Midwest Voices

Barb Shelly

The Kansas City Star

Going with a president from the business world, not academia, worked the last time around, so the University of Missouri system is trying it again.

The hiring of former Novell and IBM executive Timothy M. Wolfe as the president of the four-campus system is in many ways a tribute to his most immediate predecessor, former Sprint CEO Gary Forsee.

Forsee used his business skills to find efficiencies and revenue generators for the university system, while at the same time honoring academic traditions and principles. The system prospered under his leadership, even though it coincided with the worst recession in years. The Board of Curators is obviously hoping that Wolfe will pull off the same feat.

Wolfe, like Forsee, is going to have to be innovative. Missouri finances are improving marginally, but no one expects the legislature or Gov. Jay Nixon to drop a chuck of change on the state’s colleges and universities. It’s more likely, in an election year, that politicians will be stumping against tuition increases.

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