Acting President Neil Kerwin said he would not comment on the investigation into President Benjamin Ladner's spending at a forum yesterday, but he did discuss changes in the academic calendar, recent criticism of the library and other issues.
Among a number of possible schedules, the most promising is one created by Student Government President Kyle Taylor under which students would get one day off for fall break and get two extra days of winter break.
Exam days would be broken up to allow for a mid-week study day, with exams for Wednesday classes held the following Monday.
Only about 10 percent of students are in Wednesday classes or Monday-Wednesday blocks with tests scheduled for that Monday, so most students could leave the weekend before.
A decision about the calendar is expected by the end of this week.
Kerwin also defended the library against the Princeton Review, which rated it 12th worst in the nation on its "This is a library?" list.
"I've got a short term plan to educate the people who made that ranking," he said. "The Princeton Review is simply dead wrong."
The library, which hosted Kerwin's forum, topped one million volumes this summer and has revamped its Web site, added databases and installed a coffee shop, the Mud Box, which served free drinks at its grand opening Tuesday night.
Kerwin called the start of the year "extraordinarily smooth," despite absorbing more than 125 transfers from colleges devastated by hurricane Katrina, plus the Board of Trustee's probe into Ladner's alleged misuse of university funds.
The investigation, instigated by an anonymous letter received by board members, came to light in a Washington Post article late July. The board suspended Ladner a few days before classes began to avoid "a distraction as we began the new academic year," according to board chair Leslie Bains, The Eagle previously reported.
Some students thought Kerwin was right to keep quiet about the probe.
"I would have liked to hear a little more about [Ladner's] current situation," said Clarissa Pintado, a sophomore in the School of International Service. "But I understand how Kerwin can't speak about it. I think the issues he spoke about were pretty important."
Taylor said he thought the forum was successful, even though sometimes audience questions only popped up after long pauses.
"I just don't think there's much wrong with the university right now," Taylor said. "There aren't any big issues that students are worried about."
Forums with Ladner last fall were filled with questions about contentious issues like parking and the complaint Ladner filed against the student Web site benladner.com for using his name.
The two-dozen students who attended the event didn't mind that Kerwin wouldn't talk about the Ladner investigation, Taylor said.
"There was no huffing and puffing" when the acting president announced he wouldn't comment on the probe, Taylor said. "If students were concerned there would be two or three hundred students there."
Kerwin also discussed the importance of winning awards, fellowships and scholarships and his hopes to have an AU Rhodes scholar.
"There's no reason that in the next couple of years we can't break through and get a Rhodes," Kerwin said. Each year 32 students from U.S. universities win the scholarship to study at Oxford University, England.
AU students won 42 of the federal government's Presidential Management fellowships this spring, the most of any university.
