Doing it Right

There was an interesting editorial in Friday's New York Times about how the University of California-Irvine botched the hiring of the dean of their new law school scheduled to open in 2009.

This was fascinating to me in many ways. 1) Planning a school 2+ years away? Come on we built Flashpoint in a little more than 100 days! It can be done. 2) What does it say to the future professors and students at that school that the boss doesn't have the integrity to stand by his own decisions. (The dean was offered the position, it was rescinded due to the deans left of center politics, then the position was re-offered.) Not a good start for the future law school if you ask me.

This brings me to our little school that does things the right way. Yesterday, the staff and faculty had a final walk through before the doors open tomorrow and we go live. When I walked into that building in April it was cement and plywood and studs on the wall. Today it looks like the nerve center of a high-tech business. It is -in a word I seldom use- awesome. It is clearly a place to do good work and make things happen.

As we walked through the halls Steven Berger, Flashpoint Special Projects Manager, came up to me and said, "This is going to be the best and most sought after film school in the country." I replied, "Unless the dumb filmmaker gets in the way."

Paula Froehle, our Academic Dean, heard this and reminded me that I was the first person she thought of when thinking about creating the film program. That made me feel very good. I think we did the right thing.

Tomorrow it's for real.

PeterH