LOGAN — Let's start with the name.
One could understandably become a little tired of people chuckling about a name like "Kermit." But Utah State University President Kermit Hall isn't one of them.
Hall's rather modest office in USU's Old Main building is full of dolls, sculptures, pictures and books featuring his well-known namesake: Kermit the Frog. People don't have to worry about the propriety of bringing up the unusual name because Hall often brings it up himself.
"That kind of diffuses it," university spokesman John DeVilbiss said. "It's such an unusual name (but) he understands that it's unique, and he uses that to his advantage."
While there are a few also-rans including Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore's second son), Kermit (Texas), Kermit (a TCP/IP computer file transfer protocol), Kermit the Frog clearly has the edge on name recognition among the Kermits of the world.
But Kermit Hall — who, at a lanky 6 feet 2 inches, is a bit taller than his green counterpart — is making a case for himself. A historian and constitutional law scholar, Hall has written or edited more than 12 books. As a member of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board he had a high-profile role in releasing documents related to the Kennedy assassination. He was much sought-after for the recent 40th anniversary of JFK's death.
And, oh yeah, he's making a name for himself at USU, albeit more quietly and smoothly than his divisive predecessor, George Emert.
"He didn't mess around," said university counsel Craig Simper. "He came right in and started. He had this changed within a month."
Simper is referring to Hall changing the name of the university's "Research Park" to the more evocative "Innovation Campus," where spin-off startup companies are formed. Other things that have happened during Hall's almost three years on the job include a new university strategic plan, a new budget process, getting USU into the Sun Belt Conference and then the Western Athletic Conference, a new scoreboard at the Dee Smith Spectrum basketball arena, a new exercise facility for students and folding the College of Family Life into other colleges.
On Dec. 2, the Deseret Morning News followed Hall around for a day, sitting in on his meetings and activities.
The conclusion: Hall, 59, is a curious amalgam of altruism and pragmatism. He also has a very flexible brain. All day he jumped from one thing to another, from high-flown ivory-tower academia to ethnic diversity to down-and-dirty dollars and cents with hardly a breath between them.
8:30 a.m.: Diversity awards brunch and ceremony. Guest speaker William Harvey gives an address, and Hall presents awards to various university people who have furthered diversity on campus.
10:30 a.m.: Hall works in his office, including finishing up a message to Gov. Olene Walker regarding her upcoming budget address. A book, "Kermit (the Frog) Learns How Computers Work," lies on a table on one side of the office while on the other side sits the real-life version of Kermit, reading his voluminous e-mail on a state-of-the-art Dell flat-screen monitor.
"So, what do you think of the Bowl Championship Series?" he asks a visitor. "I've received a half-dozen e-mails this morning on the Bowl Championship Series alone, and everybody has 17 different ideas."
Hall is part of a group of university presidents trying to change the way the BCS works.
11:30 a.m.: Hall gets in his car and drives a few miles to the palatial home everyone else in town calls the "President's House" but that he invariably refers to as the "institutional residence." His wife, Phyllis, is hosting a luncheon for Old Main office workers, and Hall makes an appearance to greet them.
Noon: Back at Old Main, Hall gets a box lunch (ultimately eating only half of his sandwich) and conducts his twice-monthly lunch meeting with the Faculty Senate executive committee. They discuss issues like the library, student input, extension and tuition — especially tuition.
"If we don't have student dollars we have nothing," Hall says, given the seemingly continual higher education budget cuts from the state Legislature. "If the students feel like we don't care about them or they are just cows to be milked, it's lights out."
(Having milked cows in every one of Utah's 29 counties upon his arrival, Hall knows of what he speaks.)
1 p.m.: Hall talks to Kansas State University officials about a USU official they're thinking of hiring. "He knows the world of cows, and he knows the world of computers," Hall says of the candidate.
1:30 p.m.: Hall meets with USU Research Foundation officials about a new building for biotechnology on the Innovation Campus, which needs money to get up and running. Hall is hesitant. "We don't want to end up (like) a University of Idaho — build a building and nobody comes."
2:15 p.m.: Hall meets with Gary Anderson, chairman of the American West Heritage Foundation, which funds the American West Heritage Center. As usual, the center and foundation are barely getting by regarding cash flow. Anderson and Hall discuss various ways to improve the situation — federal funds, bonds to stretch out the debt.
3 p.m.: Hall teaches his once-a-week constitutional history class, an invitation-only group that meets in the conference room next to Hall's office. This is the cream of USU's political science and history departments, all of the students bound for law school or graduate school at prestigious universities.
Hall reviews three legal principles: judicial review, judicial independence and judicial sovereignty. He expects a lot of his students, calling on them and forcing them to back up their comments with specific cases.
"It's a very rigorous teaching style," student Nick Raichart says.
Normally a two-hour class, the class this week is four hours because Hall was out of town the week before.
"If you're in this job and you're too busy to teach, you need to get into banking," he says.
7:30 p.m.: The Halls host about 10 guests for dinner at the institutional residence, most of them connected with the diversity awards earlier in the day. Hall exhibits no need to monopolize the conversation, but the guests usually look to him to lead it.
Topics include diversity, budgets, fast food, Alaska and, perhaps most interesting, an offensive lineman on the school's football team who Hall approached in the locker room after a loss.
Everyone else was going around with long faces bemoaning their fate, but this massive player was reading, yes, Scientific American.
The player looked at Hall and asked if he knew how many stars there are in the universe.
"Now that's a student," Hall said. "Football is football. But I will never sell the university out for it."
E-MAIL: aedwards@desnews.com