When Dr. Pink was announced as the university’s next president Monday morning, I felt excited. Despite all my worries about the presidential search, Ferris State appears to have made the right choice.
I will not lie; I was deeply concerned about the lack of transparency that was happening as the university searched for the replacement of outgoing President David Eisler. Heck, at the Torch we wrote a full article about the lack of transparency.
I deeply value honesty and transparency, hence the reason I always push to give people the most accurate information available to the people who read our newspaper.
Going into Monday, I was apprehensive since I had no clue who the next president would be. Additionally, hearing that the university was bypassing the idea of introducing multiple candidates to the public and only presenting a single candidate, I was concerned.
Yet, as Amna Seibold talked on the podium everything started to make sense. The NDA’s made sense, though of course, I would have loved the information, it allowed them to widen their search and get a more diverse pool to pick from.
While it widened the search pool, it was still up to the committee to pick the correct person for the job. Which they did with the selection of Bill Pink.
Looking through his credentials, he seems like the perfect fit for what this university needs. He already has some solid experience as president at Grand Rapids Community College. He is also a board member of many West Michigan organizations.
He was named 2019 Newsmaker of the Year for education by the Grand Rapids Business Journal, and the 2019 Pacesetter, an award for community college presidents from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations.
I spent hours on Monday researching Dr. Pink, and from what I have found it appears he has been an asset everywhere that he has been.
Looking at social media, the support that has been given to Dr. Pink after the announcement has been almost unanimously positive. In fact, most people have talked about how good of a job that he has done at GRCC.
Bravo Ferris State University, it looks like you made a good choice in who to lead this university going forward.
If I could give one piece of advice to Dr. Pink, it would be to keep lines open to the students. We are both the product and the customer. Being able to connect with the students and the faculty through communication is a major part of success in community relations.
If you can nail that, then you will be well-liked here at Ferris State University.