COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Within a few hours yesterday, William E. "Brit" Kirwan rode an emotional roller coaster from tearful farewells at the University of Maryland, College Park to enthusiastic welcome at his next campus, Ohio State University.
Kirwan, 59, officially accepted the presidency of the 54,000-student Ohio State last evening at a news conference here.
After carrying around a tissue and bidding sad farewells at College Park, Kirwan boarded an Ohio State plane and flew west, where he charmed a room packed with 150 deans, trustees, professors, students and the media at a news conference at the Fawcett Center on the Ohio State campus.
Wearing a red Ohio State tie, patterned with little O's, a red "O" pin and the engaging smile that helped make him so popular in College Park, Kirwan told the group that his goal was to make Ohio State a top-flight university known for its research, distinguished academic programs, successful ties with businesses in the community, and diversity.
"I'm convinced it is the destiny of this university to be admired across Ohio and around the world," Kirwan said.
He held up a buckeye, a poisonous nut that serves as the school symbol, given to him weeks ago by student government president John Carney, a search committee member, with the plea: We want you to be one of us.
Kirwan vowed last night to keep it on his desk.
"John this buckeye will remind me every day I'm here on whose behalf I'm working: the students and citizens of Ohio," Kirwan said.
Asked his view on Ohio's support of public universities, Kirwan said that coming from Maryland -- where he had to lobby constantly for funds -- he is no stranger to lobbying the legislature.
But he emphasized a key difference. Public universities in the Midwest generally enjoy greater public support than in the East because they do not have to compete with prestigious private universities, he said.
"In the East, particularly in the Northeast, the great universities evolved as private institutions," Kirwan said. "There was not a tradition of public support for public universities. There is some of that feeling in Maryland. Patti [his wife] and I are products of the Midwest. We know there is a philosophy in the Midwest. The great universities in the Midwest are [generally] public universities," he said.
"It's a philosophy and a spirit that I look forward to being a part of," he said.
