Credit and criticism

Institutions are just like people. Whenever you think they are one-dimensional (e.g. completely bad and incompetent), they do something that completely turns your patently misguided assumptions on their head. I bring this up because it seems like every time I criticize UND for what I perceive to be shortcomings I am confronted and awestruck by the skill and professionalism of the groups and individuals who represent this university.

Most recently this occurred when I attended the UND Concert Choir's joint performance with Red River High school. It was extremely good, and quite rightly stands among one of the best concerts I have ever been to. Not only does it pay just tribute to the proud tradition of fine arts that are oftentimes overlooked by the Grand Forks community, but honestly, if you weren't one of the 150 people to attend this concert, your life is worse for it. It was that good.

In fact, sitting in the audience surrounded by the melodious beauty produced by our choir, I couldn't help but think how the quality of our choir directly contrasts the sheer ugliness that has surrounded our state in the last couple of weeks. I am speaking of course of the startling resignation of NDSU President Joseph Chapman after it came to light that he spent $22,000 of NDSU funds to fly his family to D.C. for Barack Obama's inauguration. I bring this up because unlike the concert choir's performance, which was a testament to the highest levels of excellence that people in this university and region can achieve, President Chapman's ordeal illustrates just how low we all too often set the bar.

In the same way that, with the exception of the people in attendance, nobody will talk about how good our concert choir has become over the last few years, in regards to President Chapman, nobody is talking about what ultimately led to his resignation. In fact, in their polarity, the only thing these two items share is the fact that people aren't talking about what is really important in regards to either of them.

While we initially attribute it to poor judgment on President Chapman's part (and indeed that is part of it), closer examination reveals that is simply not the case. To be fair, Chapman was certainly not a bad president or person.

Furthermore, it's not an exaggeration to say most North Dakotans have benefited from the leadership he exhibited as President of NDSU. In my mind, it does a disservice to him and his legacy to attribute this controversy solely to one bad judgment. It is as misguided as saying that the concert choir was good because the Masonic Temple has great acoustics. Yes, the judgment and acoustics contributed to what happened in both cases, but they are not the underlying causes.

Absent from the discussion surrounding Chapman's resignation is the fact that at some point, someone in the State Board of Education, NDSU Alumni Association, or somewhere thought that it was necessary to allow the NDSU president the ability to spend approximately $260,000 of NDSU Development Foundation funds at their discretion. This is significant because it means that technically, by the letter of the law, President Chapman didn't do anything wrong. He couldn't because as president, he was in charge determining what constituted a judicious expenditure funds.

We shouldn't be angry at Chapman for spending $22,000, we should be pissed that nobody thought it prudent to limit his authority. We should be upset that there is a fundamental lack of transparency throughout our SBHE that fosters poor decisions of this magnitude and prevents people from seeing the good that our institutions are capable of. This comparison illustrates that transparency within our higher education system shouldn't stop at the exposing the discretionary funding available to our presidents, amount of state funds spent on new presidents' houses, or allocation of UND student fees. It needs to be proactive, searching to highlight information that it is in the best interest of students (and citizens) to know, even going so far as to let people know the date, time, and location of a performance by an under-appreciated university concert choir.

In order to prevent decisions like Chapman's from happening we need to make transparency a tradition at NDSU, UND, and at all levels of the state. It should be as much a characteristic of our college as the wonderful choir that every student should take an hour to listen to. Our collective goal should be to make our universities are as transparent and open as our choir is skilled and to continually strive for the day when poor decisions like Chapman's no longer mar the beautiful music of our universities.