President Ronald Daniels canceled his scheduled talk for the MSE Symposium due to his October surgery to remove an abscess in his abdomen.?
"When we, along with the rest of the student body, were notified of President Daniel's surgery, we kept in close contact with his office to see if he would be able to speak at the MSE Symposium," MSE Chair Daniel Ingram said. "However, about a week and a half ago, we were notified that President Daniels will not be able to speak."
"I am not surprised [to hear that President Daniels canceled the talk].? He is recuperating from a very serious surgery and his doctors do not want him to stray from his recovery," University spokesman Dennis O'Shea said.
President Daniels has been convalescing and is expected to return to his office sometime in December.
"He's doing great," Jerome Schnydman, Daniels' administrative assistant, said."He will be back in the office next Monday, but part-time.? He will slowly ease back to the office over the next month."
Daniels called off his MSE talk after his doctors gave him a time-frame of eight weeks for his post-surgical recuperation.? Since he could not be certain of exactly when he would be back full-time, Daniels felt it was best to cancel the talk.
"The reason we were interested in having President Daniels speak is because of our theme of transition between generations.? We felt that with President Brody's talk last year, it would be appropriate if President Daniels had an opportunity to address the campus this year and field questions from the audience," Ingram said.
Yet, as the MSE Symposium is held only during the fall semester, Daniels will not have an opportunity to speak at the Symposium until next year.
"I cannot speak as to what will happen next year, but I hope that he will be considered.? There are also other student groups, such as the Foreign Affairs Symposium, that I can see him participate in to speak to the student body," Ingram said.
Students expressed sympathy for Daniels."I'm not really upset. I feel like it would have been really anticlimactic to end with him after we had Steele and Elizabeth Edwards. Anyway, health comes first," sophomore Claire Snodgrass said.
"I hope he gets better. He should take all the time he needs," senior Kevin Rhie said. ?
