<p>It seems pretty unlikely that the committee chose Mr. Krislov without a lot of deliberation. On the contrary, it probably gave a lot of thought to his candidacy. If he demonstrated some incompatibility with leading an educational institution, I'm sure that the faculty members of the committee would have been squealing months ago. </p>
<p>In many ways, a liberal arts college is as much a bureaucracy as a larger university, a corporation, or a division of the Department of Justice. Liberal arts colleges are businesses, albeit non-profit businesses. Dollars in, products and/or services out. While it's nice to find an academic who knows ancient Chinese painting or physical chemistry and can run a multi-million dollar corporation, such people aren't all that common. Doctoral programs rarely teach grad students how to teach. They even more rarely teach them how to manage a big business. </p>
<p>Anyway, part of me thinks that Oberlin, like a lot of liberal arts colleges, needs to shake things up a bit from time to time in order to survive in the future. Maybe it will be good to have a President who is not an 'industry insider.' The Presidents of Grinnell and Knox are also ex-lawyers. They seem to have worked out just fine. When I visited Grinnell last autumn, I caught myself wondering why I hadn't thought of going there -- and two Oberlin grads on the Grinnell faculty just raved about the place to me. </p>
<p>Maybe it isn't always good to follow the "normal path" or to rely on arbitrary and meaningless labels like "staff." Maybe a college president can leave the teaching to those who are trained to do it, and maybe the teachers can leave the administration to people who have that skill. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I know lots of lawyers who are abysmal managers -- and many who are abysmal lawyers. My core point is that each individual should be judged as an individual and not by superficialities. </p>
<p>Perhaps so. Yet, whenever I see backgrounds of college Presidents they seem to be overwhelmingly from this pool, uncommon though they may be.</p>
<p>Certainly every President of my own alma mater, over the last 40 years anyway, had this background.</p>
<p>I think the theory is you're not leading, and evaluating, a team of widgets, or lawyers, you're leading a bunch of educators and academics, so they like people with this background who have been in the trenches themselves and kind of know where they're coming from. People who "know the business".</p>
<p>In my own work experience the distinction between line and staff positions was not meaningless, and a head of a staff function rarely rose to lead the organizations. Perhaps you'd feel the same if the head of UM's IT department was named the next President? Or their accounting department? Clearly lawyers are more involved with core functions than these other staff functionaries, but I don't really know their degree of involvement in matters outside their particular defined purview.</p>
<p>Being conventionally qualified for a job is not a superficiality. However I agree it is not the be-all and end-all either.</p>
<p>The poster's reaction to the Oberlin Review article was a tad over the top, considering the poor quality of that newspaper generally (I've been reading it for months, along with The Crimson and the Daily Princetonian among other college papers and have been underwhelmed) and the paucity of good questions asked by the interviewer. You can be sure that Mr. Krislov knows the history of Oberlin -- both past and present. He has a strong academic background -- was a Rhodes Scholar among other things; the type of legal background he boasts was very hands-on -- even as a law clerk, he worked for a prominent liberal district court judge in SF, known for her willingness to tackle difficult issues. I also don't see the point in the negativity displayed here -- after all, none of us has been involved in the interviewing or screening process. Oberlin has apparently lost ground in the last few decades as far as its general reputation and appeal for top students, including minority students, despite its excellent resources and unique features (most obviously the Conservatory and Allen Art Museum) -- to survive and thrive, it needs to be savvy about the image it projects -- the Fearless campaign (which incidently appealed to my kid, who found it amusing) was an attempt to counter the image of Oberlin as "weird" -- this guy is certainly not "weird" and will hopefully work toward making Oberlin a stronger player in the field of LACs.</p>
<p>As a student...Mr. Krislov still seems very uninformed about things happening and there is a general sense of educating him the last few days he's been on campus. I do think that it may not be wonderful that he doesn't know more, however, I don't believe that this was a large consideration and actually that's the first time I've heard that point brought up. I think his character and experience show that once he learns more about Oberlin he'll be able to handle it well. I went to one of the student forums, and he said that he's come to hear more about it over the last few years and knows that it has a progressive stance and strong music so I think he gets a good feeling for the school, but just doesn't know all the aspects. As for the forum, I was not overwhelmingly impressed but still think he's a good candidate. It seems like he shares the values of Obies for the most part and wants to work with the students and address their needs. He is also personable and was able to express himself well. I believe that he will focus on some main points here - like diversifying campus and raising money - and is a good candidate to do this.</p>
<p>Mr. Krislov was the unanimous choice of the faculty members of the extended search committee.</p>
<p>I agree with those who've said that it would have been arrogant beyond belief for him to have answered the question of what specific changes he would make. The one thing Oberlin does not need is an autocrat.</p>
<p>All these diverse posts just prove that the Presidency of Oberlin will be a mighty tough job for anyone. There are so many 'nation-states' at work on a single campus that it will take an extraordinary person to keep the place moving forward. But those different constituencies are what make the place vibrant and influential. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the day-to-day business of the college needs to get done through a strong leader and his/her staff. Without this, the college could wither away and become the next Black Mountain College -- a good idea that fell apart through local anarchy, lack of funding, and the rest of the world saying "who cares?" I respectfully submit that there is no single set of qualifications for being an effective President of Oberlin. </p>
<p>While Oberlin's history is important, don't forget that a lot of that history (principally the religious activity that caused the school to be founded) was left behind a long time ago and is rarely mentioned. Just for fun, try reading some of Finney's sermons or a copy of the "Oberlin Evangelist." Those folks certainly didn't shy away from controversy or worry about whether their adversaries were sleeping well at night. They were unafraid of conflict, and even tried to stir it up. In part, that's why Oberlin played an important role in the country's development in the 19th Century. In an odd and perhaps unintended way, the "Fearless" motto is quite apt. It brings the school full circle. </p>
<p>It's good to look back, but Oberlin needs to keep looking forward. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be, I guess.</p>
<p>If anyone's curious, Oberlin has had one other lawyer as President, William Edwards Stevenson 1946- 1960. Prior to Oberlin Stevenson had a long legal career and was a founding partner in the highly prestigious law firm now known as Debevoise Plimpton.</p>
<p>About his successor, it is written “Carr’s charge was to restore an academic character to the presidency…”</p>
<p>In the beginning there were several minister-types, but since 1902 all the Presidents besides Stevenson have moved up the ranks from Professors/ academics.</p>
<p>For a "nonacademic" Mr. Krislov has done an impressive amount of academic stuff:
Masters degree at Oxford in modern history; adjunct professor in the U of Michigan Political Science department, where he teaches two undergraduate courses each year; has taught in the law school and in the Public Policy Summer Program, as well as serving as a chair on an initiative to integrate academic study with ethics-related issues in society (sounds very Oberlin).
It is true that many college presidents begin as professors, but they usually have done a great deal of administrative work for years before becoming college presidents (an example is Carol Christ, who was on my dissertation committee at Cal in English, was a dean and then vice chancellor at Cal, and is now the president of Smith; she had not taught more than a couple of courses for years in English before she left for Smith). Again, she was an example of someone coming from a big research university and going on to be president of a liberal arts college.<br>
Of course, the proof will be in the pudding.</p>
<p>Evidently it takes more to impress some people than others. I guess maybe because I have friends who've been adjunct profs on the side of their "day jobs", just for yucks, and I don't think any of them are expecting that their next gig off of that sideline would be college president. They probably couldn't even get tenure-track positions at the same schools. I bet most of the 'real" faculty there don't even know who they are. And vica versa.</p>
<p>But hey, if Oberlin faculty is happy with him that's what matters.</p>
<p>BTW, Stevenson left for a position in the government- ambassador, in his case. After a good long run though. Given Krilov's background, if dems win this time around expect him to field some calls. Presumably he'll be having a blast at Oberlin, but otherwise he might have some quite attractive exit opportunities available to him, and relatively soon at that.</p>
<p>When I was at Oberlin, there were lots of "real" faculty -- including some with tenure -- who couldn't teach, think, speak, or write their way out of a box. As at every school, there were duds -- tenured duds who had great paper credentials. Fortunately, however, the majority were not like this. </p>
<p>Then I went to law school. Same phenomenon. To make matters worse, some of the "real" law faculty had zero understanding of how to deal with people, let alone how to solve a legal issue. This is a problem in a law school. Several of the "real" faculty had no more experience as a lawyer than clerking for a federal judge and maybe -- in rare cases -- spending a year or so at a big city law firm where they did basic legal research and maybe reviewed mind-numbing documents for months on end. </p>
<p>Interestingly, many of the adjunct faculty members were just as bright and articulate as the "real" faculty, but they had broader experience and perspective. Some of them even had better academic credentials than the full-timers. And yes, the adjuncts could teach just as well as the "real" faculty who were tenured. In fact, many of the adjuncts were not bogged down in either of the common pastimes of legal academe, namely (a) reliance upon rote recitation of black letter law or (b) endless and obscure debates about issues that rarely if ever come up in the real world. The main difference? The part-timers didn't publish law review articles. </p>
<p>The three best teachers I had in law school (who were all tenured and thus presumably "real") had excellent academic credentials - degrees from top law schools, lots of good publications, etc. However, they had also worked for at least five years as lawyers in very challenging jobs before entering the world of teaching. It showed. </p>
<p>All this means to me is that categories like "real" and "unreal" are a trap at best, and a refuge for the insecure at worse. It's better to judge individuals on their own merit, not by glancing at credentials or other such badges.</p>
<p>I had courses with a Nobel Laureate who couldn't lecture, too. Presumably he brought something else to the table.</p>
<p>These guys I know hopefully can teach -at least the practitioner courses that they are qualified to teach, and only those courses-but they do not have doctorates, have never done one iota of original research or had any articles published in scholarly publications. Among other things, that's why I doubt they could get hired as full time, tenure track faculty. They have a practitioner track record, but no track record in scholarly research/publication. They are also not experts in the academic side of their fiields, just what they know from work. They've never sat through comprehensive exams in their own fields. They know what they know. That's why they stick to teaching applied/ practitioner-oriented courses.</p>
<p>But the point I was making didn't pertain at all to whether these individuals taught better than a tenure track professor, rather it was that these particular individuals undoubtedly do not expect next stop college president by virtue of their moonlighting teaching gig. These people don't even feel like they are critical parts of the departments they are teaching in, more like they are just "extra" hired help.</p>
<p>And whether teaching a few courses, as an adjunct sideline, constitutes an impressive record as an academic. To me, no. YMMV.</p>
<p>But this is for Oberlin to decide, and if the faculty's happy, great.</p>
<p>I authored post #16 in which I referred to some of Krislov's comments in the Oberlin Review as "damning and almost unforgivable." Ha. Sorry. I had just driven straight from Oberlin to New Haven and was about halfway through a bottle of cheap Chilean white wine. But -- as unfair as my comments may have been to Mr. Krislov -- I do not think it's unreasonable to expect a candidate to express his broad vision in early public statements. I would by no means expect him to run through a list of action items before settling in at the helm, but he missed an opportunity, though minor, to win further support for his candidacy.</p>
<p>Even though Oberlin may have abandoned its evangelical past, some of us expect an almost evangelical zeal from presidents. I don't think that's a fair or unfair expectation. I realize that presidents have many duties beyond inspiring students and alumni. But I think the ability to inspire is a key element of leadership. I eagerly began reading the interview with Krislov hoping for inspiration and was simply disappointed that he really didn't say much. But, given that I have only read the Oberlin Review interview and his letter of application, I suppose I'll just have to wait and see. I will defer to the collective wisdom of the faculty, administration, and, soon enough, the Trustees -- I'm still in contact with some of them and highly regard their intelligence and their pain-in-the-assery. </p>
<p>As many have said, the proof will be in the pudding. I await the pudding. And, so as not to ruffle any feathers, I'd even take a glass of Kool-Aid if there's any left.</p>
<p>I will say, that as a student at Oberlin, I'm somewhat concerned about Krislov, but also believe things could have been worse. </p>
<p>To the point about the committee having deliberated a good deal about the selection, I have no doubts. However, I do have doubts when a committee, other than two students (one of which was chosen to be a part of it part-way through the process), is composed primarily of white, cisgender, middle-aged men and that this is no way representative of the entire student body at oberlin (aside from the age). The second student who joined the search committee was a person of color and after talking to this person mentioned that it was one of the most intimidating experiences that person has ever gone through, especially being the only person of color in the room. </p>
<p>So with that in mind, I have no doubt that the committee did the best job they could, but that's also my concern. That this is the best that they could have come up with. </p>
<p>I'm also concerned that when asked about fighting for an Asian American Studies department at Oberlin during the student open forums he refers to it as "Asian Studies" (we already have an East Asian Studies Department) and glosses over the fact that he's been told numerous times that students have been fighting for this department for over 35 years. Then when asked about a Peace and Conflict Studies program he goes on and on about it when, as far as I know after talking to students who have worked on the proposals and such, has only been in the works for around 5 years or so (give or take).</p>
<p>With that said, I have many concerns. But I also recognize that it could have been a lot worse.</p>
<p>techiedork says that the second student on the presidential search committee was "the only person of color in the room." This is manifestly untrue: three of the 11 members of the committee, including the vice chair and the president of the alumni association, are people of color.</p>
<p>What is "cisgender"? and what is wrong with white middle-aged men (or women) that warrants a disdain for their presence at meetings?<br>
As of today, Mr. Krislov has been anointed -- I hope he proves to be a great new president. He certainly looks like a nice guy -- albeit middle-aged and white.</p>
<p>Cisgender would appear to be the opposite of transgender, i.e someone who identifies themself with the physical gender with which they were born. This is a way to avoid using the word "normal" in this context thus inferring that the transgender orientation is abnormal.</p>
<p>I rather doubt it will catch on in the mainstream. The prefix "cis-" is not nearly as frequently used as the prefix "trans-" except by Latin scholars and certain types of scientists.</p>