Friday Fun: College Prez Scores with "No Huddle" Academics

This seems a little too close to reality if you read a lot of what passes for higher ed reporting these days.

College Prez Scores with "No Huddle" Academics

So Clavell and other businessmen-turned-educational experts are looking at the records of college administrators across the country to see if they can inject a little competition into the sleepy business of handing out credentials to post-adolescent slackers. And one up-and-comer who has caught their eye is Norbert Duncan, President of Vermilion County Junior College here, who has successfully installed a "no-huddle" approach to academic life.

"What Duncan has done at Vermilion has revolutionized the educational game," says Bob Gamulski, national reporter for CollegePrezProspects.com. "He's able to score almost at will against other schools because he doesn't let his faculty get balled up in woolgathering."

Duncan's transformation came after a two-hour faculty senate session that got off track with a dispute over whether faculty senate by-laws took precedence over procedural rules for the meeting itself. "That's it," Duncan said, after Theodora Mangel-Wurzel, an adjunct writing instructor, raised a point of correct usage to a previously-raised point of order. "Everybody back to your classrooms--no more meetings!"