Autumn has come to Guilford College with art-glass vibrancy, and, with more than daily frequency, exaltations of the leaves’, trees’, and climate’s beauty are heard throughout the campus, congratulating nature on her hard-earned splendor. Oh, and not that it’s important, but the president of the college is leaving ,too.Proclaiming herself otherwise conscientious, first- year Liz Nemitz said, “All we need is someone to fill the role and not shake things up.” Sentiments to this effect were all but universally felt as I set out to find how students were feeling about president Don McNemar’s resignation.

“We’re busy people. We have a tendency to not pay attention to how the school’s run until we don’t like the way it’s run, and then we find time to make noise,” said sophomore Leah Kefalos. As to what is wanted in a future president, “I want to be able to finish my college career without knowing who the president is,” said Kefalos.

Apathy aside, there were a few students who, by their own admission, cared just enough to want something different. “Things would actually get done if we had a president that acted as a mediator between the students and the system, instead of bureaucratic figurehead,” first-year Kate Zellmer said. “At orientation we heard every day from Don (McNemar) that the school was a truly wonderful place, but I can’t help but ask the question ‘then why leave?’ It makes me feel that he said those things because he was supposed to.”

Another frequent response was best articulated by junior Andrew Hoffman. “I’d like someone more liberal,” he said. “I just don’t like the alcohol policy.”

To an overwhelming degree, students think that it just doesn’t matter. “The president lives in the world of budgets and trustees. That’s the world most students don’t see, or don’t want to see. It’s hard to care about something invisible, or that only makes itself visible as a praise-shouting hollowman,” said first-year Jonathan Henderson. This apathy has been reflected many times, most recently with flaccid voting events of the community senate. The school is being run, and as long as it runs close to course, who is at the helm seems of little importance.

“I don’t know exactly what a president does,” sophomore Jon Pomeroy said. “But isn’t it a gorgeous day out?”