The next two months are going to be busy for Kansas University Provost Dave Shulenburger and his wife, Carol Prentice, as they get ready to leave KU, Lawrence and Kansas and move to Washington, D.C. There will be all of the tasks associated with leaving complex jobs and moving all of their stuff halfway across the continent. There are also going to be a fair number of parties and tributes. I rather hesitate to add to this number by dedicating this column to Dave and Carol, but I’ve known them in various capacities for more than 12 years and I feel the need to comment.

The provost of a large university is not in an enviable position. If one thinks about it, the provost is the one who gets all the blame when things go wrong and very little praise when they go right. The provost is the university officer in charge of everything on campus. I’ve actually thought about compiling a collection of all the e-mails I’ve received over the years from the provost’s office, covering everything from sickness and death on campus to conserving power to holiday decorations to research awards, tenure, promotion and new academic initiatives.

There is nothing too trivial for the provost to worry about. KU’s Lawrence campus is nothing less than a medium-sized city filled with 18- to 21-year-olds having their first taste of freedom, graduate students struggling to combine study with earning a decent living to support themselves and their families, faculty who, might we say, can be “difficult” at times, and staff who are overworked, underpaid and under appreciated.

It’s the provost’s job to worry about, care for and supervise all of these folks. It’s also a job in which the provost must deal with angry parents, publicity-seeking legislators and often-intrusive journalists. And for all of this responsibility the provost gets paid about what a midlevel partner in a Kansas City law firm earns. It’s a good salary when you look at the total compensation, but when you figure the per-hour rate, fast food restaurants probably pay better.

Shulenburger has been in office for a very long time by professional standards. Carol has served as his assistant for the same amount of time. One wonders what they have energy to do when they get home late at night other than collapse from sheer exhaustion. And I think that the worst part is that the provost hardly ever hears a word of thanks for what he does. I know that over the next few weeks he’s going to hear lots of words of thanks and praise, but I have a feeling that, for more than a decade, they were few and far between. And that’s just not right.

Shulenburger hired me to be dean of the law school in 1994 even though I suspect that he worried that I was just a bit too eccentric and not enough of a team player to make his life easier. If he did think that, he was right because when I was dean I never did accept that I worked for the provost; I always believed that I worked for the law faculty.

Dave, to my everlasting gratitude, put up with that and other annoying traits. In spite of my less-than-stellar attitudes, he never penalized the law school or me personally. Even when we disagreed, sometimes strongly, he was always decent.

I will never forget his actions when my mother died. Dave and I were somewhat at loggerheads over various law school-related matters. In spite of that, he simply appeared one day at my house where I was grieving and he planted a tree in my front yard as a memorial to my mother. It was remarkably gracious, far more gracious than I probably would have been had the circumstances been reversed.

Dave and Carol have served KU long and loyally for a many years. There are few individuals who have given more of themselves for our university. They deserve every bit of praise that comes their way. Everyone who has any connection to KU owes them an enormous debt of gratitude. May they prosper in their new home and may they soon return to Lawrence and KU.