T oday college is a business. For better or worse, universities have come to represent more than just their student bodies. A changing culture in higher education has ensured we often get more logo than logos.

So with the looming retirement of Washington State University President V. Lane Rawlins at the end of this academic year and the opportunity to set a bold course for WSU for years to come, the WSU Board of Regents and its 20-member Presidential Search Advisory Committee now face a towering dilemma: When’s lunch?

The regents have stated publicly and rather unanimously that they are seeking a successor with Rawlins’ dedication to fundraising and high- profile research and one who has the ability to coordinate the four large branches and many satellite extension centers of a segmented statewide campus. In an e-mail sent to WSU students, regent and search committee chairman Rafael Stone wrote that the committee was looking for a president who will increase financial support, seek a more global university and further Rawlins’ legacy of fundraising and expansion.

Regents and the search committee have set their description of the next WSU president as one who recognizes the importance of raising both university capital and profile, so it won’t surprise too many people in Pullman if the new president looks and sounds a lot like the old one.

And though this job description may reflect the realities of today’s profit-oriented public university president, lost among all the discussions of “team building” and “strategic partnerships with the business community” seem to be the more than 23,600 WSU students.

In spite of the regents’ rosy outlook, there are a number of problems at WSU, and few of these involve a lack of fundraising or research. Considering the amount of energy the university devotes to the idea of diversity – with its cycle of public forums, vague benchmarks and empty rhetoric – the results are pathetic. One of the residence towers of Stephenson Hall isn’t housing students this year as enrollment numbers in Pullman were lower than expected. Tuition continues to rise beyond the rate of inflation in a state that has not offered much support to higher education.

The students of WSU need, above all, a dedicated leader. One dedicated to those who trust the university to provide them a world-class education in every sense of the words and not to the cyclical languor of standardized education. The regents owe it to students to find a man or woman with a connection to more than just student money who will have a real presence on campus. Rawlins has done well at WSU but has been little more than a picture in the paper to many students.

In a common move at WSU, one search committee member said earlier this year their candidate could be one who fits the mold of former WSU President Glenn Terrell, who served from 1967 to 1985 and is known for the attention he paid to student voices.

Few people, however, remember the many unpopular policies of President Terrell. For several of his first years students angrily demanded an expanded cultural education curriculum, justice for victims of pervasive mistreatment and equal opportunities for returning Vietnam veterans. Several notable incidents on campus provoked a very visible outrage in the university’s minority community.

Large campus protests were nothing unique to Pullman in the turbulent years of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, but the Terrell administration was not always popular with all students. In spite of this, Terrell will forever be known as the man who walked down the campus mall that now bears his name, shaking hands and talking with students.

His is considered by many to be the most successful presidency at WSU. It would seem the regents’ commitment to finding a new V. Lane Rawlins would be a departure from this legacy. Polite small-talk may be a simple gesture but it has made Terrell unique among WSU presidents and, it would seem, higher education in general. This is why campus leaders so often invoke Terrell by name when glazing over the idea of connecting with the student body.

There are no doubt many groups with a very clear picture of what they want WSU’s next president to look like and say, but in the business of education, success will ultimately be measured by the quality of the people this president will lead.