Wall Street Journal: Newt applied to be President of West Georgia College during his first year

[Botany]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577167041714568630.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A year into his first full-time teaching job, Newt Gingrich applied to be college president,
submitting with his application a paper titled "Some Projections on West Georgia College's
Next Thirty Years."

Mel Steely, a history professor who played a role in Mr. Gingrich's hiring in 1970, said the
bid drew "a chuckle" from administrators. The following year, Mr. Gingrich applied to be
chairman of the history department. That wasn't greeted so kindly, Mr. Steely said, with
some favoring a longtime professor and World War II veteran.

snip

So what was Professor Gingrich actually like? A clutch of little-known records from what is
now the University of West Georgia in Carrollton suggests the ambition and intellectual grandeur
of Newt 2012 aren't a long way from the 1970s vintage. In addition to seeking the college
presidency, Mr. Gingrich was often absent as he pursued political goals. He embarked on an
effort to moonlight as a paid consultant. And, it turns out, he spent little time teaching history.

Mr. Gingrich coordinated the school's fledgling environmental-studies department and by 1976
was removed from the history department because his "interest in long-range and broad-range
planning for the future...is clearly more appropriate to the orientation of our Department of
Geography," a 1975 letter from then-college president Ward Pafford reads.


*********
From a family friend I know somebody who knew somebody who taught @ West Georgia
when Newt was there and he was not liked. People should know Newt "the historian" was
removed from the History Dept. then given a job in the Geography Dept. and when he applied
for tenure in 1978 he was turned down and shown the door.

Both Newt and Mitt are almost certainly fatally flawed for any chance of being President.

[klook]

1. So maybe he was really

Last edited Mon Jan 23, 2012, 04:41 PM - Edit history (1)

a geographer for Freddie Mac.

This guy's the poster child for hubris!

[JBoy]

2. LOL. History department pawns him off on the Geography department

Insufferable ego from Day one.

[Botany]

4. I really do have a family member who is a retired professor and was

friends w/ a member of the faculty @ West Georgia College and Newt
was seen as a pain in the ass ego case by the administration and the
faculty and as soon as he came up for tenure they let him go.

BTW the Wall Street Journal article shows that Newt and another professor
tried invent "The Institute for Directed Change and Renewal," so as to
"double dip" and get money from other Georgia Colleges and Universities
for his work @ West Georgia College but the President of the College put
a stop to it.

<College President Pafford responded swiftly: "You are not entitled to financial
compensation by any other State of Georgia agency or institution," he wrote in
a memo. The institute soon went defunct.>

[wilt the stilt]

3. I also know someone at west georgia who knew him

My old Project manager's mother was an english professor there. They all hated him.

[Melissa G]

5. Hi Bots,

Last edited Mon Jan 23, 2012, 03:14 PM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for the post!

Gingrich is a megalomaniacal character. I feel sorry for the folks at West Georgia College who had to work with him. Not surprised he got the boot.

Sadly, strangely funny when people like Limbaugh and Gingrich have gained so much traction in today's republican party. How far they have strayed from the party of Lincoln.

[groundloop]

6. West Georgia College (Now the University of West Georgia) - NOT Georgia Tech

[Melissa G]

7. Thanks for the correction.

I will fix my post. Apologies to Georgia Tech. Being bad at work and reading DU distractedly, instead of the work I should be doing. Bad me.

Good thing I am the boss or I would be in trouble, instead I just get to work through my lunch.

[StandingInLeftField]

10. LOL!!!!!

West Georgia was/is the partyingest party school in GA! So far from GA Tech that it's in a parallel universe!

[Uncle Joe]

8. I don't believe anyone could be more ill-tempered and emotionally unqualified

for the office of the Presidency than Gingrich.

Thanks for the thread, Botany.

[yardwork]

9. It says a lot that such a person could become Speaker of the House.