New President

I am generally excited about the prospects for President Hogan. He has impressive academic credentials, experience with health administration (which is sorely needed at UConn given the sorry state of finances at the Medical Center), arrives having spent time at two quality universities (Iowa and Ohio State), seems to be saying the right things about upgrading the research profile of the University, and has already made a bold statement to the Governor about athletics. However, I am concerned about how long he will stay at UConn. He is 62 years old and this means his tenure is likely to be less than 7 years. I hope that in his short tenure President Hogan can change the culture of UConn from a defensive stature that “UConn is great given where we were 10 years ago” to one that truly expects international excellence in teaching, research and graduate eduction.

Introduction

The University of Connecticut could benefit from an anonymous blog from the perspective of one of its professors. I have waited to develop this blog until I felt that I had a backlog of topics to discuss. My plan is to post some sort of commentary about once every two weeks and to allow a free discussion to follow from my comments. I hope that this can be constructively critical but always civil.

I plan on staying anonymous. This is not because I plan on telling dirty little secrets and hiding. Rather, when used judiciously the blogger can be a bit more truthful without having to worry about recrimination.

Finally, I will not edit or screen comments. If, however, comments become too long, off topic, or inappropriate I will have to resort to screening.