Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 20

on colleges we've seen, from Oregon to South Dakota, Mississippi
to Maine, that have invented new ways of creating
community and regional opportunity.
It's a trend that could become a movement. And it
depends on " Let's do it " leadership, even in an era of college
leaders generally trying to keep their heads down.
This is a walking-on-eggshells moment for many
college presidents. Quick: How many current presidents
of Ivy League schools can you name? Of other major research
universities? Of famous small colleges? My own
list runs out quickly. It's a time in which many leaders survive
by not being noticed.
They worry about money. They worry about politics
and legislatures. They worry about pressure from students,
parents, faculty, and trustees-not to mention
journalists and community members. And again: They
worry about money.
They're fearful of a misstep-literally, on the soggy
turf of a possibly rained-out commencement; symbolically,
in myriad other ways. Robert Maynard Hutchins
was famous as a 30-year-old president of the University
of Chicago; Edward Levi and Hannah Holborn Gray,
as two of his successors; Kingman Brewster Jr. at Yale;
Drew Gilpin Faust at Harvard. Father Theodore Hesburgh
at Notre Dame; Freeman Hrabowski III at the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County. Their counterparts
and successors operate in more perilous terrain.
Today, the best-known exception illustrating the rule is
Michael Crow, who, as president of Arizona State University,
has innovated in countless ways, from partnerships
with businesses to radically expanded access for students
from noncollege backgrounds. As has often been argued
in these pages, the U.S. News & World Report's college
rankings are a net loss to both educational progress and
human well-being. (For the record: I once was editor of
that magazine.) But they've done one thing right: Since
U.S. News first established a " most innovative " category
in 2016, Crow's Arizona State has always been at the top
of the list.
We'd like to introduce you to less-well-known exceptions,
which we hope and believe will amount to a trend. The
theme of the stories beginning in this issue and followed up
in coming months will be a one-two punch. The first is leaders'
decision to take risks in the public interest. The second is
their imagining their colleges' interest as extending beyond
the campus to the community and region.
This brings us back to Muncie.
3) Running toward the challenges
After his track career and a few years as a private school
English teacher, Mearns decided to become a lawyer. He
went to law school at the University of Virginia, clerked
for a federal judge in Louisville, worked briefly for a New
York law firm, and, in 1989, became a federal prosecu20
September/October 2022
tor in Brooklyn. He spent about nine years in that role,
including advising on the Oklahoma City bombing cases.
During his time as a teacher he met and, as he tells
it, eventually gained the attention of Jennifer Proud,
who then worked in media relations for Madison Square
Garden and later had a similar role for the men's pro
tennis tour. They were married in 1988 and have five
grown children.
In 2005, while in private legal practice in Cleveland,
Mearns was recruited to go into academia as the dean of
the law school at Cleveland State. A few years later, he and
Jennifer moved to northern Kentucky, across the Ohio
River from Cincinnati, where he was president of Northern
Kentucky University. In 2016, they considered coming
to Ball State.
The job itself was a step up in scale. The question-
as they both now say-was: Muncie? Seriously? The city,
with a current population of around 65,000 (down from
its peak of about 75,000 in the 1980s), is famous in the
world of sociology as the locale for Robert and Helen
Lynd's classic Middletown: A Study in Modern American
Culture, based on research almost 100 years ago. Muncie
is also well known in the world of economics as one more
case study of the damaging effects of corporate disruption
and relocation. Much of the Ball family's wealth still
makes a difference in Muncie, but they no longer control
the company, which is not based there anymore. Ball State
as an institution remained strong. The city did not. That
is what the Mearnses realized when they came to town for
a final interview.
" If you drive from northern Kentucky to Muncie,
the fastest way takes you through the south side of the
city, " Mearns told me recently. " If you've driven or walked
through the south side of Muncie, you see a very different
community than the one that exists here on the north
side, near our campus. " That different Muncie was more
boarded up, poorer, and racially less white. " Frankly, after
we took that drive and on the ride back to Kentucky, we
thought long and hard about whether this is a place we
wanted to live. "
They decided that it was-because of its struggles,
not in spite of them. ( " Let's do it. " )
" The next conversation I had with the board, I said if
you want a president whose plans are confined to the four
corners of campus, I'm not the right person, " Mearns recalled.
" If you want somebody who is going to use the assets
and innovative thinking of a large public research
university for change in Muncie, I'm interested, too. "
This may sound like boilerplate. I will tell you that
talks with people in Muncie over the three-plus years
since our first visit-Black and white, academics and
journalists, within the Ball State community and outside,
students and alumni-reinforced our sense that
the university has not just talked the talk. It has walked
the walk.

Washington Monthly - September/October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2022

Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 1
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Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Contents
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Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover3
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