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OSU president makes verbal slip-up during speech

OSU president’s quip makes play on Polish ethnic stereotype.

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By Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Bureau Updated 11:18 PM Wednesday, January 11, 2012

COLUMBUS — At a speech before 300 people on Wednesday, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee made a quip that plays on the ethnic stereotype that Polish people are incompetent.

Gee said OSU’s individual colleges used to operate like PT boats shooting at one another in the ocean. “It was like the Polish army,” he said.

The focus of Gee’s 30-minute speech to the Columbus Metropolitan Club was on how the university has improved and its plans for increasing revenues and financing future projects.

One audience member who stood up to ask a question said he usually worries about making inappropriate comments at a microphone but he thanked Gee for “breaking the ice” in that regard.

Gee also lamented that the memorabilia for discount tattoos scandal in the high-profile football program overshadowed the university’s long list of achievements last year. Gee called it a “monumental shame.”

After his speech, Gee told reporters that the university admitted its mistake in the football program and took its punishment. “Football represents one-quarter of one percent of our budget, yet the newspapers give it 90 percent of the play,” he said.

Gee also brushed off questions about his Polish army remark. “The Polish army? I know nothing about the Polish army,” he said with a smile to reporters after the speech. When pressed about why he said it, Gee responded: “I was just commenting on an issue and I made a comment. Now, if you’re going to say I was saying something bad about Poland, I’m not, you know, I could have used some other term then I guess.”

Gee is known for his fast-talking style and humorous remarks that sometimes get him into trouble. Last year, he remarked that Ohio State’s football schedule didn’t include teams on the level of ‘Little Sisters of the Poor’ and he said that he hoped that then-football coach Jim Tressel didn’t fire him as university president.

During his speech, Gee outlined steps Ohio State is taking to ramp up revenues and cut costs.

Gee said the university expects to:

• Redirect $1 billion over the next five years to teaching and learning by “more diligent and dedicated stewardship of resources”;

• Raise $2.5 billion in donations over the next seven years;

• Examine selling off or leasing noncore assets such as the Don Scott Airport, parking decks and lots, and golf courses;

• Seek relief from burdensome, outdated state regulations.

• Look at more innovative financing deals such as the recent sale of ‘Century Bonds’ - bonds that come due in 100 years and lock in a low interest rate;

• Commercialize faculty research into start-up companies that could generate $100 million in new revenue for OSU over the next five to 10 years;

• Open international offices in Mumbai, Sao Paolo, and Istanbul and require students to have valid passports.

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