THE MISSION IS BIGGER THAN THE PERSONALITY. Milwaukee chancellor Carlos Santiago is on the short short list for the Florida International post. He's in the position of don't-take-it-spend-the-rest-of-your-life-asking-why.

"It certainly is earlier than I had anticipated," Santiago said. "The question that both myself and (my wife) Azara struggled with is, is this the right time to do it? The answer we came up with was, you never can predict when these opportunities would rise. And a year from now, would the FIU opportunity be there? And the answer would be no. That was a real deciding factor."

He makes the point I headlined.

Santiago said that if he leaves, Milwaukee needs to continue to pursue the vision of research growth.

"I think we've got some good things started in Milwaukee, and what's important is that they have continuity. This is not about a chancellor. To me that's the most important thing is that if this plays out, that the vision will continue."

With senior administrators, coaches, and more than a few grant-getting professors being job-hoppers these days, not everybody agrees. Consider James Rowen.

Santiago, however, is in the middle of ambitious expansion plans in Milwaukee and its environs, and has convinced the state and donors to contribute heavily to new, research-oriented programs; his unequivocal signal that he wants to be elsewhere does undercut his planning as long as he's here.

No one likes to feel as if they were merely a stepping stone, thus stepped on.

What matters is that there be a critical mass of professors, and a few deans, who support the mission no matter who currently occupies the chancellor's office. It's when the serial administrators serially modify the mission, so as to establish their bona fides with the latest management fads (student-centeredness, diversity, multiculturalism, sustainability, active learning, six-four and pick 'em) that the morale goes in the hopper. Milwaukee's plans will be fine provided the next chancellor, should that be required, and the faculty, agree that long term success lies in being more like Wisconsin than like a diploma mill.