Reader Tortious Interference raised first word and another foloer supplies this proof:
This message is being sent using E-mail to Groups ( UM Employees, Staff ).
It has been my privilege to serve as chancellor of our university for the past fourteen years. During that time, you have transformed virtually every aspect of life on our campus.
Evidence of your work is everywhere. Visitors to our campus instantly see and feel the results of your thoughtful, loving care. From cutting edge information technology to beautiful flower beds, you have accepted the critical, sometimes thankless responsibility of enabling our students and faculty to thrive in an extraordinary environment.
You have embraced a culture of service and the value of respect. Through your service, thousands of transactions take place every day and the complex activities of our university move smoothly. Your respect for members of our community as well as for our land, buildings and equipment is evident across our campus.
It is heartwarming to see you assume responsibility for our United Way campaign, the exam breakfasts our students love and a variety of charitable activities. The idea to put a “light for every student” on our Christmas tree came from a staff member and became a campus tradition. The list of life-enhancing programs and activities created, sponsored, and implemented by you is long and impressive.
On June 30, I will leave the University with a deep sense of gratitude for having had the opportunity to work with you. I will cherish our friendships and warmly remember the remarkable responsibilities you accepted and the extraordinary results you produced.
I hope you know that it is you who have truly created a strong, unique and highly respected university.
I look forward to seeing you this spring.
Warmest regards,
Robert C. Khayat, Chancellor
Discuss.
UPDATE: This version went to students:
Although our university is 160 years old, for each of you its life began when you arrived as a student. At that time a merger occurred between you and Ole Miss. You shaped the university’s personality, and the university became part of you.
When you complete your degree and move on to pursue your career and family life, you will remember Ole Miss as it was during your years as a member of this community. But universities that prosper gradually change. They reflect the experiences, values, interests, hopes and aspirations of each generation of students that make it theirs.
Accurately or not, to a great extent chapters in the life of a university are identified with the person who served as Chancellor. But the university we know today is the product of generations of students, faculty and staff.
It has been my privilege to serve as chancellor since 1995. During that time I have met thousands of students, had the pleasure of getting to know hundreds and established lifelong friendships with some. Students have responded to opportunities to strengthen the university, and they have been the source of many progressive, life-enhancing modifications and changes, ranging from the One Mississippi initiative and CHEERS to the Designated Driver program to efforts to make our campus greener and textbooks affordable to all. Because of you, the university will never be the same.
On June 30, I will retire from the university. I do so with profound respect for you, our students, and a deep sense of gratitude for your contributions to Ole Miss.
I wish you success, good health, happiness and peace, and I hope to see you during the spring semester.
Warmest regards,
Robert C. Khayat, Chancellor
Now it is on the main page of the university site. I for one will miss his time as chancellor. I hope that we have better luck than Mississippi State in replacing him.
I hope you do too, TI. Thanks for the alert.
That second version would be the same as the one in my prior post a few minutes ago.
Sorry, NMC — just ran in from an errand and didn’t see it.
So, wot’s the surmise?
Surmise? You mean why is he retiring now? I think it’s probably just what it appears– he’s accomplished a lot of what he set out to do and is at retirement age. I’ve heard also that his wife has health problems and that may encourage this. I’d take it as being what it appears to be based on the little I know.
I do think Ole Miss may have better luck finding a chancellor than State did because we’re so far ahead on things like the endowment and the honors college, and there’s a lot to build on. We’re probably better positioned for a chancellor search than we’ve been in history, or at least since the Meredith crisis. But that may be just wishful thinking on my part.
Well, I hope your wishful thought is spot-on, NMC. Ole Miss still has an important to-do list.
Of course, there’s a lot to do here and a long way to go. But there’s no doubt he’s leaving it better than he found it (I’m thinking particularly of the honors college) and leaving it in a position where more improvement can be had ( using the endowment as an asset). I would hope for a different sort of leader now, more focused on building an academic institution. The talent he has that will be hardest to replace will be as a fundraiser– he had advantages in his connection to the alumni community that are irreplaceable.
Well, all the best to the ones searching and the one they find. Ole Miss has a lot to offer in terms of both challenges and graces for chancellor-candidates.
Sun Herald
WAPT
Commercial Appeal
WLBT
Nuttin’ from the Clarion-Ledger yet.
No one ever gave more of himsel to Ole Miss than Robert Khayat. The state and the university have in Robert a far better chancellor than they deserve. In writing in support of Khayat’s selection as chancellor 15 years ago, I stated to those in charge of the process that Ole Miss’s greatest “enemy” is perhaps the government of the state itself … that there are many, many people in government and in positions of influence who want nothing more than to reduce Ole Miss to the same levels of abysmal mediocrity the state’s other colleges and universities had “achieved.” They remind me of crabs caught and placed in a bucket … they squirm and scratch around collectively protesting their state, but when one tries to climb out, all the others turn on him and drag him back to the bottom of the bucket.
Ole Miss is, and always has been, the touchstone of the very best that Mississippi can achieve … Khayat’s greatest achievements, and the list is amazingly long, is his lengthening of the distance between Ole Miss and the other schools, particularly as perceived across the nation. The Honors College has to be one of the brightest jewels in the Ole Miss crown. By law, drafted, implemented, and sustained by the legislature and the Ayers decision, Ole Miss has to admit virtually every applicant who has at least minimal brain stem functions. But the Honors College, and the Croft Institute of International Studies, provide programs in which academically gifted students can get educations commensurate with their abilities.
I don’t think it will be possible for us to find another chancellor the equal of RCK, but I hope we can avoid the political, and the academic, hacks, flacks, and other hangers-on and unqualifieds who are making phone calls right now to “get their stars aligned,” dimly though they burn.
I wish Robert and Margaret fair winds, folowing seas, and Godspeed. I will be forever and unqualifiedly grateful to the for their dedication, devotion, and service to Ole Miss.
I would hope for a different sort of leader now, more focused on building an academic institution.
I agree, NMC. To continue its progress, UM needs a different sort of leader now. And, as you stated, it needs one more focused on building an academic institution. That is a must if UM hopes to hang on to its “great American public university” status.
I also agree with Ben Cole in the hope that the “hacks, flacks, and other hangers-on and unqualifieds” will be dismissed by the college board and that a national search begins immediately.
Errr…this is the same bloke, right?
http://www.folo.us/2008/07/19/1-1-hmmm/#more-2612
Correct, Rodney. Isn’t this a complicated world? Or should we say a small world?