Not long ago, Dr. Dan Papp,
president of Kennesaw State University, announced that he would be retiring
from in his position at the end of June.
He didn’t explain why. Even
during his final graduation ceremony, when he revealed that this would be his
last commencement, he did not elaborate on the reasons.
As of this writing, I still
do not know why he is leaving. Like many
of my colleagues, however, I am very sorry to see him go. He has been our president for the last ten
years and during this interval has presided over an extraordinary period of
growth and enhancement.
Readers of my columns will
be aware that I have occasionally been critical of goings-on at KSU. I fear that higher education is moving in
directions that must eventually reduce its quality. Nonetheless, this has not been Papp’s
doing. His task has been to cope with a
train that has already left the station.
During that ultimate
graduation ceremony, just how well Papp is regarded was on full display. Dr. Ken Harmon, our provost, very movingly
paid tribute to how effectively Papp mentored him. Then the rest of the administrative team
crowded round our outgoing president like a family that was losing its father.
Meanwhile, back at my
department, my colleagues kept asking each other why he was leaving. They too admire him and wonder who will be
big enough to fill his shoes. The last
ten years, under his tutelage, has been a period of stability and
collegiality. Papp made sure that people
knew where they stood and their needs were respected.
KSU is today one of the fifty largest
universities in the nation. In terms of
the number of students, it is almost as large as the University of
Georgia. Where once it had been a community
college, and then a four-year college, and then a comprehensive university, now
it has grown to be a research-three university.
Non-academics may not be
aware of what this means, but it entails having added many masters and several
doctoral programs. This involved
seriously upgrading the quality of our faculty and the standards they are
expected to meet. It also meant
increasing the requirements for our students.
Not long ago, a recent
addition to our faculty asked me what was different about KSU from when I
started here a quarter of a century ago.
I replied that back then having written a book made me a pariah. Nowadays, in contrast, many of my colleagues
have also authored books.
Dr. Papp has likewise
presided over our consolidation with Southern Poly. Several other Georgia schools
that have endured this sort of shotgun marriage have come near to imploding. This has not occurred in our case, largely
because of our president’s political skills.
Once, during a private
discussion, Papp confided that he sometimes wondered what would have happened
if he had chosen a different vocational course.
He mused about whether he might someday have achieved the rank of
ambassador. I have no doubt, that given
his diplomatic skills, this was a serious possibility.
I am also well aware of
Papp’s academic accomplishments. Most
people don’t know it, but during the early 1980’s he published a paper
predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In other words, he is a first-rate political scientist.
Even more importantly, he is
a first-rate human being. Kind, and
sensitive to the needs of others, unlike many academics, he understands the
ways of the real world. He also
understands its limitations and therefore has strived to work within them.
I will miss the many candid
conversations that he and I have shared.
I will miss his honesty, his common sense, and his sanguine temperament. But most of all KSU will miss the wisdom he
has brought to what can be bone-crunching job.
Herding academic cats for a decade, and keeping most of them happy, is a
near miraculous legacy.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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