Your editor, Brian Stelter, has asked me to write for The Towerlight a "new semester resolution" for "faculty, for the students, for the University Senate, or any group you'd like to focus on," and I approach this prospect with some trepidation. I say "trepidation" because such a resolution means a recommended "course of action" for one or more of these audiences, and there are those who would say it is presumptuous for one faculty member to say what the course of action should be for any significant Towson group, and there are others who would simply summarize their reaction as "y-a-w-n-n-n-n."
So, knowing that many will not read this, and others will say, "Who the hell does he think he is," I thought I would give my resolution within my first (and probably last) "State of the Campus" assessment. Why not aim high?
From my perspective as a faculty member of mass communication and communication studies, and as the longest-serving member of the University Senate, I think the campus is in better shape than I have ever seen it in. Towson had always been the Rodney Dangerfield of University of Maryland System schools â€" it received no, or insufficient, respect. We have been the second largest Maryland public university for many years, but the chancellor of the 1990s didn't much respect us, and, consequently, the state legislature (with the exception of Towson-loving Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman and a precious few others) and governor thought we should know â€" and keep -- our place. Our late and great president, Hoke Smith, had been warned not to publicly complain about how Towson was treated, and when he could no longer contain himself, he was fired. Bastards.
Fast forward to current day Towson, and you find a university with a chancellor non pareil (Chancellor Brit Kirwan, who just loves Towson despite his University of Maryland roots), a governor, Robert Ehrlich (full disclosure: he's a personal friend) who loves Towson even more than Chancellor Kirwan, and a president, Robert Caret, who left a university in California in middle age (sorry, Bob) with the intention of making this university research-intensive and larger and generally more impressive, the North Carolina State University to Maryland's University of North Carolina (note to analogy buffs: Towson will be closer to N.C. State than College Park will be to UNC). As for my own communication area, once we overcame the short-sighted fools who didn't see the advantages of mass communication and communication studies (MCCS) splitting from electronic media and film (EMF), the two departments have flourished with two exceptional chairs and faculty, the likes of which you get once in a lifetime. (Want the names of the idiots who opposed the division initially? I cannot recall the full name, but one dolt's last name was something like "Vatz.") There are always those aging faculty who remember when everything was better "way back when." I cannot remember the university and my specialty areas ever being nearly this excellent.
So what's my resolution for students (sorry â€" I cannot get myself to presume to write a resolution for faculty)?
Enjoy the ride, folks, but also avoid passivity and be part of the journey. This university is soaring. The quality of administration, faculty, staff and students as well as the infrastructure of Towson have never been higher. The funding is now there. There is so much quality in every nook and cranny of Towson that I think we cannot â€" better make that will not â€" be stopped. Students: work hard, because with good grades and good recommendations your being graduated from one of America's premier research-intensive universities will pay off considerably.
As I say, enjoy â€" and contribute to -- the ride.
Richard Vatz is a professor of mass communication and communication studies at Towson University.
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