When I told my long-suffering wife I intended to write about Wednesday’s announcement of our university’s new chancellor, she replied with some asperity that she could predict what I would say.
“You’re always optimistic about the new people,” she said, noting that I’ve sometimes had cause to regret those first impressions.
Well, here we go again.
How could I not be optimistic? President MunChoi, about whom I remain optimistic, was close to giddy as he introduced Alexander Cartwright. The standing-room-only welcoming crowd in the Alumni Center was buoyant. The sun was shining.
In the press conference that followed the opening ceremony, Rudi Keller of the Columbia Daily Tribune seriously asked the question I had posed half-jokingly to Mike Alden earlier as we walked into the building: Why would Dr. Cartwright, or anybody, want the job?..