In a Hatchet editorial in last Tuesday’s issue, entitled “Prank Rankings,” The GW Hatchet criticized GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg for saying GW should be the top-ranked school for long lines and red tape in the Princeton Review guidebook, The Best 331 Colleges.
I fully understood that Trachtenberg intended the remark as a joke. The point of the editorial was that the issue of bureaucratic red tape is an extremely emotionally charged topic for GW students. I believe that there are certain issues that should not be joked about, even if you are president of a university.
Personally, I think Trachtenberg is so far removed from the adverse effects produced by GW’s bureaucracy that he is in no position to make jokes about the problem.
Does Trachtenberg wait in endless lines? Is Trachtenberg put on hold for countless hours, only to hear the automated voice say, “Sorry, all circuits busy, return to previous activity?”
My intent behind citing these examples is not to rouse a popular revolt against the administration. Instead, I would like to put the administration in the students’ shoes. I want the administration to feel the frustration that students feel every day because of the often impotent bureaucracy. So I challenge Trachtenberg to hold a real forum on the problem of red tape at GW.
Students’ time should be a valued commodity. Administrators should hold student satisfaction as a primary goal. Students should expect efficient and meaningful interaction, with little waiting in lines or on hold, when dealing with University departments.
I welcome an extensive debate on the issue of cutting red tape at GW. Before we can find the right answers, we must first address the issue directly with the right questions.
I transferred to GW from the University of Scranton after my freshman year. I left the gentle and traditional world of President J. A. Panuska, and entered the bold and futuristic realm of President Trachtenberg. Panuska, a teddy-bear-like Jesuit priest, was a beloved figure on the Scranton campus. Trachtenberg, by all accounts the mastermind of GW’s meteoric rise to national recognition, is looked upon by the GW community as an enigma of sorts.
To understand Trachtenberg is difficult, to predict his next move is nearly impossible. So, at best, I can only guess upon his intentions. Thus, when our president makes an inflammatory remark, such as his joke about GW’s red-tape ranking, we in the student media have a duty to report and, if deemed appropriate, editorialize on the comment.
I know that President Trachtenberg wants the best for GW. Operating with that in mind, I treated his insensitive remark as an aberration from a man who deserves a great deal of respect from the GW community.
-The writer is editorial editor of The GW Hatchet.
