Our buddy Tom Thielen, vice president of student affairs, is retiring at the end of the school year and students would like to recognize his accomplishments and give him a big thanks.

While Thielen was not always the most popular man on campus at times of his career, he has been strong and held his ground to follow ideas he wanted to become realities, and that is something to be commended for.

Thielen had the courage and the will to stress the importance of diversity at a time when universities didn’t know what diversity was or how to achieve it.

Thielen said in a Daily article appearing Monday, “When I came in ’77, the student body wasn’t very diverse. I mean diverse in many issues. In the last 20 years we’ve been able to recruit diversity in many areas… The university community will have to learn to live with this increased diversity.”

Other outstanding accomplishments of Thielen include supporting facility improvements for the Memorial Union, Lied Recreation Center and the new Student Health Center.

Its time for Thielen to move on and Iowa State thanks him for his work.