Pride and prejudice at old CU.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-up

TWO MONTHS AGO, IN EARLY MAY, I JOINED THOUSANDS of my contemporaries in the stands at Boulder's Folsom Field to see one of my children graduate from the University of Colorado. There were doubts expressed that day--the graduates wondering whether they would ever find a job and the parents wondering if the university had done its job.

Of course, the assembled academic brain trust assured everyone that it had done its job, but these are the same people who have been saying for months and years that everything on campus is fine.

Few people in the stands that day believed that. Since now- lame-duck CU President Betsy Hoffman invoked Shakespeare in a vain attempt to explain away some of the absurdity, let me just observe that it all does seem to be a great tragedy. Something is rotten in Boulder.

Of course, like most people in town, I could go on and on about the football program or the Ward Churchill fiasco, but why bother? Those things have been, and continue to be, talked to death. I--the parent of one graduate and of one freshman on the way--take the long view. We desperately need a complete overhaul of a system obviously corrupt from stem to stern.

A great state university is many things, of course, but first and foremost it ought to be an institution that serves its state. It is a place where even those of humble means should get a great education. It is a place where business, education and government should find great leaders of the future. It is a place where individuals and businesses alike stake their claim to the future. It should be a place of great pride.

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Sixteen years ago, that pride came gushing out when CU chemistry professor Thomas Cech shared the Noble Prize. Not too long after that the CU football team shared the national championship, and then--CU President Gordon Gee quipped--"We finally have a football team our chemistry department can be proud of."

I saw little pride on graduation day. I saw a lot of worry. I have heard too many people--and an almost universal chorus of women--say that football ought to go if it jeopardizes CU's academic reputation. And whatever comes from the Churchill mess, witch hunt or academic fraud, it has stained the university indelibly.

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But scandal, mayhem and leadership are not at the core of the problems for the university. No, it is something far more fundamental.

This year, like...