Herbert's unrealistic requests

IU President Adam Herbert has given IU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Ken Gros Louis a tall order to fill before Jan. 1.\nHerbert has charged Gros Louis with appointing a new vice chancellor for enrollment services, a new graduate school dean and associate vice president for academic affairs and a new director of IU Faculty Colloquium of Excellence in Teaching. The search for each of the three positions will be conducted on a national scale, and the deadline is set for less than two months from now when the search committee will presumably have decided on IU's new chancellor. Herbert has also given Gros Louis the go-ahead to improve admissions standards at IU -- a formidable task at a university where not everyone agrees the bar should be raised. \nWhile Gros Louis is more than capable of appointing candidates who will maintain IUB's tradition of excellence, the issue of raising admissions standards should fall to Gros Louis' successor. \nGros Louis knows IUB better than most faculty and administrators. He served as a professor, associate chairman of the comparative literature department, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and vice president for academic affairs before serving as chancellor for 21 years. He has been at IU since 1964 and became an effective and sympathetic leader on campus soon after he arrived more than 40 years ago. \nHe is more than up to the task of appointing responsible applicants to the vacant positions. We can only hope those he places in positions of leadership have IU's best interests at heart, like Gros Louis himself.\nOnly a consistent movement toward clearly defined goals, however, will make the initiative to improve admissions standards a success. The debate about whether or not to raise admissions standards has continued for years and will still continue despite Herbert's decision to incorporate raising admissions standards into the chancellor's agenda. Improving admissions standards at a large, public university is by no means a standard process, either. No one has yet delineated what specific changes are necessary at IU. \nEven with a plan in place, raising the bar will require support from administration and faculty, and the intensive effort associated with any major change from the status quo. Efforts to improve admissions standards need to be coherent. Gros Louis has an expiration date set at Jan. 1, leaving little time to even begin the initiative. The task of improving admissions standards is too large and complex a task to complete in a month and a half; the crux of that effort must be preserved for the new chancellor appointed in January. If Herbert leaves the task of raising admissions standards to Gros Louis' successor, efforts to improve IU's reputation can be consistent from the start of the chancellor's term in 2006. \nWe trust Gros Louis to fulfill the duties given to him as interim chancellor. He will fill appointments of key positions on campus with those equally concerned with IU's success. But Gros Louis has already served his term as permanent chancellor, and an interim cannot be expected to begin a risky initiative that he or she will not have an opportunity to see through to the finish.