UM VC to be replaced after 6 months?

The writing is on the wall, I think. Although it was reported that the contract of the current UM VC, Rafiah Salim, will be extended by 6 months, it appears likely that she will be replaced after that as the new Minister for Higher Education, Khalid Nordin, has indicated that a search committee will be set up soon to look for a new VC.

I agree with Tony's earlier post on this issue. While Rafiah has been a better VC than her predecessor (Hashim "Billboard" Yaacob), she also has stumbled many times. Tony has listed some of her shortcomings. I have also been very critical of the appointment of Jeffrey Sachs as the first Professor of the Ungku Aziz Chair of Poverty Studies because I saw this as a high profile appointment which was wasteful and produced little returns from a reputational or research standpoint.

Of course, there are others who would disagree with us and I think that some of them have some good points including tempinis, a regular commentator on this blog.

Hopefully, the new search committee will take heed of Tony's advice on this matter which he has written extensively on in the past.

In case anyone is interested, please compare the academic CV of the first Harvard woman president, Drew Gilpin Faust, and that of Rafiah Salim. I know it's an unfair comparison but it's worthwhile to point out that Rafiah served as Dean and Deputy Dean of the law faculty at UM, one of the most prominent faculties in the university with just a Masters degree and that her own UM VC website does not give her CV.