It was a busy first month of the semester for President Martin Jischke.

And now that Jischke has completed one semester and is a month into his second, it's time to reflect upon who he is.

First, he's not the type to sit on issues.

Within the first couple of weeks of this semester, Jischke tackled a tough issue and transformed it from theory to actuality. The president tackled the controversial issue of the University's non-discrimination policy and amended it to include sexual orientation. The sentiment across campus was that of victory.

Second, he is allowing the Purdue community to become involved.

As a senior, I've been around this campus for awhile and it's basically unheard of for an administration to announce finalists for a high-profile University position. Jischke's staff, however, announced the four finalists for a position that can change the academic climate of this campus — provost marshal.

He went a step further. He had them speak at open forums at which anyone interested could attend and hear the platform of the prospective provosts and ask questions. Now I start to think, "who is this guy?"

Well, I will be the first to admit that my opinion of the man was somewhat tainted before meeting him or he assumed the presidency.

As a member of this newspaper staff, we learned last summer of student discontent at his previous employment at Iowa State.

When the Purdue Board of Trustees were courting Jischke we, at the Exponent, discovered that there were many sides to this guy.

It was said that he is not a people president. It was also said that he cares more about fund-raising than he does about the students' well being.

Knowing we'd have the opportunity to find out how much of this information was factual or just personal bias, we eagerly accepted an offer to join the president for lunch earlier this month.

Prior to the lunch with Jischke, which included the Exponent editors, I started realizing that we might have heard some misconceptions.

My predecessor as editor and her staff were hosted by Jischke for an open forum on his first day as president. Now it was my staff's turn (we change editors in January).

The day of our scheduled luncheon, Jischke had to meet with members of Ford Motors Co. in the morning and meet with one of the four provost marshal candidates in the afternoon.

It would have been easy to reschedule us when the president's plate wasn't so full. But it didn't happen. Keeping in mind that this publication is financially independent of the University, Jischke knows he has no control over our content. Yet, he was persistent about the opportunity to meet with us. And no, it wasn't so he could sway this young group of editors in any particular direction on certain issues. It was just introductions and lunch.

Yes, money was on his mind that day, as he was successfully engineering a partnership with Ford for $5 million. But, those of us not offering millions were given equal time.

Despite other events of the day, Jischke was surprisingly relaxed. In a time when I get stressed out over having two weeks to write a five-page paper, it was refreshing to see this man appear to be relatively stress-free.

Additionally refreshing was his candor. He treated this group of students with respect (although we double as journalists). He said we've had our good days and our bad days here at the Exponent. Again, straightforward.

The Iowa State chapter of Jischke's book is closed after a successful career, which included setting records for fund-raising and scholarships.

He has taken the same issues straight on at Purdue. He seems to be a man of action and integrity.

He seems at ease with personnel selection, fund-raising, dealing with campus issues and patience with students.

I look forward to seeing what he has planned for the rest of the semester.