On Sunday night, the faculty at KSU received an email notifying us of the retirement of our president, Dr. Dan Papp. I haven’t had the chance to work with Dr. Papp too much since our consolidation, but I have seen him present information at faculty senate meetings, and I appreciated his willingness to engage faculty questions, especially in light of the Campus Carry legislation that was looming over us and then vetoed by Governor Nathan Deal.
But I’m just going to take this moment to recognize the massive leadership changes that I’ve seen since arriving on my campus in 2013. Since our consolidation was announced that fall, we’ve seen the following positions change hands: our department chair, our dean, our provost, our legal council, and various and sundry other upper administrative positions. And our president. Twice.
All of this happened while my colleagues and I were asked to develop a curriculum and argue for it for two and a half years, only to see that development denied by colleagues within our college. We’re in the process of figuring out what that means for us, but it’s just worth noting that the ground has been shifting under our feet throughout this process. It’s a bit of an understatement, but that’s been tricky and confusing.
