Public relations expert Doug Elmets, president of Elmets Communications, was recently hired by Sacramento State at a rate of $275 an hour to help polish the university’s, or rather, Alexander Gonzalez’s, image in light of the recent “wild animal hunt” scandal last month. University Enterprises Inc. will pay Elmets, but considering the amount of damage President Gonzalez has done to his own image and the image of Sac State, Mr. Elmets is going to be working long hours repairing that image. At a price tag of $275 an hour, this is not going to be cheap. It is unfortunate that because of the egregious mistakes made by our president, what is essentially university money has to go to fix his image. This university is a good school, with good students and good faculty; however, we have been cursed with bad administrators.

One of Gonzalez’s main problems is his ability to raise money for outside ventures and his inability to handle money for internal issues such as academic affairs. So now, he is spending money, not to help fix the problem of over-crowded classrooms, but to make people like him. After all, part of the Elmets Communications slogan is “…a unique ability to provide services necessary to gain public or governmental acceptance of a product or position.” Gonzalez does not want to address the problems that faculty and students must deal with. He only wants to avoid tarnishing his image further. He has to hire someone to tell him how to act. He cannot communicate, so he is paying someone to do it for him. It’s startling that a university president, who has been rebuked by faculty and students, does not have the courage and humility to say, “I’m sorry.”

Corporations and celebrities hire PR people – university administrators should not. They should lead by their actions, not cower behind the facade of an overpaid spin doctor. According to a recent Sacramento Bee article about the hiring of Elmets, Elmets initially told Gonzalez “to be upfront and take responsibility.” Easier said than done, my friend. If Gonzalez truly wants to take responsibility, then he has a lot of explaining to do. Did anyone hear about the town hall meeting hosted by Gonzalez on Oct. 4 in Hinde Auditorium at noon? Probably not, because it was not publicized and it was not posted on the Sac State website’s campus calendar of events until 3 p.m., after the meeting was over. Hmmm, interesting that he held a forum for people to ask him questions about campus issues but he hardly publicized it. Why weren’t fliers put up? Why weren’t students sent a notification via Saclink? We get dozens of useless information about parking and the water being shut off e-mailed to us from the university but we get nothing about a town hall meeting hosted by the president of the university?

Gonzalez and his administration are using a favorite quote of one of my professors: “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” A far better solution to the image problems Gonzalez is having is for him to step down and take his place among the business and corporate profiteers where he belongs. None of his recent “attempts” have helped to begin to address the problems at Sac State. He is a CEO, not a university president. He specializes in private fundraising and corporate marketing. Quite simply, he cannot be trusted to do the job a university president must do, that is, make students and faculty the top priority.

Although the administration said Elmets would help with a number of Sac State projects, it is obvious what his main purpose is. I hope everyone is ready to see the corporatist’s model of university administration really take hold with Elmets’ hiring. More importantly, I hope the spin tactics and smoke and mirrors that surely await us do not fool people.

If I may invoke a recent act of graffiti, “Dear Gonzo, plz resign.”

Scott Allen can be reached at [email protected]