Yes ladies and gentlemen, it has happened. After one year, six months, twenty eight days, and roughly seven hours (just kidding on that last part) Baylor University went from having an eternal interim president, aka David Garland, and got an actual president!
Interestingly enough, Baylor gave the student body a good twenty four hour notice before the President’s formal introduction that there was, in fact, a new president. Just last week I heard talk of the odd fact that we didn’t and probably won’t have a president for a while. Hmm, I wonder how long this has been in the works?
Too bad I wouldn’t know, because I am just a measly little student. I only attend the university. No need to consult me, or anyone else in the student body for that matter, on the issue of our president.
Who is this incredible new president I speak of, you may be asking yourself. There is a banner stretched proudly across the Student Union Building (SUB) that states, “Students welcome (http://www2.baylor.edu/baylorproud/2010/02/starr-named-baylor-universitys-14th-president/) to Baylor University!” Well, I can assure you this is not true because the student body is rather perturbed that we had no idea Baylor was even considering making him our president.
If you don’t know very much about Baylor University, please allow me to explain their current project. Baylor 2010 (http://www.baylor.edu/about/vision/) is Baylor University’s goal to step up as one of the premium universities in the country, comparable with the Ivies. This means that anyone Baylor finds to be the head of the university is most likely going to be down for the job for quite a while.
I’ve heard many things about Starr being appointed our president and the vast majority of them have been negative. Is this really the image we want to bring to our university? For those of you that also don’t know very much about Starr, he was the prosecuting attorney on President Clinton’s impeachment case. Starr also has an incredibly conservative view on things. This is not necessarily a problem, since he is now the president of the largest Baptist university in the world, but to those of us who were hopeful that Baylor was loosening up a little and becoming slightly more liberal, (or at least slightly less conservative) have lost all hope. It almost seems like a step in the wrong direction.
Also, as pointed out by the BaylorGuys (http://baylorguys.com/starr-vs-clinton-vs-mike-tyson/), Starr is a member of the Church of Christ denomination (although naturally I’m sure there will be a conversion to the good old Southern Baptist soon). I know I’m not the only one who thinks this is ironic. Fun little trivia for you.
So stay tuned, turn on your televisions, because judging by the amount of news vans on campus (I counted seven), this will be the top story tonight.
