Former Senator and New School President Bob Kerrey annoyed the hell out of me during the presidential campaign with all his Hussein business during the primary and his barely lukewarm support of Obama during the general election. I honestly had a recurring fantasy of bumping into him on the street and giving him a piece of my middle finger (actually, my fantasy was much more violent than than that).
So I can’t say I’m terribly surprised or upset to learn that he has been treated to a nonbinding but overwhelming vote of no-confidence by senior faculty at the school.
Mr. Kerrey has clashed with some professors since the day of his appointment as the New School’s president, with complaints that he lacks a Ph.D. and that his politics - particularly his early support for the Iraq war - were too moderate for the unabashedly liberal campus. But the underlying controversies became an open uprising this week after Mr. Kerrey announced that he would serve temporarily as provost as well as president after cycling through four provosts in seven years. [snip] “I don’t fear any vote that the faculty could take,” Mr. Kerrey said, noting that the group meeting on Wednesday involved a fraction of the New School’s 333 full-time and 1,733 part-time faculty. As president, he said, he has ruffled feathers because he is trying to “move from one kind of university to another kind of university,” adding, “The problem at the New School is not necessarily me.”
I know it’s wrong but I’m taking pleasure in the fact his life is difficult right now. He may sound all cool and calm, but you just know he’s suffering on the inside.
