On March 19, Northern Kentucky University announced that it has reached its decision on the final three candidates for the presidential search. Jonathan Gibralter, president of Frostburg State University in Maryland, and David Eisler, president of Ferris State University in Michigan, have been chosen as the final candidates. While the last candidate still hasn’t had his or her name released, all of the candidates are going to visit NKU’s campus within the next month.

Open forums will be held when they arrive so that students can meet the presidential hopefuls. It is incredibly important for students to attend these forums. You might think that you’re just going to go listen to some old guys talk about the “improvements” and “opportunities” that can be brought to NKU, but in fact, you need to go to see who our next president could be.
You should care about this even if you find it absurd. Why, you may ask? Because if you’re going to be here for a few more years, this new person could change the direction NKU takes over the next decade. If you’re not comfortable with his or her ideas, vision or even personality, you need to know this now.

As mentioned, Gibralter comes from Frostburg State University, which has an undergraduate population of 4,755. Eisler’s current employer, Ferris State University, has an undergraduate population of 14,560. NKU’s population was around 13,322 for Fall 2011. Our total population as of Fall 2011 was 15,738 according to Institutional Research’s Enrollment page on NKU’s website.
As students, we sometimes feel like we have no control. When major changes arise, our voices can get lost in an outcry of personal opinion. For all of the policy, staff and professional changes NKU makes without your input, this is one that they’re actually reaching out to you for. Take advantage of this. Votruba has been here for 15 years. If this new president is here for just as long and students find they don’t like him, well, we’ll all be slightly SOL.

Granted, we hope that none of the current students will be here 15 years from now, but you have the chance to make a change that could affect students and the university in the years to come.
NKU students are traditionally known amongst ourselves for not caring about campus because most of us leave it at the end of the day anyway. However, with the direction in which NKU is trying to move — the goal to become a more “traditional” campus — we’d really be missing out by not trying to make sure that the next president is in-line with the core NKU values that made you come here to begin with.

Don’t sit there and roll your eyes and tell us you came here because it was “cheap.” Guess what? Ivy Tech is cheap too, and I don’t see you there. So make sure you speak up to these candidates. Make sure they aren’t too hoity-toity for good ‘ole NKU. Do your job as a student: protect your education, your school’s pride and the things that are going to one day make NKU your alma mater.