so prevalent in American higher education today--like an overemphasis on fundraising, which can cause waste, ill will, and bureaucratic infighting.
O, Thorstein Veblen, thou shouldst be living at this moment. Arkansas hath need of you! Veblen was one of the first American scholars to dissect the deterioration of higher education in America as it sank lower and lower. His teutonic prose still rings like prophecy, for he understood that the business of what he called The Higher Learning was becoming just a business.
Is there no hope for this state's institutions of higher learning? Of course there is. It lies with the kind of liberal-arts schools--like Lyon and Hendrix--that still seek to educate students and donors. Theirs is a proud past and a glowing future. Yes, let us return to the past, for that would be true progress.
Editorial on 08/06/2016