The Board of Regents consistantly have shown poor judgement in their choice for university presidents.

The past two presidents for NIU have generated plenty of negative news for the university. And most recently, the president of Sangamon State University, another Regents school, has made the news for his 60-day leave of absence in which he plans to be evaluated for alcohol abuse.

The Springfield State Journal-Register reported Wednesday that SSU’s president Durward Long’s decision to take a leave of absence was provoked by an investigation into allegations that he fondled a female student on Aug 26.

The Regents selections for university presidents seem to have a knack for making the wrong kind of news.

Early in 1978, former NIU President Richard Nelson resigned after he was convicted on the felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident. On May 27, 1977, Nelson hit an NIU student riding a bicycle.

The investigation of the incident, which remained in the inactive file of the DeKalb police for a month, was reactivated following media inquiries.

Nelson also made national news early in his presidency after one of his earliest decisions to ban the National Anthem at NIU basketball games to relieve racial tension. The decision brought critical publicity and letters from across the nation. The controversy quickly brought a reinstatement of the anthem.

More recently, former NIU President Clyde Wingfield made the news in the spring of 1986 for expenditures of about $100,000 to remodel his home while president. He was asked by the Regents to resign amid an investigation into the expenditures by the state auditor general.

Wingfield didn’t just make the news at NIU, he also attracted controversy at State University College in Old Westbury, New York where he was president prior to coming to DeKalb. According to a March 22, 1985 Newsday article, student leaders at Old Westbury repeatedly sparred with Wingfield during his three years as president there.

NIU’s current president, John LaTourette, was the acting president and provost before Wingfield was selected. LaTourette seemed to many to be the most logical choice for NIU’s president. Yet the Regents’ 19-member search committee for a new NIU president voted unanimously for Wingfield, despite a unanimous rejection of Wingfield from a four-member student committee.

Three university presidents have brought negative news to the Regents in just the last 10 years.

What happens when presidents of universities governed by the Regents are forced to resign amid negative press coverage?

For Wingfield it meant being hired as a faculty member at $70,000 a year with tenure. This summer, Wingfield was granted a year off with pay to assume a research post in Washington D.C.

And after his conviction and resignation, Nelson was hired at his regular salary to assist the acting president for two months.

The Regents should take more care in considering who should run the universities it governs. More careful considerations of all appointments would save the universities and Regents considerable embarrassment from the people who act as their agents. NIU has suffered greatly from two of their picks for president. SSU is suffering now.

Former president Nelson did do at least one thing right. He called for a separate governing board for NIU.