To the editor:

Chad Lawhorn’s lengthy article about Emporia State University’s “experiment” with President Ken Hush’s appointment was quite interesting but also incomplete. Lawhorn touts the school’s improved credit rating and slightly improved enrollment numbers, but adds little about morale and enthusiasm on the campus. Leadership is about much more than balancing budgets, as important as that may be. With his apparent disdain for academic conventions, lack of transparency and disregard of faculty input, Hush apparently did little to project a vision for the type of institution that Emporia can become, one that could motivate faculty and students to excel and invest in the institution’s future. Higher education is a complex and demanding enterprise, and bean-counting, while necessary, can’t be the primary driver in an ongoing quest for excellence.

John L. Rury,

Lawrence