Word: mcgill
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...combined student-faculty-trustee committee selected William McGill. former Chancellor of the University of San Diego, as Columbia's new president...
...stocky, crew-cut Roman Catholic, McGill will be the first non-Protestant president in Columbia's 216-year history. He returns to the campus on Harlem's border with the unanimous approval of the university's board of trustees and the support of the student-faculty search committee. "He's no superstar, but I think that's in his favor," says Fred Friendly, professor of journalism and a search committee member. "It's a big jump from San Diego to Morningside Heights, but this man has his priorities right...
...highest of the hurdles McGill must clear if he is to succeed at Columbia is financial. This year the university is suffering from an $11 million budget deficit. Another serious problem will be Columbia's relations with the surrounding community. Rapport was badly ruptured when Columbia attempted to put up a gym on park land, the move that ignited the 1968 riot. A considerable residue of hostility must still be dealt with. Neighborhood residents have long had reason to worry that the university might evict them to make way for expansion. Now they have an additional concern. Columbia...
...McGill puts a good-neighbor policy high on his agenda. "The most important thing is for us to become very valuable to the community," he says. Among other things, he plans to investigate how Columbia's schools of medicine, law, architecture and social work can become competent to deal effectively with the urban environment. High-rise construction, he believes, might provide the way for Columbia to satisfy its needs for expansion without encroaching on the community...
...student radicalism, McGill says: "Our problem is not the handful of destructive revolutionaries in our midst. It is the mass of alienated students eager to be raped if only the radicals can develop an issue to suit them." Obviously, McGill's presence will not stop Columbia's radicals from attempting further assaults. But the fact that students actively participated in the search committee's hunt for a new president at least starts him off with the proper sort of imprimatur...