Mary Sue Fights the Power
Mary Sue Coleman has a history of standing up to anti-student city officials. As president of the University of Iowa, she defied a 2002 Iowa City proposal to withhold degrees from students who had not paid city fines. “I am not going to function as a police agent for the city,” she said. “The city cannot withhold diplomas.” In response to a proposed ordinance targeting noise, she said,”I don’t think we should ever tell students, ‘You shouldn’t have a party.”’ (from a Daily Iowan piece that isn’t online.)
This porch couch thing could be the issue that finally makes students warm up to our perceived-as-standoffish prez.
Maybe U-M could even come to the same very belated realization that the MSU administration has: that students voting (and being recognized as a political bloc) in city and state elections is a good thing for the University.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 10th, 2004 at 2:45 pmAs a U of M alumnus who no longer lives in Ann Arbor, I am not turned off by Mary Sue Coleman’s alleged standoffishness, but to the contrary, her slickness, a quality she shares with her predecessor Lee Bollinger. I first noticed this in an e-mail she sent to alumni in which she defended the university’s ongoing investment in Israeli companies. Even though I agreed with her stance, she struck me as a leader guided not by principle, but by what others want to hear. My prediction? Porch lovers have nothing to fear–at least not from the university.
posted by DR on July 10th, 2004 at 2:54 pm