Oglethorpe President Takes a 'Spring Bath' With Students

One can only imagine the pressures and the enormous sense of responsibility that comes along with being president of a university. While I've never met him, the president of our local institution,  Dr. Lawrence M. Schall, a former civil rights attorney, is known among his peers as a serious educator with vision and a sense of community responsibility and a commitment to service.

This was evident when I covered 's recent commencement exercises and witnessed Schall lead the occasion among former Ambassador Andrew Young and Mayor Kasim Reed, who was there to receive an honorary doctorate. 

Two weeks later, I spot a picture of Schall dodging water balloons in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Nice.

It was a refreshing first-person essay written by Shall that I encourage everyone to read.  What you see is a more vulnerable president - a witty, human side to the man behind the job, as he described himself changing into his 'play clothes' to engage in Oglethorpe's Holi Color Festival. The annual Holi Color Festival is an annual custom in India to welcome spring celebrated by people throwing colored water and powder at each other.

Schall's piece was not only fun, but insightful as it reminds us to not only be grateful for our work or to take ourselves too seriously, but sometimes, as he said, "the most important thing you can do is to just go with the flow."

Read Schall's essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education.