UW: Get a clue... and a grip.

I admit it. I'm an alum of the UW, to the extent I completed my Army commissioning program there. But I also admit to multiple episodes of consternation based on the UW's insistence on developing as Seattle's four-year community college.

I arrived at this position initially when the UW arbitrarily and without legislative authority, provided married student housing to gay or lesbian students to the detriment of, well, married students. Not only did the UW provide this housing, subsidized by the state, but they also put the first "couple" ahead of everyone else on the list and provided this scarce commodity with great fanfare and publicity.

I thought then and believe now that the UW has lost focus as a STATE institution, as opposed to an institution based entirely on the liberal-think of the elite of the city of Seattle.

As part of the Cascade Curtain issue, the UW has needed to moderate its position on a variety of social issues. It needs to support the views of the people who, in turn, use their collective tax dollars to support them.

Clearly, McCormick's replacement, Mark Emmert, was vetted for his liberal views in addition to his administrative abilities.

He needs to mute those views as do the rest of the Regents, who should have, but rarely does, reflected a political cross-section of the state.



Thursday, March 17, 2005

Racial profiling not a UW mission
By NICHOLAS O'CONNELL GUEST COLUMNIST

The timing of University of Washington President Mark Emmert's recent column against Initiative 200 could hardly have been worse. At a moment when the state's flagship university is in crisis, Emmert chose his first significant public pronouncement to talk not about academic achievement but about repealing a law endorsed by 60 percent of the state's voters. Nero fiddles; Rome burns.

The challenges confronting the UW are legion: A cash-strapped Legislature is not about to write the UW a blank check; faculty and staff are quitting because they can't get even cost-of-living raises; community college transfer students sit in academic limbo because there is no room for them.

Meanwhile, the institution reels from a parade of scandals: Former President Richard McCormick was forced to resign because of an extramarital affair; former football coach Rick Neuheisel was fired for betting and allegedly lying about it; the medical school was forced to pay $35 million to settle a five-year federal investigation into billing fraud.

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