Fr. Harrington Retires

Not sure where to put this but how come no one has spoken about father Harrington quitting???

Its all over redmen.com, and in ny post and daily news. Surprised i didn't see a thread when i logged on.

 Talked about on the "Union&Utopia" section.... yeah, I never look there either.. But your post is the first I heard the story, so thanks.

I found this part of his resignation letter quite telling.

"There is nothing in life that I despise more than St.John's basketball. Every time i walked into that vile gymnasium, all i could think about was vomiting, and then i would day dream about tearing it down, and building a giant hand, so that students and alumni could place their hard earned money inside of it.

I especially hate St.John's fans. It is my only regret that I could not fully destroy the program during my tenor here."

In all honesty, I expected his feelings about our program to be filled with more hostility.

I thought he was a baritone

That's a horrible attitude.  The guy is leaving. Let him go.

The embattled president of St. John's University is announcing his retirement today, and his chief of staff has already resigned in the face of an ongoing probe of lavish gifts they received from a corrupt dean at the Queens college who killed herself during a federal fraud trial, among other issues.

Father Donald Harrington, a Vincentian priest, who spent 24 years at the school, emailed his resignation as president to the St. John's community this afternoon. It is effective July 31.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/embattled_president_step_down_john_RNLzDsGfpeWNWsqZRKIMRP?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Local

While people dance on the grave, one should look at the entire body of work to balance the good with the bad.  The decision to retire (I am sure there was a push behind it) is the correct one.  The major issue I have is the length of his tenure as president.  It is the same in any position--the longer one is in control, the greater the arrogance.  Bloomberg was considered a very good mayor through his first 2 terms; then he forces the City council to resind the term limits and term 3 has been a disaster for him as the numbers show in his approval ratings.  (same for Koch in his third term.)  The board will have to consider this in the future--no more presidents for life.  It will be interesting if a Vincentian replaces him or they choose someone outside the order or a lay person.  Bottom line is that SJU has grown in leaps and bounds in his 24 years.  To continue to grow and compete academically takes money so the new president will have to have those skills; hopefully that person loves basketball

It was on the front page of the Post (online edition) and I got probably 5 emails from SJ about it. That's prob why no one really talked on here about it since it was so big elsewhere already. Looks like he made some stupid decisions, but there is no doubt he helped SJ in the long run. You really can't dispute the accomplishments they listed...he turned SJ from a commuter only school to one where dorming is becoming more normal in a short period of time. The academic profile also continues to rise because we get 50,000 applications allowing us to be more picky. It would be really nice to see SJ acceptance rates go down to 35% or so attracting 3.5+ students. Right now the grad programs are much more selective than undergrad.

While people dance on the grave, one should look at the entire body of work to balance the good with the bad.  The decision to retire (I am sure there was a push behind it) is the correct one.  The major issue I have is the length of his tenure as president.  It is the same in any position--the longer one is in control, the greater the arrogance.  Bloomberg was considered a very good mayor through his first 2 terms; then he forces the City council to resind the term limits and term 3 has been a disaster for him as the numbers show in his approval ratings.  (same for Koch in his third term.)  The board will have to consider this in the future--no more presidents for life.  It will be interesting if a Vincentian replaces him or they choose someone outside the order or a lay person.  Bottom line is that SJU has grown in leaps and bounds in his 24 years.  To continue to grow and compete academically takes money so the new president will have to have those skills; hopefully that person loves basketball

We have not grown in basketball. And he was the reason.

His social agenda sucked...plain and simple....bring me the guy who turns this school into fordham (academically speaking)

Thank god

Legacy
Pro: campus look like a campus 'stead of a parking lot wit a few buildings round it.
Con: ball

I agree w nrb. St. John's was bypassed academically by the likes of the Villanovas, Fordhams and BCs of the world during his tenure. You need a new president who will raise the academic stature of the university while keeping to its Catholic roots.

I agree w nrb. St. John's was bypassed academically by the likes of the Villanovas, Fordhams and BCs of the world during his tenure. You need a new president who will raise the academic stature of the university while keeping to its Catholic roots.

Since I've been alive, St. John's has never been in front of those schools, to be bypassed.

Legacy
Pro: campus look like a campus 'stead of a parking lot wit a few buildings round it.
Con: ball

100% correct

The fact is there were some pro's to his tenure at St. John's.  There were lots of infrastructure changes to the campus that have made it look very nice for prospective students.  And Father Harrington was a very good fundraiser who increased the endowment fund.

However, nobody can really deny that (a) the academic reputation of the school has actually gone down the last 10-15 years (b) the basketball program was left to flounder for a good number of years.

In the early 80s, kids would apply to all those schools and get into all of them. Now they are all hard to get into. Their academic rankings continue to rise and SJU should have followed suit but did not.

I think too much is made of academic reputation sometimes.   There are a number of truly elite universities, but after that quality is really specific to the individual.  How good your school is for you depends a lot on where you want to live and work and what field you're interested in.

Plus, the truth is that the Vincentian mission isn't an elitist one.   St Johns, Depaul, Niagara weren't founded to educate just the top 15%.   
It'd be like saying Ford isn't a good company, or Allan Mulally hasn't had a successful tenure, because they don't market a car in the $60k+ price range. 

I found this part of his resignation letter quite telling.

"There is nothing in life that I despise more than St.John's basketball. Every time i walked into that vile gymnasium, all i could think about was vomiting, and then i would day dream about tearing it down, and building a giant hand, so that students and alumni could place their hard earned money inside of it.

I especially hate St.John's fans. It is my only regret that I could not fully destroy the program during my tenor here."

In all honesty, I expected his feelings about our program to be filled with more hostility.

Beautiful Poison. Twenty years too late. What a blowhard. One can never forget, especially in this forum, how he almost killed this program. And his apostles like oldfan and USCongress, who spoke their venom on RM.Com should man up and tell us how wrong they were for being his champion.