Good evening, I’m Glenn Hansen, president of the Faculty Association and Senate.
Tonight is an important night for many of our colleagues, on behalf of the full-time faculty I would like to extend our congratulatory wishes to the faculty members who are being recognized by being awarded tenure by you tonight. While there are state laws that govern tenure of college faculty, it is the recognition of this significant milestone by you that is very important. It is an achievement that all faculty members strive for.
This evening is also an important night for COD. We have again seven trustees. We hope this guarantees a quorum for every meeting moving forward. Thank you Mr. Olsen for accepting this important position. Welcome to COD.
We hope that tonight also marks the end of the bad public behavior that has led to probation for COD. When members of the Board abdicated the responsibility to select the 7th trustee, you lost your right to complain. It is time to sit down and conduct business. Agree on the College business that is prepared and brought forward. Leave the partisan politics at the door and when appropriate agree to disagree, politely and professionally. Please.
RIchard Jarman, VP COD Faculty Assn.
The number seven has preoccupied the college community these past 60 days (poetically that should have been perhaps 70 days, or 70 times seven, though that would have been agonizingly too long). Seven is divine perfection and so here, if not divine, is a perfect board numerically at least. Seven is a number of unusual prominence in many areas of human enterprise, religious, spiritual, cultural and mathematical, many familiar and many obscure.
Who does not know the seven deadly sins (or perhaps committed some of them), the seven rings of the malebolge, the seven days of creation? Seven appears more than fifty times in the book of Revelation alone (I won’t bore you with all those). In Eastern traditions there are the seven Chakras; in Hinduism, the seven worlds and the seven seas. And how many places have seven hills?
In modern culture, Snow White had her seven dwarfs; there is a seven-year itch, and Seven Samurai and seven brides for all those brothers. One man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages.
I learn from Wikipedia (where else) that, in mathematics, seven, the fourth prime number, is not only a Mersenne prime but also a double Mersenne prime. It is also a Newman–Shanks–Williams prime, a Woodall prime, a factorial prime, a lucky prime, a happy number (happy prime), a safe prime (the only Mersenne safe prime), and the fourth Heegner number. Fancy that.
The following is with specific reference to our new Trustee, Number Seven, David Olsen. In numerology, the number 7 is the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of Truth, (qualities we value in our leaders). The 7 doesn’t take anything at face value — it is always trying to understand the underlying, hidden truths. No pressure here Trustee Olsen. The 7 knows that nothing is exactly as it seems and that reality is often hidden behind illusions. The 7 is the intellectual. The 7 hates gossip and is immune to back-stabbing – a quality highly apropos for one in public service. The 7 well never make a decision based on an expected financial outcome.
All that by way of welcoming Trustee David Olsen to the table. The days of nonsense are over. I think you are already aware of the supreme importance of the next few months. The changes set in motion last year must continue. The new president must be identified in a timely fashion though not overly hastily. The business of removing the scarlet letter of probation must be completed effectively and in some great part this must happen around this table.
Thank you.