Opinion: Stop underappreciating the president

Zachary Downes is a columnist for The Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].

Zachary Downes

Kent State has gone through many changes on campus while I have been here. The new esplanade went in behind Starbucks, a new building for aeronautics was built and many more. However, the change on campus that I’m getting to is a little more important: President Beverly Warren.

Beverly Warren came to Kent’s Campus July 1, 2014. Since her arrival on campus, she has done amazing things for the students.

One of the major things Warren has done was eliminate the credit cap that limited the amount classes students were permitted to enroll or they had to pay more money. I was directly affected by this rule and had to add an extra semester to my senior year because of this being enacted when I was a sophomore. Thanks to Beverly Warren, I was able to take 19 credit hours and lighten the load of the my last semester, bringing me one step closer to graduating.

One other thing Beverly Warren changed was the relationship between the students and the president. Lestor Lefton had a positive impact on campus, however, the relationship between the students and Lefton was a little absent. He would greet students on campus when we saw him, but he always had a very intimidating feel to him.

Beverly Warren is completely different. Since her first step on campus, she has been willing to stop and talk to students, answer any of their questions, and even take a selfie. Beverly Warren is one of the first presidents at Kent State to make her social media presence known. From what I have seen, she will take time out of her busy day to answer student questions on Twitter and other forms of social media.

If Beverly Warren was around when I was a freshman, I definitely would have felt more at home and more comfortable knowing that she was a very welcoming person and the president of the university.

So here is my advice to the students: Beverly Warren has one of the hardest jobs on ­campus. When tragedy strikes, all of the backlash reflects on her. For some of you, you find small problems and then tweet rude things to her on twitter. She then responds and is very professional.

Stop tweeting and being rude to the president on Twitter. She is one of the friendliest people on campus. I understand students get frustrated and things seem worse than they are. I am a college student. I understand the college life. When things that don’t go your way, such as not being able to find a parking spot in C­Midway, do not viciously tweet at our president about being late to school because you didn’t give yourself proper time to commute to campus and park.

It’s not her fault and if it is, I’m fairly certain she has the situation in the works.