Sitting On Top - my buddies claimed that Wendler was a great Chancellor?

I was sitting with the good old boys at lunch a couple of weeks ago, and one guy showed up late.  He sat down and ordered, he always gets a Reuben sandwich, which is good at Quatro's.  Not long after ordering, he announced that Walter Wendler was a fine Chancellor of SIUC and he doesn't know why he doesn't still hold the job.  There were some nodding heads from other people, but I was shocked at his opinion.  I announced, in my typically shy way, "I thought that Wendler sucked."

After the torches were extinguished and the pitch forks put away, we started to talk about why we thought what we thought.  Their argument was that Wendler is a Christian Conservative, a gentleman, a fine fellow, a man of well measured thought and excellent manners.  My argument is that Wendler, as leader of SIU had a simple job, that was to write the master plan, man the bully pulpit to support that plan, and try to steer the bureaucracy that is the SIU administration to have the best results possible.

So, I asked my friends, "did any of you believe that Southern at 150 was a good idea, or even possible on the day it was published?"  The answer all around was no, everyone knew that Southern at 150 was rubbish.  So, Wendler was a terrible Chancellor and I think they now agree.  Still a man you would be happy to call your friend, but who cares?

There are two reasons I write about this now, first, I see the new Chancellor has thrown Southern at 150 into the trash (where it has always belonged) and is starting again.  Don't know if she will write a plan that is possible, that the people who work at SIU might support, but it can't be much worse then Southern at 150.  Second, I found an old DE article about my blog yesterday.  From the end of the article -

"He may be one of those people who wants to keep it the way it was 20 years ago," Wendler said.

 I have to admit, yes Uncle Walt, I wish SIU was as good as it was 20 years ago.  I wish the Football team was playing in the old stadium, and that money had been spent on the mission of the University.  I wish the enrollment was as high.  I wish the standards for grades were as high.  I wish the students were that skinny.  I wish the graduates were as employable.

I have written here about my failures, and I'm going to write more about success and failure.  In Carbondale, SIU is the big fish and this is how you make a big fish fail.  I don't see Poshard doing better, but maybe Cheng will?

Of course, your comments are welcome.