Today we celebrate Founder's Day, remembering the Ohio University personnel and students that have made OU what it is today. We look at Cutler Hall and find it nearly inconceivable that such a small building could have been OU at its birth. We hear that Margaret Boyd was the first female student, that John Newton Templeton was the first African-American male student and that Martha Jane Blackburn was the first African-American female student, and marvel that years ago such people had to fight for higher education.
We have much to look back on and to take pride in the more-than-200-year history. Unfortunately, such nostalgia begs the question: What will future generations of OU students think of the era we are living in today? Will they look back in pride, or amusement, or disgust? Or will they do their best to forget?
In the course of the past few years, the university has been rocked by scandals, disappointments and closed-door decisions with a pretense of student input. The plagiarism scandal in the College of Engineering, Frank Solich's DUI, the data breaches, the jump in administrator salaries, the vote of no-confidence by faculty and staff, and most recently, the decision to cut four sports ' the list goes on and on.
And to think that President McDavis was so worried about our reputation for alcohol.
It would be nice to write these off as a series of isolated instances, a string of bad luck, or the college gods zinging a few lightning bolts at Cutler Hall. And perhaps we could, if there were fewer. We have heard repeatedly during the past two years, that Vision Ohio, OU's strategic plan for the future, is the path to national prominence. And though most students have no idea what it is, or how it affects them, the time has come to begin putting the best of Vision Ohio into effect. Perhaps the time has come to take a step back, to look at all that has happened, to make some changes and some apologies, and to do everything possible to avoid more black marks on OU's record.
Today is also the day when students have planned a rally on College Green to show their disapproval for the athletic cuts and closed-door decision-making. Their timing could not be more provocative, as OU has planned festivities, and the administration certainly seems determined to plow ahead without concern for the student-athletes they have cast off.
But in other ways, perhaps the timing could not be more apt. While Founder's Day celebrates the past, these students are OU's future. These students are making history, giving future students something to remember and sending a message to both present and future administrations that OU students can only be pushed so far before they will fight back and make their voices heard.
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While university plans to celebrate OUG
