Affection Mixed With Irreverence At UI Ceremony University’s New President, Robert Hoover, Inaugurated
They love you when you come. They love you when you leave. But in between can be hell.
That’s the experience of most public university presidents, C. Peter Magrath, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, told a crowd of several hundred Friday afternoon in the Kibbie Dome
Magrath was the featured speaker at University of Idaho President Robert A. Hoover’s inauguration ceremony. The official welcoming celebration for the school’s 15th president drew many of the state’s government, higher education and community leaders to the Palouse this week.
In his congratulatory remarks, Gov. Phil Batt recalled a few fond UI memories, most notably the “hot pursuit” of his wife while he lived in the dorms and she in a sorority.
UI Faculty Council Chairman William Voxman capped his remarks with a tale of Hoover’s uncanny first arrival in Moscow - sitting at a 45 degree angle behind a tow truck after forgetting to check the oil in his car during the drive north from Nevada.
Hoover’s former boss, University of Nevada-Reno President Joe Crowley, delivered some of the afternoon’s most irreverent comments with his list of nearly 50 different qualities expected of a university president.
“…They should also have nerves of sewer pipe, be able to inflict pain, lose friends, live in a glass house, grow grapes from thorns and figs from thistles,” Crowley said. “They should have white hair for the look of experience and hemorrhoids for that look of concern.”
Hoover’s 83-year-old mother Anna attended the ceremony Friday along with his immediate and extended family, plus a former student and a former professor who he credited with changing his life along the academic path.
George Peek, a retired professor and dean of political science at Arizona State University mentored Hoover to continue his political science studies and pursue a career in higher education.
“I admire this young man. I’m very proud of him and he has my deepest affection,” Peek said in his closing remarks, prompting Hoover to wipe away a tear.
Carolyn Rhodes, a political science professor at Utah State University lauded Hoover’s talents as a teacher, recalling how his 1979 foreign policy class motivated her own career path.
“He remains an inspiration to me. Even now I wonder if I can possibly be the teacher he was,” Rhodes said.
In his own remarks, Hoover credited Rhodes and Peek with providing the intellectual stimulus that would frame his love for academic pursuits.
“It is that shared professor and student endeavor to search for truth and knowledge that continues to excite me about higher education,” Hoover said.
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