politicians as university presidents

there was an article in the chronicle of higher education on 'running for a different kind of office.'
in the past few months, they have had several write-ups of universities around the country selecting former politicians as university presidents. my last semester at unf, we were going through a presidential search and the leading candidate (with the board of trustees and the community, not the faculty) was john delaney, who had just finished up as mayor of jacksonville.

at the time i was working on a study on the informal power structure of jacksonville, and in it we looked at lists of people who had positions on the boards of banks, top employers, real estate development companies, economic development agencies, and non-profit agencies. we then looked at which names appeared the most and looked at their affiliations.

to get to the point, we based our study on previous research into how these connections combine to influence what goes on in the city. for example, we looked at the mayoral race that was occuring at the time, and the front-runner (and winner) was part of a major local corporation, and how his supporters were all part of these various agencies.

the former mayor delaney was appointed president towards the end of our project, and it led me to question how this would impact what molotch & logan termed the 'growth machine.' would universities take a new role in the machine? will this lead universities to take a more prominent role in the city or area they are in? what especially worries me is the fund-raising aspect. the argument goes that since money for state schools is continually threatened, these politicians with their experience in raising money will be positive for the school. however, at least with the case for unf, the school that has raised the most money is the business college, with it being the only college that is named after a business (coggin, a local automotive 'empire'). the disparity between what business professors get paid and what fine arts professors or english professors get is well-known at unf. my own concern is that then the focus will become spitting out business men and women, so the local community will be benefited with capable workers, and the liberal arts will lose their support.

i'd like to study this once i get going in my graduate work, but unfortunately my research skills aren't up to par, and i'm not sure how i would design a research method that would be valid.

hopefully this blog will help me articulate my thoughts better, since it has been a while since i've been back into study-mode. i've been a drone since working in the 'real world.'

i get to register for classes soon. looks like i'll be taking sociological theory, quantitative analysis (yikes!), and the proseminar. can't wait!