 |
| Lee Todd |
UK President Lee Todd announced his retirement from his post this past week; he will stay on the job through June 2011. I went to UK for seven years – all of them during the Todd administration.
I recall a number of occasions walking through central campus near Whitehall and passing by the university president. At times I would initiate a ‘hello’ exchange; sometimes Dr. Todd would. In other words, President Todd respected the students. This was evident too by his 2001 decision to remove the large hedges around Maxwell Place (the president’s residence). In fact, the gate was opened and it became another route between central campus and Rose Street.
A native Kaintuckeean, a UK graduate, UK faculty member, entreprenuer, and UK President: President Lee Todd is a great Kentucky leader and one I thought deserved a little mention. Tom Eblen brings us this great anecdote about Kentucky’s legislative priorities regarding education from almost 200 years ago about another Kentucky college president:
When Transylvania University, now a private liberal arts college, was Kentucky’s state university in 1818, trustees hired a young up-and-coming Bostonian, Horace Holley, with a charge to make it great. He did, and for a few years Transylvania was being mentioned in the same breath as Harvard and Yale.
Despite phenomenal success, Holley was run off in 1827 by Kentuckians who didn’t appreciate the value of higher education, legislators that didn’t want to spend money on it and a governor who just wanted to build roads. Read more.