Poised for Everything, not Excellence

I am not certain right now, but this glass of Glenfiddich certainly is pointing strongly in the direction ...

President Robert Bruininks has become the Whipping Boy for a long history of sins at the University of Minnesota. The University of Minnesota is unabashedly proud that it is possibly the most consensus-oriented university in the world. When Muckrake was still a Gopher Pup in olden times, this struck him as a posture both progressive and practical. But time marches on, and that orientation has become an anachronism, and an expensive burden to Minnesota taxpayers at that. We've demonstrated that management by consensus leads to across the board mediocrity, window-dressing instead of substance, and a rut which we are constitutionally unable to lift ourselves out of. We have undermined ourselves.

Why not admit it: We are a friendly, conservative, characteristically Minnesotan organization. By design we're poised for Everything rather than Excellence. As the premier public university in Minnesota, our mission is education, and that is something we can do well. Doing something different requires us to be something we simply are not.