With the new year and a fresh semester, Chancellor Nancy Cantor has discovered a truth of campus public relations: No news is good news.

Despite an aggressive agenda set to move the university forward, a gray cloud hung over the chancellor’s mansion as the fall 2005 semester came to an end. The final months of 2005 brought struggle after struggle to the office of Chancellor Cantor. Important goals and policies were overshadowed by a tainting battle with the students of HillTV. An episode of student protest at the homecoming football game, expressions of resentment by architecture students unhappy at the remote location of their new facilities and finally an embarrassing alteration to her initial decision regarding HillTV kept the university distracted. It was beginning to become evident that the chancellor was leading a university community that had begun to question her performance.

It’s inherent to the position as president of a major university that issues will arise on campus and that the president will have to lead the university through the crises. According to Professor Kathryn Lee, communications manger of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Commications, there are three important qualities for the president of an institution of higher education.

‘They must be an extremely good listener, good delegator and have a measure of emotional detachment,’ said Lee, a former speechwriter and public relations adviser to former Chancellor Kenneth Shaw.

Poor execution of Lee’s first quality is where the chancellor made her greatest error in dealing with the HillTV controversy. The issue could have been better contained had more conversation taken place before the chancellor’s decision to revoke HillTV’s charter. Had the chancellor taken more time in making her decision, the community would have been more receptive.

The fallout from the HillTV incident left Chancellor Cantor an easy target for criticism. She and her staff, though, have been executing skillful public relations, and her image has been continually strengthened by her relative absence from campus media. The lack of news from the chancellor’s office has softened the previously harsh criticism she was receiving, especially from the student body.

Universities, where ideas and beliefs flow freely, are a breeding ground for controversies. Lee said during her tenure with Chancellor Shaw, students twice occupied the administration building: once in protest of tuition raises and again for a race-related incident involving an inappropriate Halloween costume.

‘In times of crises, he and I were on the same wavelength,’ Lee recollected. ‘We took things on directly.’

University spokesman Kevin Morrow acknowledges that controversy is an element the chancellor must deal with. ‘It’s part of the job,’ he said.

The success of Chancellor Cantor’s public relations effort began this semester. As Morrow said, ‘the chancellor is a savvy communicator and a good speaker.’ But her triumph has been her subtle communications. It’s common of a private university president to spend any where from 50 to 60 percent of his or her time away from the university due to the requirements of a hectic fund-raising schedule. Chancellor Cantor’s schedule has taken her to Florence and London this semester alone and given her necessary time and space away from SU to let emotions simmer. While Morrow insists ‘the chancellor was very visible last semester and this semester,’ her select public appearances have left a pleasant taste in the mouth of the community. One event held recently was a reception for freshman scholarship students at the chancellor’s mansion.

I personally attended the reception and felt that the chancellor was well-received. She spoke eloquently and from the heart during her five-minute speech.

This campus is rediscovering itself in the wake of the controversial fall semester. Chancellor Cantor has capably reasserted her leadership quietly. I believe Lee summed this semester’s actions up nicely when she said, ‘A period of quietness is inevitable, from a great deal of public interest to things returning to how they should be.’

As things return to how they should be, the office of the chancellor has gotten one thing right for the past four weeks: no news is good news.