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Scarborough to Resign Today


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Oh thank God... I would like them to put Proenza back in as interim prexy, since they have to pay him anyway.   

 

They need to do a deliberate, no stone unturned, national search.    They have to find a tier of candidates above the pool that Scar was in.  Someone w academic accomplishment, but that is also dynamic and energetic.  

 

The need to find the right person, not the conveniently available one...

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Who the hell would have wanted to be the Zips Football Coach after Ianello drove the program into the ground?

 

UA is a great place to get an college education. There are plenty of talented, intelligent candidates available. UA needs someone who recognizes talent spearheading the next hire process. Whether it's academics or athletics, we seem to really struggle in talent evaluation...we've had some colossal whiffs.

 

They probably had the right guy in Tressel. 

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7 minutes ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

They probably had the right guy in Tressel. 

 

They probably did, they definitely had the community, alumni and student support.  He hasn't had much trouble at YSU getting the business support.  

 

The thing that was "missing" was the support of the faculty.  They wanted someone "traditional" someone with "experience".  They got what they asked for.

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I was on the fence on Tress-- clearly a super competent person who had an enormous number of connections but... he wasn't a phd/didn't have an academic pedigree so if you view UA as what it is-- an academic institution-- then he wasn't the best choice.   The role he had at UA under Proenza was probably right for him at UA.  BTW, I haven't read any signal accomplishments he had at UA.  

 

I agree w Capt on the talent eval issues-- after icoach and Scar, there needs to be some sort of a process in place that really double confirms these hires.  We know what happened with icoach-- he was one and only choice of the new AD and there was a bias to find someone with 'big time' experience.  I really have a hard time believing that Scar flew through the interview process without raising yellow flags, but for some reason he wasn't bad enough to get washed out but wasn't good enough to win it outright.   From what I remember, he seemed sort of the last man standing and there was pressure to do something quickly since YSU had decided to move forward with Tress.   

 

I think there needs to be significant outreach to the Akron business community so that they are involved, engaged, and invested in this decision.   This is a critical position and an important moment for Akron.  

 

 

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agreed-- the phrase "we could do alot worse than..." comes to mind.   They did ALOT worse by picking Scar.  

 

BTW, this is why i think they should install Dr. P as interim president... put someone in place that understands, and loves, the institution but that isn't a candidate.   Put together a process that will take as long as it takes to find the right person, that's not arbitrarily time-boxed.  

Edited by LosAngelesZipFan
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45 minutes ago, LosAngelesZipFan said:

he wasn't a phd/didn't have an academic pedigree so if you view UA as what it is-- an academic institution-- then he wasn't the best choice.   The role he had at UA under Proenza was probably right for him at UA.  BTW, I haven't read any single accomplishments he had at UA.  

 

Very good assessment of Tressel.  I sure hope everyone here holds Akron to a much higher standard than Youngstown.  

 

I can't wait to see Scarborough go, and will only give him a break, to some extent, in that he instituted some bold moves to try to move the University forward.  They were just not the right moves, and seemed to be done without enough analysis, or regard for the consequences.  

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I don't know her at all, but someone that was a Fed Reserve President would be amazing and a logical trade-off for the academic pedigree.

 

And not to crack open discussions of the past, didn't it get determined that Proenza's "financial mess" amounted to really about a 3% correction to the annual budget.  There was not a massive financial issue.  UA's debt to budget ratio is on the high side, but sustainable-- if enrollment stays steady-- and reflected the need to correct several decades of chronic underfunding of physical plant.   Did UA need an on campus replacement for the Rubber Bowl?  Yes, or exit football.   Did UA need a total campus makeover?  Yes, but it needed to finance itself since the state wouldn't.   Those were necessary investments, not profligate spending.   I don't go on campus today and feel like it is crazily over-built.   It's not a bunch of crazy architectural over-reach...it's nice, but pretty utilitarian.  It was established a while ago that the "financial mess" narrative was really just a Reichstag fire strategy to implement an ill-considered, ham-fisted, half-baked strategy/experiment.  

 

If enrollment is now cratering, then there would now be a true financial mess...

Edited by LosAngelesZipFan
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I haven't touched on the Proenza legacy myself, but since it's being discussed again, I have to say that I don't have any major problem with what was happening.  As far as I am concerned, Akron was indeed in need of a physical makeover.  We didn't build the Taj Mahal on campus.  And frankly, there was more that COULD have been done, and wasn't.  He made a business decision to make the product more attractive to prospective buyers.  And enrollment was increasing pretty substantially, wasn't it?

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5 hours ago, Steve1982 said:

My first choice was not Tressel but Sandra Pianalto. I have no reason today to think otherwise and she goes right to the top of my list.

Seems like a great choice, however it doesn't appear she has a real doctorate so I'm not sure how the nerds that make up the faculty senate would ever approve :rolleyes:.

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On 5/31/2016 at 8:33 PM, LZIp said:

Seems like a great choice, however it doesn't appear she has a real doctorate so I'm not sure how the nerds that make up the faculty senate would ever approve :rolleyes:.

 

She also doesn't have the baggage that Tressel had.

 

Edited by ZippyRulz
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