Our View
By HDN Editorial Board
We at The Havre Daily News want to congratulate Dr. Alex Capdeville on his new permanent position as chancellor of Montana State University-Northern and wish him well in his journey as leader of the institution.
Northern is in need of strong, stable leadership during this time of change and of ever tighter budgets. Even selecting a different chancellor to take Capdeville's place would have further caused changes, new ideas and turmoil. Continuing in the same direction is an important goal.
Capdeville has shown strengths in the last nine months. He has advanced several ideas about how to increase enrollment at Northern, and has already taken action on several of them while acting as chancellor in the interim. Now that he has the official permanent position, he has the opportunity to advance and act on even more issues.
Capdeville's emphasis on campus resident life shows he understands the needs in attracting students. While Northern has many strengths in its academic programs, so do other universities in the country. Northern has to demonstrate some reason or reasons for students to choose it over other institutions.
Capdeville has shown that he has ideas to strengthen the university in areas other than resident life, too. His support of the NCATE teacher accreditation efforts, of the applied technology center, of increased cooperation with colleges of technology and Canadian colleges all show he has strong ideas to move Northern forward.
We at the Daily News wish Capdeville luck in that journey and hope that it will be a long and successful journey for him.
