For better or worse, I’d like our next president to bring some real daring to the office. Some real views, some real beliefs, some real conviction and some real courage to turn those beliefs into some real change.

Enough moping about. Yes, the university has got some serious issues. Record enrollments are putting pressure on university infrastructure and services, impending budget cuts throw shade on each coming semester and our student body’s tensions run higher and higher each week by some social injustice.

But I don’t want to hear any more complaints from the university’s administration about these things. No more concessions of helplessness. No more appeals to the regents. Stop passing the buck. I’d like our next president to take the weight on his or her shoulders as a true leader should.

In return, I am willing to give this person a chance. I am willing to suffer some mistakes and some missteps so long as something real is being done. I am willing to give this person some leeway. So long as our administration has got the pluck to take a step out of its comfort zone, and the nerve to make some people unhappy in the short run for the long run’s greater good, I am willing to suffer the learning pains. 

“Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you’ll never be criticized.”

This is the most damaging kind of cowardice. Iowa State University ought to be so much more than what it now is. It ought to push its boundaries. It ought to be a leader in something that can’t be measured in enrollment figures or job placement rates or dollars and cents. These are some important metrics, but they paint only half of the picture. A university ought to be more — a university ought to lead our society’s discussions. A university ought to be a place for students to live, learn and grow. 

I’d like our next president to take a stance. A stance more than just a few wishy-washy email appeals. A real, tactile stance that leads to action. This is the only way our community can move forward; and though the way forward might mean hiccups and trip-ups and wrong turns — the alternative is stagnation. And a stagnate university isn’t really a university at all.

President Leath claims in his resignation letter “I leave with a promise fulfilled, and that was to leave the university better than I inherited it. I leave with Iowa State achieving record enrollment, retention rates, graduation rates, job placement rates as well as records in fundraising and research funding, and numerous other metrics.”

But I remain unconvinced he actually left the university a better place for its students. Or can that not me measured so easily? In the year and change prior to his departure, Leath’s administration was under almost constant heated fire for his perceived lack of understanding in many student and community issues.

I’d like our next president willing to really put him or herself out there with respect to these sort of issues. To come up with a stance and plan of action, and get to work. No excuses, no complaints, no explanations. In regard to these contentious issues — for better or worse — I’d like our next president to accomplish something meaningful. This is the way forward. 

It’s a poor excuse to claim the office of the president is capable of only so much. No, they are not just a fundraiser or manager. They are their constituents’ leader and ambassador, and to act as anything less would be simple negligence. 

The hardest kinds of decisions to make are the unquantifiable ones. The ones laced in uncertainty. The ones that can’t be made without invoking criticism and making some people unhappy. But these are also the most necessary kinds of decisions — and President Leath didn’t make enough of them.