What an Interim President Can Do

Reading this article and the readers' comments at the bottom is an interesting exercise. It's about the interim president at the University of Tennessee and the difficult conversation he had with the football coach.

In the article, Jan Simek, the interim, says UT is not as good academically as UCLA, and the third comment calls for his resignation because he said this. (I'm writing this when only three comments have been posted. I bet there will be more along the same line, perhaps in other places.)

One of the most useful things an interim president can do is make people angry about issues they need to be motivated about.

Simek has said in advance that he's leaving office when the interim period is over and will not be a candidate for the permanent presidency, so he can say things like this and stir things up. He can be a heat sink for the anger, and take it away when he leaves office.

There is a chance that he will then leave a little more truth -- possibly painful truth -- out in the open where people can see it and do something about it.