The administration’s decision to kill a tradition, only to bring it back from the dead after outcries from alumni, exposes a lack of leadership.
University officials said in an interview Wednesday with the Lawrence Journal-World the whistle would not sound again. Senior Vice Provost Don Steeples called this “the final decision.” Yet two days later, Chancellor Robert Hemenway said the whistle would be back after complaints from every corner of Jayhawk Nation.
The University must latch onto innovation to bring itself out of trouble. With a little foresight, the whistle could have been a fundraising triumph.
Administration put forward the issues it has with the whistle, pointing out that it is wasteful to blow $3,000 to $7,000 a year on steam. This should be a challenge for alumni and students to step forward with funding, and more importantly, new ways to blow the whistle.
Originally, the whistle was a way to connect a university that did not have the luxury of emergency text messaging or e-mail, but now it can become our response to maintaining old traditions in environmentally friendly ways.
The University burns natural gas to boil water to produce steam for the whistle. Admitedly, this is a wasteful process. Comments on the Kansan’s and Journal-World’s stories show widespread interest in the problem. The University could turn to engineering students who could develop new plans for the whistle as a class project. It will cost money, time, patience and vision to devise a new way of making that whistle blow, but for whom it blows, it is worth it.
The administration’s initial silence shows that it lacks relations skills. Sending out leaders who offer up quotes like “I’m not one of the major fans of the whistle” only spark the fire. Impartiality in administrative decision-making also disappears quickly when you have officials complaining about how a tradition interrupts their meetings, while on video, like the Steeples did in the interview with the Journal-World.
The University should work on something people are concerned with. Continued oversights might not be corrected as easily as just turning the steam back on.
—Alex Doherty for the editorial board
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