Thursday, April 20, 2006

Went to the awards ceremony. I thought Provost looked somber when giving her speech.

In addition to the faculty member I mentioned, I asked two of my profs about this hoopla. The first one mentioned what you've heard a thousand times by now—her now legendary non-charisma. The only times she made eye contact with him were when he talked to her during a formal meeting. When they walked by each other, she never acknowledged him. She's mostly cold and distant. Weiner's cool by his book. Knew Stern but not well.

The class talked about Dr. Anderson. Him not making it to the final round pissed off black students. But in this class, a black student said she heard that during his interview, he compared racism at Gallaudet to the apartheid South Africa, and that spooked the committee and/or BoT. All hearsay, mind you. The prof said it's also that Dr. Anhderson isn't as qualified as everyone thinks—he didn't have much experience in the field of education, for instance.

The second prof was hesistant about discussing the candidates directly but one thing she could confidently say is that she's on the same page with the students about JKF.

Know what's interesting? All of the 3 faculty members are hearing. They're not wild-eyed deaf militants. That shows that students' concerns are legitimate, not just a mindless backlash to what happened last fall. Not only that, students are also forming committees to respond what's happening and a good number of faculty members are in them. JKF's only friends are IKJ and the BoT.

Weiner's presentation: pleasant and cliched. Inclusion, diversity, blah blah. Said absolutely nothing that surprised or impressed me. But he's possibly the least divisive of all candidates—he is a known commodity in Kendall Green plus he can connect to people.

Stern's presentation went great tonight. Extremely articulate. He was able to give good yet honest answers to every question thrown at him. When asked about the lack of experience in higher education, he said it's true that he doesn't know everything yet, he won't be afraid to ask questions. In my opinion, experience is somewhat overrated because anyone'd eventually gain experience in the role he/she's given. Potential, on the other hand, is something people can't just "gain", and Stern has it. Looking forward to JKF's turn.

'Nitey nite.