Posted by the San Jose Mercury News on Aug. 14, 2015.
Mercury News Editorial
There’s been a rush to judgment on Susan Martin’s appointment as the interim president of San Jose State University upon Mohammad Qayoumi’s departure. As she settles into the campus this week, we hope the faculty and community leaders will look at her overall record, not just the flash point of Eastern Michigan University’s Huron logo controversy.
And we hope they’ll talk to her. It will be easy. Communication was not Qayoumi’s strong point, but it is Martin’s.
A number of factors combined to turn local sentiment against Martin. The CSU chancellor appointed her quickly without consulting local faculty, who had expected someone within the CSU system. But opponents mainly have focused on her decision in 2012 to include an old Indian-head Huron logo as one of two historic logos on an inside flap of the university’s band uniforms.