Presidential Power and Student Trust: Rebuilding What Gabel Lost
In the wake of Gabel leaving and Ettinger taking over, student trust in the campus presidency seems to be lacking.
By Joshua Kloss
Every September, us gophers start a new school year that both brims with excitement and is filled with new experiences. New living situations with potentially new people, new classes with new class crushes, new professors and schedules. But this year, we get to start the new school year under entirely new leadership.
We said goodbye to Joan Gabel last spring when she announced that she would be leaving her position as president for a chancellor position at the University of Pittsburgh. Her successor, Jeff Ettinger, was named the interim president of the University of Minnesota on June 10, 2023, meaning we have been steered under his leadership for a couple of months now. It’s hard to feel the effects of a new presidency during the summer months, though, as so many of us students are either not here on campus or not actively living the lives of students like we do during the fall and spring semesters. So given how newly appointed Ettinger is to his presidency, his future actions will be the most telling of his capabilities as president. At this point in time, most students, about 73% of our poll- takers, have indicated that they don’t have any strong opinions towards Ettinger at this time.
Without much academic policy to go off of quite yet, maybe looking towards Ettinger’s previous experience can tell us what to expect of him. Ettinger was formerly the chair of the Hormel Foundation board of directors, which he is taking a leave of absence from while fulfilling the interim presidency, according to the Office of the President website. Some have noted that Ettinger’s willingness to leave prior commitments such as his chair position at The Hormel Foundation indicate his dedication to the U, a point that was made aware to me via an article written by the Pioneer Press.
Ettinger also served as CEO of the Hormel Foods Corporation from 2005 to 2016. It’s interesting that his most prominent experience in positions of power and leadership come from working with a corporation. At the same time, though, this might not be a surprise, as most institutions of higher education in the United States tend to run themselves like a corporation, maximizing their profits through research initiatives and minimizing their operating costs where possible. Ettinger also has what some may call “legacy” with the University of Minnesota, evidenced by his past close ties with our university. He was an executive fellow at the Carlson School of Management, where he co-taught a course for the fall semester of 2017 and 2018. He also guest-lectured in the fall semester of 2020 and 2021 for a pricing class in the Carlson School. Ettinger’s success in business seems to triumph his track record and overall reputation as opposed to success in educational institutions. Ettinger has served on the board for several other companies: some public such as Ecolab and Toro, and others private such as the Sacred Heart Care Center. Additionally, he’s received several awards for his accomplishments as a CEO, such as an acknowledgement in Barron’s “World’s Best CEOs” from 2016.
So it’s no doubt that Ettinger has experience in leadership and positions of power. But I’m curious as to what it means for us, as students, when the regents appoint somebody to lead us whose experience is most based in the world of business rather than education. After all, do we, as students, feel seen by this new president? Did we even feel seen by the last one, former President Gabel? To gauge how students feel about Ettinger’s interim presidency so far, and campus presidency as a whole, The Wake ran a student survey. Of the participants who answered, it seems that there is a general trend of either distrust towards or estrangement from the position of president. One student said, “I honestly have no idea what they [the presidents] do.” Another student said that “we’d be better off without a president.” And while these criticisms may sound harsh, I think it’s fair to be critical of the people running our universities, especially given the fact that a high volume of the students polled viewed former President Gabel unfavorably.
A majority of students, about 81% of poll-takers, said that they were not sad to see Gabel go, and the remaining 19% of respondents said that they did not care / felt neutral towards the fact that she left. This means that there was not a single respondent polled that indicated feelings of sadness towards Gabel leaving. Furthermore, most of the students polled rated Gabel either a one (54%) or two (27%) on her performance as president; a score of one corresponded to being extremely unsatisfied with Gabel’s accomplishment as president, whereas a score of two corresponded to being very unsatisfied. The remaining percentage of respondents claimed they were neutral, and had no strong opinions about her accomplishments (a score of three). In line with the trend of no respondents indicating sadness toward Gabel’s departure, not a single respondent rated Gabel higher than a three. That means not a single respondent felt very satisfied or extremely satisfied with Gabel’s accomplishments as president, which corresponded to a score of four or five, respectively, on our scale.
When asked about policies or initiatives overseen by or led under Gabel’s presidency that they found to be poor decisions, many participants indicated dissatisfaction with Gabel overseeing increased police presence. Some students elaborated on that point, hoping for public safety initiatives that don’t center around increasing the presence of police in our campus communities. Another popular answer to this question was concern over Gabel’s willingness to accept raises to her salary at a time when student and campus workers, such as M Food Company, had to strike to receive wages and benefits that “they should’ve already been receiving.” Not to mention that this pay raise was simultaneous with tuition increases, wherein, as one respondent writes, “students didn’t see any major notable improvements, and in fact, some departments lost funding as a result.” The budget cuts, which were announced last spring, took from many liberal arts departments, such as American Indian Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality studies.
Obviously, there is some discontent over what was (or, rather, what was not) accomplished under Gabel’s presidency. And there is a general distrust of the presidents in general, as many of the students polled were unsure of what the president even does. Unsurprisingly, many students are untrusting of the campus presidency because it is such a highly valued position, the efficacy of which students seem to not feel much of at all. It’s fair for students to be untrusting when in the past, presidents like Gabel have seen higher salaries when campus workers have to strike for fairer wages, or students have to protest for the departments they study within. After all, why should we be paying such handsome wages for a position that most students either don’t like or don’t know much about?
Going forward, it is fair to assume that Ettinger has big shoes to fill. Judging by how displeased our poll respondents were with Gabel’s performance, many students may be looking to Ettinger with hope for a better future for gophers. After all, he has the opportunity to listen to what students want, what they need, and what they hope for. He has an obligation to restore the trust that his predecessor lost before him, which is a daunting task indeed, but one that the president must be equipped to handle.