An old "friend" takes center stage

When I was a journalism student at Kent State University in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the program had a very quiet booster.

Michael Schwartz was president of Kent State University when I arrived on campus in 1987. He served until he "retired" in 1991, opting to return to the classroom and hands-on education of students. He was replaced by the college's first female president, Carol Cartwright.

Schwartz has always held my fascination. I'm not sure what's longer than arm's length, but if there is such a thing, he was at it. He dealt with one reporter per semester from the college's newspaper, The Daily Kent Stater. The reporter would take questions from multiple reporters' beats at one time, get them answered, then bring the answers back to us.

We knew he was a real guy, but in some ways he was an enigma.

The newspaper received funding from the university, but Schwartz allowed us to operate as though we were an island. Sure, he got upset when we screwed up, or when he thought we were unfair in criticism of the school, but he never threatened to touch us. He told our professors that we had to learn how to work in the real world.

A few years after his retirement from Kent State, he turned up at Cleveland State, filling in as interim president. He took over fully in 2001, and recently signed a contract that will keep him in the job until 2010.

Tonight, he prepares to stand on the dais at Wolstein Center and kick off a nationally televised debate that just could make a woman or a black man the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

Yeah, Michael Schwartz still knows how to work it.