Small salary, K-12 rebuttal part of Daniels forum

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Purdue University's next president wants to speed up the transition to trimesters and may explore changing healthcare options for faculty and staff. It was part of a wide-ranging grilling of Governor Mitch Daniels while 700 students and faculty looked on.

They packed the house Thursday afternoon at Loeb Playhouse, interested to hear what Daniels would say. 

He took questions from C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb and students, everything from tenure and his hope that it doesn't keep professors from being diligent, to his desire to teach himself, perhaps in a class in government or business.
    
One topic quickly arising was how he would unite the campus and keep it safe in light last week's bias incident on a whiteboard, "which defeats the whole purpose of the heterogeneity that we want and that we want to develop so I see that as very much a part of the mission of strengthening the education that every student extracts from Purdue," Daniels said.

There were a few questions regarded academia and education. 

Daniels said he won't silence critics and hopes his background will be an effective complement. But he didn't mince words when asked by an education major about K to 12 education and the recent reforms.

"I hope that I won't find that the Purdue School of Education is a redoubt of reactionary thinking," Daniels said. "We should be leaders of reform as far as I'm concerned. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity for the School of Education here, multiple opportunities. The college will have to decide whether to seize them, and if so, which ones."

Perhaps his most difficult question was when asked how he felt working at a school where the head basketball and football coaches make hundreds of thousands of dollars more than its president. 

He said those facts are not issues as long as the athletics department and the athletes do three things:

"Never embarrass the school; the student athletes really have to be students, no fudging; and pass for yourself.  If we do those three things, then I really want you to win, I really want you to win. But if you do win, and you didn't do all those three things, then we're going to have to have a discussion."

Daniels said he thinks the transition to the trimester system at Purdue is terrific because it helps students finish faster and saves them money. He hopes he can speed up the process so it doesn't take eight years to fully change over.