OT: UConn Board of Trustees Chairman Thomas E. Kruger

[BackAftaThis]

Just received this email:

To the University Community:

It is my pleasure to inform you that the Board of Trustees voted unanimously this morning to appoint Thomas C. Katsouleas the 16th president of the University of Connecticut.

Tom is an extremely talented and highly experienced leader in higher education. He has served as a faculty member and senior leader at some of the most prestigious universities in the nation, both public and private. He is a well-known and respected scholar and inventor. He currently serves as the provost and executive vice president at the University of Virginia, which is one of the top three public research universities in the nation.

Tom has a deep and comprehensive understanding of what makes a major research university work and what success looks like. He knows the vital role UConn plays in the life of our students and faculty, and for the economy, workforce, culture, and communities of our state.

We are confident in Tom and his ability to work closely and effectively with our Governor – who lent his strong support for this choice – the board, the General Assembly, our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and donors.

Our University has made great progress during the last eight years under the leadership of Susan Herbst. And we have sought a leader who can build on and enhance the success that has been achieved and keep UConn on its upward trajectory as an academic institution and a driver of economic growth in the state of Connecticut.

Tom is clearly the right candidate at the right time to lead UConn forward, and we are delighted he has decided to come to Connecticut.

He will begin at UConn on August 1, 2019.

I invite you to visit this website to read the full announcement and learn more about our next president.

Sincerely,

Thomas E. Kruger
Chair
UConn Board of Trustees

 

[CL82]

Weird. I got this email:

To the University Community:

It is my pleasure to inform you that the Board of Trustees voted unanimously this morning to appoint Thomas Emery the 16th president of the University of Connecticut.

Tom is an extremely talented and highly experienced leader in education. He has served as a educator for many years. He is a well-known and respected as "Big Red." If he can make the XL stand up and cheer in unison, we feel he is the right man to unite our university community and get us all moving in the right direction.

Tom has a deep and comprehensive understanding of what makes a major research university work and what success looks like. He knows the vital role UConn plays in the life of our students and faculty, and for the economy, workforce, culture, and communities of our state.

We are confident in Tom and his ability to work closely and effectively with our Governor – who lent his strong support for this choice – the board, the General Assembly, our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and donors.

Our University has made great progress during the last eight years under the leadership of Susan Herbst. And we have sought a leader who can build on and enhance the success that has been achieved and keep UConn on its upward trajectory as an academic institution and a driver of economic growth in the state of Connecticut.

Tom is clearly the right candidate at the right time to lead UConn forward, and we are delighted he has decided to come to Connecticut.

He will begin at UConn on August 1, 2019.

I invite you to visit this website to read the full announcement and learn more about our next president.

Sincerely,

Thomas E. Kruger
Chair

 

[Scrutineer]

Mine was a little different:

To the University Community:

It is my pleasure to inform you that the Board of Trustees voted unanimously this morning to appoint Thomas Emery the 16th president of the University of Connecticut.

Tom seems like a great guy with a beautiful smile and strong handshake so we feel he'll be able to step right in and keep UConn on the roll we've been on these last eight years under the leadership of Susan Herbst. He's also been a professor at some pretty good schools and has invented a few things that sound good on his resume. He never told us exactly what those inventions do but the words he used to describe what they do were very impressive to our committee.

Most importantly, Tom comes to the University from the University of Virginia, a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. During his interviews he offered some hints that the ACC will soon be expanding and his inside knowledge (plus being friends with some of the Presidents of other ACC schools) "could" lead to UConn being invited to join the ACC when they add two more schools.

Right now he believes the list of leading candidates includes UConn, as well as UMass, URI, and Albany, all schools expected to broaden the TV appeal of the ACC to the Northeast television audience (the University of Boston College has thus far been a ratings disaster) and it will be important to bolster ratings for the next round of TV contract negotiations.

In summary, with the state in serious financial trouble, with the population shrinking, with corporations moving their headquarters to other states, with taxes being added to an already overtaxed citizenry, and with field hockey being the only viable championship program left in our athletic department, Tom may have been the best we could do and we're pleased as punch he accepted this job as otherwise the search could have gone on forever.

Please send Tom a note thanking him for buying what we were selling,

Thomas E. Kruger
Chair (and not the kind Majok used in his highlight tape)