President McNemar Resigns
Katy Wurster
NEWS EDITOR
After a moment of silence,
President Don McNemar got
right to the point.
"I wanted to share with you
today that I will conclude
my service as the 7th
president of Guilford Col
lege on June 30, 2002, at
the end of this academic
year," he said to the ad
ministrators, trustees, and
local media gathered in the
Art Gallery last Friday.
McNemar announced
his decision to resign,
which was finalized only
last Sunday, byway of a
campus-wide email sent
on Friday morning.
"In an effort to be fair
and equal in the notifica
tion process," said Ty
Buckner, Director of Col
lege Relations, "it was de
cided that he would email
the students, faculty, and staff, ex
cept for a very few people who
needed to know [ahead of time]."
Although much of the
Guilford community was focusing
on events off-campus last week,
McNemar felt it was important to
continue with his resignation as
planned due to several upcoming
events, including Family Week
end and the Board of Trustees
meeting.
McNemar said that,
throughout his six-year term as
President, he has been guided by
three important principles-doing
Senate Elections Amidst
Terrorism, Apathy
Casey Creel
STAFF WRITER
The Community Senate
held its Fall elections last
Wednesday for Residence hall,
First-year, and Sophomore
Class representatives.
The elections, which were
originally scheduled for Tues
day the 11th, were pushed to
Wednesday after the attacks
on the WTC buildings in New
York and the Pentagon in
Washington.
"We wanted people to
have the day to grieve," said
Chris Babcock, Guilford senior
THE
GUILFORDIAN
Greensboro, NC
what is best for the Guilford Com
munity, incorporating the testi
monies of the Religious Society of
Friends, and following his own
instincts and beliefs as a Quaker.
Charlotte Roberts, Vice-
Chair of the Board of Trustees,
listed a few of McNemar's more
' J*',
Kk I w'B
Don McNemar will leave Guilford after this year.
concrete accomplishments.
"Guilford has certainly benefited
from Don's leadership," she said,
citing the recent increases in en
rollment, improvements in com
puter and information technol
ogy, and the successful "Our Time
in History" campaign. _
Over the course of the next
10 months, McNemar will remain
on campus and continue "work
ing very hard on behalf of the col
lege," he said.
Presumably, McNemar will
also be consulting with his wife,
Britta, about what the next phase
and Vice President of Senate,
whose job it was to run the
elections.
The votes cast on Tuesday
before the time of cancellation
were included in the total.
"We picked up the election
right where we left off," said
Rebecca Saunders, who is
serving her first year as staff
advisor for Community Sen
ate.
Saunders, hired recently
to fill the position left by
Dawn Watkins, had little to do
with the election process, pre
ferring to remain hands-off
and simply oversee it. "This
See Elections, p. 3
of their lives will hold. "I love to
teach," he said, "and the world
needs good teachers." Previous
to his term at Guilford, McNemar
taught international relations at
Dartmouth for 12 years. If he
does not return to the classroom,
however, McNemar may consider
working for a foundation
or government agency
dealing with educational
policy issues.
The McNemars de
scribed themselves as
"wide open to opportu
nity" with regards to the
future.
Meanwhile, the
Board of Trustees will be
gin the search for a new
President. Ultimately, the
Board is completely re
sponsible for that decision,
although "lots of folks, stu
dents included, are in
volved in [the] process,"
said Buckner.
Roberts said that the
COURTESY OF THE PRESIDEN'TS OFFICE
Board has not yet defined
the process that will bring
a new leader to the college. Out
lining this task will be the sub
ject of their next meeting, the
first of several which will be held
this academic year.
Although most students
seem to have only a vague notion
of what the President actually
does on a day-to-day basis, many
have expressed that they will
miss seeing his always-smiling
face around campus, at college
events, and in the cafeteria.
Roberts also mentioned
McNemar's ever-present smile.
"He is the standard by which I
will measure all other optimists,"
she said.
McNemar concluded his ad
dress on Friday with the words
of George Fox, founder of the So
ciety of Friends, encouraging
those assembled, and all mem
bers of the Guilford community,
to "walk cheerfully over the
world, answering that of God in
everyone."
September 21, 2001
Violate This:
Proposed Faculty
Hiring Policy
Questioned
What document may violate
the Equal Protection Clause of
the United States Constitution,
Title VII and the 1964 Civil
Rights Act? If you guessed the
initial draft of Guilford's new fac
ulty hiring policy, you're correct.
On Wednesday September
12th the faculty met to discuss
and possibly revise this contro
versial policy.
The initial draft, as written
by the Clerks Committee, helped
to explain the rationale of a
policy in which African-Ameri
cans will receive the highest pri
ority in faculty hiring, followed by
Native Americans and then His
panics/Latinos.
"Guilford seeks to become an
institution in which there is
shared meaning from a multi-cul
tural, non-racist perspective, in
which diversity in; culture,
lifestyle, and spiritualty are hon
ored and affirmed, an(j in which
full participation from all mem
bers of the community at all lev
els is promoted,"according to the
new draft.
Faculty such as David
Barnhill, Dana Professor of Reli
gious Studies and Intercultural
Studies, had major objections to
the proposed policy. Barnhill
stated in an online discussion
devoted to the topic, "In particu
lar, I can imagine a department
that does not have a female fac
ulty member but feels a very
strong need to hire one. With this
proposal, can a department claim
that for this particular search,
gender diversity is a bigger pri
ority than the type of diversity in
the proposal?"
Please recycle this paper.
Bradley Podair
PUBLIC OPINION EDITOR
See Hiring, p. 2
CJW