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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
“Hey man, did you see the game last night?”
“Heck no, I was watching the ‘Chancellor’s Chat!”
For those of you not in the know, the “Chancellor’s Chat” is a taped interview session with Chancellor Ringeisen, airing on the campus channel, in which he answers questions supposedly sent in by student viewers in his own distinctive, folksy way. Think cable-access quality (no offense, visual arts staff). For 25 minutes, we lucky viewers can watch the Chancellor stumbling to answer questions that, despite repeated statements to the contrary, he probably has read beforehand. As an entertainment piece, the only amusement to be had is derived from the bad acting exhibited when a new question is read and his first response is “Heck, I don’t know!”
One would think that as the head of what he calls “one of the top 5 schools,” Chancellor Ringeisen would be able to generate a more substantial response to questions from the concerned UIS community. That is, if it is even UIS students who are doing the asking. Why aren’t we told from whom the question is asked? Has the school administration developed a pool of mundane, mind-numbing questions that are sure to limit both agitation and honest speculation? Does the screening process solidify that anything more stimulating than “what would you save from your burning house?” gets asked and answered?
In the last episode, Ringeisen claimed that his one-sided “chat” allows him “a chance to interact” with students. How is his staring at a video camera equivalent to person-to-person interaction? Should the Chancellor want to hold chats with the student body, he should do so honestly by showing up to a meeting with students in person and giving up the self-serving buffer that protects the upper echelon of the school administration.
After all, aren’t we just a small, public, liberal arts university? What’s to be feared from conducting an open and sincere discourse with the student body? There seems to be a fear that students will actually be concerned and pro-active; that they’ll take an interest in school policies and ask questions that he won’t want to answer. For some reason, we thought that developing an inquisitive approach was part of the education we’re trying to glean from this sliver of academia that we call UIS.
In describing the parking situation, one of the only pertinent questions addressed by the Chancellor recently, he states that the aggravation of both Sangamon Auditorium theatergoers and UIS students creates a “nice healthy friction.” He’s obviously both unafraid of getting a ticket by campus police and completely out of touch with students, unsurprising due to the disconnect and lack of rapport inherent in the UIS community.
One can only hope that in regards to other serious issues that the school administration faces, he’s not as misguided. Although, in his own words from the last episode, “I don’t always behave well.”
Do the superficial quality and lackluster attempts of this show deceptively smother scandal or are affairs at this school running without real cause for concern? Well, as the Chancellor would say, “Heck, I don’t know.”
