Posted by the Editorial Board
We attend President Philip A. Glotzbach's Skidmore and cannot envision any other. As he departs the college for the next six months, we take a moment to reflect on the changes he effected as our president in the last seven years.
In a shift as similarly dramatic as when students saw a new campus in 1962, the Skidmore of today is different from the one graduates attended just a few years before. Members of the college community live and learn in buildings constructed and renovated through President Glotzbach's efforts, made possible by his record $216 million fundraising efforts. From the First Year Experience to Creative Thought Matters, students and professors work in a college structured by his initiatives that we cannot imagine living without.
Through his tireless dedication, the college's standing among higher education institutions has improved. For many students, the choice to attend Skidmore sprang from changes that occurred in the seven years since Glotzbach first became the president of the college. In the constant evolution of the college's image across the country, his time as our president has showed an increased perception of Skidmore as a serious academic environment.
Students will have new options available to them after graduation because of Glotzbach's work these last seven years. In a hiring environment fraught with challenges and uncertainties, his efforts to shape the college's reputation became more valuable than ever. We know that post-graduate life will be made easier because we attend a school that prepares us for and recommends us to a broader range of career opportunities.
But his work is not done. Just as today's students cannot imagine a Skidmore without the programs and initiatives they benefit from every day, we hope that the classes of 2015 and beyond will enjoy more expansive facilities for the sciences, a solid foundation of programming for sophomore year and a more diverse student body. These future students should be able to devote themselves to a broader range of academic disciplines and to explore these departments with greater ease.
But even as he forges ahead with new and exciting changes to the college, Glotzbach should revisit some of his previous misguided policies. As students have said again and again, by making residence halls universally "substance-free," Glotzbach and his fellow administrators assured that no residence halls on campus would be truly substance-free. With his creation of a new task force to study this problem, we hope that the president and his fellow administrators might come to new conclusions about how best to change flawed policies regulating student drinking.
As he has engaged with students through speeches and conversations through the last few years, Glotzbach has treated us as respectful equals. He reminds us of the lives we will be embarking on after graduation even as he shows genuine interest in the day-to-day concerns of our time at the college. We hope that when he returns from his sabbatical next May, he will continue to move forward with the rapid and widespread improvements characteristic of his years as our college's president.