Traverse City Record-Eagle

Other Views

December 16, 2011

Other View: CMU medical school?

Morning Sun (Mount Pleasant) ----

Don’t blame George Ross.

The president of Central Michigan University is just doing what his bosses are asking him to do.

The election of trustee Dr. Sam Kottamasu to the chair of the CMU Board of Trustees sends a powerful, unmistakable message about the university’s intent to move forward with a medical school.

Kottamasu made the original proposal for the medical school. He heads the board’s College of Medicine Committee and donated $100,000 toward the medical school in 2008.

When the board of trustees gave him the first seat recently, it was a ringing endorsement to Kottamasu’s dream. It’s safe to bet that CMU will continue to pursue its medical school no matter what anybody thinks, including the Academic Senate.

Because the senate disagrees with the idea of CMU pursuing a medical school, members passed a vote of no confidence in Ross and Provost Gary Shapiro. They want them out.

So what? Even if Ross and Shapiro were to quit tomorrow, they’d be replaced by people chosen by the board of trustees, and board members want a medical school, one way or another.

Over the coming decades, the medical school will bring prestige — and almost certainly dollars — to the CMU campus. Attacking it as some faculty, with their own agendas have done, is shortsighted, and harmful to the university.

Text Only