Roles of aUniversity President

The appointment as president of a major research-intensiveuniversity does not come with a clear and concise job description.Therefore, let me provide background and introductionby talking about how I viewed and experienced what can be characterizedas at least nine jobs.

1. College president. When I was recruited as president of Stanford,I did not realize that the most visible job I was taking on wasa job that almost everybody in the country referred to as "college"president. The designation "college" president suggests a nineteenth-centuryimage of somebody who walks around a small campus in atweed jacket with leather patches on his elbows to chat with facultyand students and admire the fall colors. And, indeed, there werequite a few people who thought the only thing I did in the summerwas to get ready for the first football game of the fall. When I readin the newspapers that I was a "college" president, I was remindedof the image conjured up by Daniel Webster in the oral argument ofthe Dartmouth College case: "Yes, sir, a small college and yet thereare those who love it."

It is true that, as far as public attention is concerned, the focusis mostly on the undergraduate side of universities. The "college"aspect of a university president's job makes itself especially felt withrespect to most "hot button" issues involving undergraduate education,such as admissions, curriculum, tuition costs, and athletics.

The undergraduate experience in the United States, and in theUnited States only, significantly includes college athletics, especiallyfootball and basketball. For the president this may involve suchhigh-visibility issues as who will be the football coach, and on whatterms, or worrying about the so-called friendly rivalry betweencompeting athletic teams that so easily can turn distinctly hostile.

When I first arrived at Stanford, I was somewhat infamousfor—perish the thought—not caring about football. After all, I cameto Stanford from the University of Chicago, which is known as aformer member of the Big Ten. I was quickly taught a lesson aboutthe significance of football. When the time came to pick the oneperson who had the greatest impact on Stanford in the first year ofits second century, the student newspaper chose Bill Walsh, who, atabout the same time I had been chosen as president, had returnedto Stanford as the football coach. "Bill Walsh has had more of aninvigorating effect on campus than the university president," JuneCohen, the Stanford Daily editor, told the New York Times. "Casperhasn't come out with anything that's gotten people real riled up orreal excited," she continued.

Time demands of the athletic enterprise can be quite significantand include attendance at games, but also issues involving compliancewith one of the most elaborate, micromanaging regulatoryentities ever designed: the National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA). The pinnacle of my career in public life probably was aposition I held (on account of se niority) for the last two years of mypresidency: the chairmanship of the then-Pacific-10 athletic conference.My first meeting as chair dealt with the question of whether thePac-10 should employ baseball bats made of wood or of aluminum.

To most people, outside and inside the university, the presidentis an abstraction: the responsibilities of the office are ill-understood,the person occupying the office seems distant to most. Frequently,one becomes a figment of the imagination of journalists (both theprofessional and student variety). If the president is a recruit fromoutside the university, as I was, there will be a fair amount of distrustof his or her grasp of the "true" nature of the particular institutionthat has become his charge. Does he really understand "what Stanfordis all about"?

In the case of Stanford, major regional newspapers still maintaineda regular Stanford beat (and national and foreign media paida lot of attention). Under these circumstances, one could not helpbut be concerned about how motives and purposes get attributedin and by the press and how statements come to be overinterpreted(and silences misconstrued). Harold Shapiro, president first of Michiganand then of Prince ton, discontinued reading campus and localpapers upon becoming president because he did not, he said, wantothers to set his agenda. While this abstinence served PresidentShapiro well (he was a great president), I decided I better read thepapers in order to find out what I had supposedly done the daybefore so that I could set my own agenda all the more clearly.

In a Wall Street Journal editorial many years ago, Albert R.Hunt had this to say about "college presidents": "Few callings facesuch demanding and compelling claims from constituencies with solittle in common—students, faculty, alumni, contributors, athleticboosters, local communities." Hunt barely scratched the surface.First of all, his list of "constituencies" can be extended to state andfederal governments, businesses and unions, religious organizations,even foreign countries. When the Stanford Band, known—in its ownwords—for "loud music and burning political satire," overreachedat a football game against Notre Dame (did the members of theband have free speech rights?), I heard from the Trustees of NotreDame (they demanded that I apologize, which I did), the San Josediocese, the Ancient Order of Hibernia, the United Irish Organizationsof Nebraska, and newspapers in the Republic of Ireland.

More to the point, the categories Hunt mentions are themselvesdivided and subdivided into myriad interest groups. I sometimessaid at alumni meetings that I would drown in contradictionsif I attempted to reconcile all the advice I received from alumniabout curriculum, student and faculty rights and obligations, campusarchitecture, university investments, or what the university's prioritiesshould be. Hunt said the claims of these (often self-appointed)constituencies are demanding and compelling. They are certainly,much of the time, demanding.

Land use provides a prime example. Leland and Jane Stanford'seight thousand–acre stock farm near Palo Alto became theuniversity's campus (therefore Stanford's nickname, "The Farm").The university has developed about one-third of its lands. Much ofthe "green foothills" of the Santa Cruz Mountains constitute theso-called academic reserve. Some would like to bar the universityfrom ever building there. Let me quote from a missive concerningthe foothills. It came from a group calling itself, among other things,"a network of students, faculty, staff and alumni": "As alumni, wehave special standing and special power to influence Stanford'sdecisions.... To a great degree, we are the University, and theUniversity is ours."...