Some high profile Ohio University administrators have decided to run away recently, to ditch us, to abscond, to escape with what's left of their reputation before the H.M.S. OU lands at the bottom of the academic ocean.
If you're an OU student, you've probably noticed the exodus. And if you're an OU administrator, you're probably too busy selling your house and packing suitcases to care.
But what's the appropriate metaphor for this administrator migration, this culmination of a few years so doused in scandal that every new problem can set the whole thing ablaze?
I've heard the Titanic comparison: you know, the one that says that the boat (OU) crashed into the iceberg (McDavis) and is rapidly sinking (losing money, employees, sports teams, dignity).
Another columnist said that would make Kathy Krendl and Kirby Hocutt the rats jumping ship. I disagree. Krendl and Hocutt are more like the self-centered weasels that stole the only lifeboats (chances to escape) as the rest of us panicked. And when we decided it was time to abandon ship, Hocutt and Krendl were sailing toward the shore (Chicago, Miami, anywhere other than here), leaving us to wallow in the sea.
And the band (Kent Smith) played on.
But I'm not sold on that metaphor. I think it's missing something ' namely, that this was no friggin' accident. It's intentional. It's the combination of poor choices and the refusal to acknowledge said choices in order to do something productive.
I think this might work better: The Lusitania (OU) was sailing along when ' BAM ' a German U-boat (McDavis and cronies) fired torpedo No. 1 (incompetence) and torpedo No. 2 (arrogance) right into the hull. The international community (alumni, the Board of Trustees, rational people) was outraged (outraged).
Germany (McDavis, again) swore it was in the right (good intentions). War ensues (between Student Senate, Faculty Senate, administrators, students).
Yet, even that metaphor has some problems. It assumes that when administrators act like ' cough ' idiots, they themselves aren't hurt. They just get to scuttle away.
Maybe OU isn't a boat or a luxury liner doomed by its captain's uninformed resolve to speed ahead with his plan (Vision Ohio).
Maybe OU is a big ball of hot air (rhetoric, Vision Ohio), about to burst into flames at any moment bringing everyone down with it.
The zeppelin Hindenburg (OU) floats breezily through the air until it strikes an electric line (McDavis) and bursts into flames, as onlookers struggle to make sense of the calamity.
No matter how you look at it, it's time to start asking yourself: is it time to abandon ship?
Justin Thompson is a senior journalism major who travels by car. Send him an e-mail at jt315004@ohiou.edu
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Justin Thompson
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