Enarson turning down dean position just the latest in a line of failures for the proposed medical school
Central Michigan University’s proposed medical school continues to stumble.
Cam Enarson, who has been serving as the school’s interim dean, turned down the permanent job Tuesday.
Along with four empty spots for associate deans, the medical school still has no leadership despite being approved in September 2008.
The project is looking more and more unstable as time progresses. If the Trustees and the administration really want this to work, it has to be quick in finding someone willing and qualified to take charge.
Enarson had spoken with enthusiasm about being the dean in December, when he was the last candidate for the medical school.
“I think what we can create here is magnificent,” he said.
One month later, Enarson attributed turning down the job to personal reasons.
With two other finalists dropping their candidacy for medical school dean, CMU is left in the dust.
Steve Smith, director of public relations, said the university is aiming to secure a dean by the end of the academic year.
With three-and-a-half months remaining, CMU is running out of time.
Appointing a dean in such little time could result in a convenient candidate rather than a qualified one.
Add searching for four associate deans to the mix without an inclination of who to hire, and the medical school begins to sound like it is teetering on the edge of hopelessness.
The medical school has been kicked around the university for too long now.
The energy has been sucked out of the project and it has found itself in a state of disarray.
Its reputation has become lackluster, and seems to repel every prospective leader away from the school.
Trying to get the school of the ground is becoming tiresome.
Even former university president Michael Rao, who initiated the medical school plan just months before leaving for Virginia Commonwealth University in mid-2009, is not around to push it forward.
University President-designate George Ross will hopefully have more success than Rao and interim university president Kathy Wilbur, despite having nothing to do with starting it.
He is walking into a challenge that has been around for more than a year and still doesn’t have sufficient leadership.
The university will no doubt continue with the medical school, despite the lack of support it has received.
If CMU is serious about the project, it will have to recruit someone who is truly committed to see the project through.
This is one wild goose chase Trustees and administrators cannot afford to lose.
