{"id":548922,"date":"2010-04-30T17:40:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T21:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011748668_emmerttoleaveuwforncaa.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-07-19T20:16:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T00:16:55","slug":"emmert-to-leave-uw-for-ncaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/548922","title":{"rendered":"Emmert to leave UW for NCAA"},"content":{"rendered":"

President\u2019s departure sign of crisis for public universities<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

As someone who has spent most of her communications career at two large public universities, I share The Seattle Times\u2019 sadness regarding University of Washington President Mark Emmert\u2019s departure from the institution [\u201cEmmert the rainmaker,\u201d Opinion, April 29].<\/p>\n

While the vast majority of public universities in today\u2019s incredibly competitive universe suffer from greatly reduced state appropriations and subsequent calls to stop being elitist while also ceasing any feeding at the public trough, the loss of a master fundraiser, negotiator and visionary such as Emmert is more keenly felt than many students, faculty, alumni and donors might initially realize.<\/p>\n

But Emmert\u2019s departure should not surprise anyone. Given the many problems facing most public universities, it has become very difficult to recruit and retain people of his stature to assume university presidencies. It takes one who must be completely and utterly dedicated to the notion of public universities to take on the often thankless tasks of constantly raising money, dealing with athletics problems, absorbing never-ending faculty and student complaints, always needing to explain a university\u2019s reason for existence to state legislators and assuaging sometimes overbearing and overly critical donors and alumni.<\/p>\n

Emmert\u2019s leaving should alert public universities and legislators everywhere about the real crises facing something the United States has always considered one of the jewels of our society: a quality public university system.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mary Stanik, Minneapolis<\/em><\/p>\n

Can\u2019t cut work force without cutting higher education<\/strong><\/p>\n

I too commend Mark Emmert; he has been a remarkable leader and true visionary. Yet, I believe The Times reflects some hypocrisy. It slams the Legislature for reducing the University of Washington\u2019s state funding by 33 percent.<\/p>\n

While I agree and have stressed that the Legislature has long underfunded higher education, particularly the UW, a key fact is ignored. As the 2010 Legislature worked to plug an $11 billion biennial budget shortfall, The Seattle Times editorial board repeatedly called for us to balance the budget on the backs of state workers. More than 41 percent of our state\u2019s employees are working for our institutions of higher education, which amounts to the lion\u2019s share of state workers. Comparatively, human-service employees make up 33 percent of our work force.<\/p>\n

Because of its size, you cannot cut our state work force without cutting higher education \u2014 especially as it is completely (and unfortunately) discretionary. These destructive cuts and corresponding increases in students\u2019 tuition will continue until we address our regressive, outmoded tax structure that is unsustainable and overly dependent on the sales tax.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President\u2019s departure sign of crisis for public universities Editor, The Times: As someone who has spent most of her communications career at two large public universities, I share The Seattle Times\u2019 sadness regarding University of Washington President Mark Emmert\u2019s departure from the institution [\u201cEmmert the rainmaker,\u201d Opinion, April 29]. While the vast majority of public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}