Our View: Congratulations, Gordon Gee

DKS Editors

And you thought its football team was good.

In a recent article by Time magazine, Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee was named best college president. We guess all those fancy bow ties paid off.

Gee left Ohio State in 1998 to work for Vanderbilt before returning in 2007. Well, that says something about a man. Someone willing to leave an Ivy League school for a state school and drop the million-dollar paycheck for pay in the hundreds of thousands (Well, not bad. We can’t feel sorry for him there) is all right in our book.

He has a passion for politics, working with the state of Ohio on its higher education budget. He led many other schools last summer in continuing a tuition freeze when the state could no longer afford to enforce the freeze itself.

As much as politics creeping into universities may not sound terribly appealing, we’re happy Gee’s willing to lead the charge. He works to remind people of the importance of going to college, especially during a recession. He believes creativity will help drive the economy – the sort of creativity that can only be learned by going to college.

We would love to see our own president, Lester Lefton, one day appear on this list. Lefton, like Gee, spends much time fundraising. (In fact, after reading the Time article, we’re surprised he has much time for anything. The man is constantly on the run.) And we have nothing but thanks to give Lefton for making fundraising a priority. It’s this money that supports scholarships and other improvements at Kent State.

We would, however, love to see Lefton around more often. We’ve heard Gee has popped up at some off-campus parties. Not that we want Lefton to show up at our parties – quite honestly it might be awkward; we’re not sure if we serve his favorite beverage – we’d like to see him around campus a bit more.

Congratulations, Gee, and everyone down at the Columbus school. Now let’s shoot for our own president to make Time’s list of the best college presidents next.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.