New president's blog at Wesleyan University
Here's the latest entry to the list, thanks to a note from Tim Etchells, director of interactive communications at Middlebury College. This one hadn't yet turned up during my Google searches for college and university presidents who blog.
The new entry is from Michael Roth, president since July 1, 2007. Don't know why, but the "President's Page" profile under "Administration" doesn't mention the blog... and so, of course, doesn't connect to it.
That said, President Roth is a prolific poster at http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/ with 17 posts between August 31 and December 11.
Critics of the Wesleyan financial aid policy
For an example of why some public relations people are not happy with college and university presidents who blog, see the comments under the November 21 post, "Thanksgiving and the First Taste of Snow." While you can't tell from the title, 4 of the 7 comments take Wesleyan to task for a financial aid award policy that doesn't include merit scholarships and therefore, according to the comments, drives middle class students away from the school by forcing them to accept too much debt if they enroll.
You'll find another comment about what Wesleyan is doing to reduce loan debt. Financial aid policy on loans is being revised downward, from a expected $26,000 loan debt over four years to between $10,000 and $19,000.
All in all, an interesting addition to the growing group of presidents who blog and a good example of letting the light of day shine on topics that everyone is already talking about anyway. And that's good public relations.
See the full list of 29 college and university presidents who blog at http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/2007/07/15_presidents_who_blog_saint_v.html