One thing that the current president of A&M does that his predecessor did not, is to continually email all of the faculty, staff, and student body throughout the semester.
These emails range anywhere from a summary of recent fundraising milestones, capital investments, and faculty hirings to the discipline of students that perpetuate “hate” crimes.
His name is Robert Gates and after 4 years at the post, he has just tendered his resignation. His previous line of work included a long stint at the CIA, where he ultimately became the director of the entire organization (’91-’93). Upon leaving, he eventually would become the president of A&M in August of 2002.
A year or so after arriving in Aggieland, he was offered the head job as the new Director of National Intelligence, a job he declined and one in which he wrote a lengthy email to faculty, students, and staff about shortly thereafter. However, it seems he could not hold out forever, as he is now in the process of being confirmed as the new Secretary of Defense.
I never really met the guy, though I shook his hands on two separate occasions (at each graduation). In fact, the only gripe I have involves an electric golf cart.
You see, among the various perks a college president has, one is always discretionary money. A story was published in the school newspaper several years ago, about how Gates can now be seen driving around in one of those $30,000 golf carts. And among other details it was noted that the money came through private channels.
As a poor college student, upon learning this revelation, I immediately proceeded to email the president@tamu.edu to find out what charities and foundations he utilized to purchase said vehicle. And I received no reply.
Yes. While Bonfire was canned, grades were excluded, diversity shenanigans were blazed, trademarks were infringed and other drama took place, the one thing that really bugged me was the golf cart finance mystery.
While I remain a harsh critic behind the business model of Higher Education, I think that Gates did as good a job as anyone else in his position — which is to say, the school ranking did not decline during his tenure…
And this brings us to his replacement, which involves dorm gossip in the spring of 2001.
While I will refrain to name names, a certain individual in the know (his father was a large donor of sorts), mentioned that then both college president Ray Bowen and football coach R. C. Slocum would receive the axe in the next year. They were just not “moving with the times.” And sure enough, a year later they were both handed a pension check and began the loathesome past-time of lounging and layabouting (sic).
Now, if you’re familiar with Texas politics in the past 20 years, there was a three-term senator by the name of Phil Gramm who bested a libertarians only friend in Washington D.C.: Ron Paul — but this is neither here nor there. Prior to his election in 1985, Gramm had been a economics professor at A&M. And if you did your math, you can see that Gramm vacated his senatorial seat in 2002, which coincided with A&M’s presidential search.
You see, reportedly Gramm was offered the presidential gig at A&M, however, Gates already had his foot in the door as he was currently an interim dean of sorts over at the Bush School of Government at A&M.
And guess who has a lot of clout on campus, despite the fact that neither he nor any of his offspring ever attended the university? Yep, ol’ George Bush Senior. And guess who he helped ascend up to the list of candidates?
Well, do you remember that time many moons ago when Bush Sr. was the president? Guess who was the director of the CIA at that time? That would be the one and only Robert Gates.
Gates ultimately got the nod, got the job and Gramm was left to cruise around on the $1500/plate lecture circuit.
And now that Gates has left the building, perhaps Gramm might finally get the job. Who knows, he might even get a new golf cart.
Note: realpolitik aside, I doubt that Gates will take an anti-war stance as the new Secretary. He might “let” Iran play around with sand castles and dune buggies, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on an end to the Eyeraki War anytime soon.