The UA is beset by problems: an unwieldy state Legislature, financial woes, class shortages, underpaid faculty and a retention rate that makes New York inner-city high schools look prestigious. Undergraduate and graduate students remain disunited. ASUA is filled with self-congratulating narcissists. The student body is still too homogenous.

There isn't a single decision that has the potential to change all that - except, of course, the choice for the next UA president.

Yash Gupta, dean of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, is the person the presidential search committee should be looking for.

Of the four candidates - based on their performances at student-centered forums over the past week - Gupta demonstrated Wednesday the greatest passion, the greatest understanding of specific issues and the greatest ambition about where UA can be in five to 10 years. Gupta even gave hints at a wry and witty sense of humor - and a hugely infectious personality.

Gupta has a track record. Before USC, he was the dean of the University of Washington's business school, where in five years, fundraising increased 400 percent and the business school rose 16 places in the national rankings. In his free time, he managed to double MBA enrollment there as well - when one horse gets out ahead, everybody wants to throw in his money.

No one does that by just sitting on his hands. It requires bold thinking. Wednesday, Gupta outlined an impressive and compelling educational philosophy: a university designed for its trustees. And its primary trustees, alumni in the making, are students. This is a far cry from a current administration that sometimes caters slavishly to alumni at the expense of students and faculty.

Matt Stone columnist

Gupta urged students to see a college degree as a convenient byproduct of learning. He described a university as an institution that fosters not only the sciences, but the humanities and the arts as well. Indeed, as he acknowledged, all "competition in the world is about knowledge." Therein lies his most attractive quality.

The next UA president needs to understand the nature of the global economy - an economy that cannot be stonewalled through self-defeating protectionism, but must be embraced.

The U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of education, therefore falling behind economically as well. Whereas China graduated more than 600,000 engineers last year and India graduated 350,000, America only produced 70,000. As U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings wrote, "Do the math: Their top 10 percent outnumbers all of America's."

American universities, especially research institutions like the UA, need to reevaluate how they can compete in a global economy. Dr. Gupta, not one to shrink from a challenge, offers a novel idea: "We need bold steps."

He made several suggestions as to what those steps might be. Perhaps every student should be required to engage in an "international experience" during his or her four years (which probably doesn't include spring break in Cancun). Or perhaps every student should be required to engage in a professional internship. He also expressed a desire to recruit foreign students more actively.

Dr. Gupta is a product of the international education he espouses, having been a student or professor in four countries: India, Great Britain, Canada and the U.S.

He also understands the value of building an international reputation. When someone speaks of education at a serious research university, he wants Arizona to be "in the same breath as UCLA, Berkeley and Michigan."

Gupta clearly understands the ramifications of a global economy and the UA would be a better place with him at the helm. He is internationally focused, research-driven, financially keen, passionate, funny, welcoming - in short, he screams UA president. Let's hope the search committee is listening.

Matt Stone is a junior majoring in international studies and economics. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.