Welcome, Provost McClendon

By Staff Editorial     9/30/10 7:00pm

This week, the Thresher was given one of the first looks into the thoughts and life of our new provost, George McClendon (see story, page 1). We would like to take this time to officially welcome him to our community and share the parts of his vision that excite us the most.First, we were happy to see that McClendon places such emphasis on understanding the traditions and unique attributes of this university. His three points of emphasis exhibit willingness and desire to continue pushing forward toward goals that the student body wants to achieve.

Environment and energy conservation have become points of interest for much of Rice's student leadership, and we feel that it is one of the community issues upon which both administrators and students agree. The issues in biosciences and human health fit the profile of many academics at our university and it is encouraging to see that McClendon would like to make us trailblazers in those fields. Finally, a global strategy to diversify our institution while spreading our influence across the globe brings positive returns for every part of Rice.

Rice generally has a large population of students that study abroad and we could not be happier to hear that McClendon cited both academic study abroad and extracurricular study abroad programs in his points of focus.

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The Thresher also felt that McClendon's efforts to reach out to the student body in hopes of building strong bonds and lines of communication were genuine. Particularly when the university is going through a wave of unprecedented expansion, the evolution of our campus must be coupled with an emphasis on students' needs in both the future and the present. Building such lines of communication is the only way to ensure that expansion does not run ahead of the needs of the student body.

We were also intrigued to learn that McClendon is an avid musician. A ragtag band of administrators playing zydeco is just the kind of thing our student radio station would love to put on the air; however, we would advise against sending your album to KTRU just yet.

With a commitment to the student body and a willingness to strengthen our core while expanding our boundaries, McClendon has one other attribute that makes him even more of a perfect fit for Rice University: He is a Texan. And for that, we are thankful.

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