Second in a five-part series exploring how Boston University has changed under Chancellor John Silber.
When John Silber came to Boston University in 1971, there were no Nobel laureates on the university’s faculty. There were no Rhodes scholars. And there were far fewer award-winning authors, groundbreaking researchers and world-renowned scholars.
In 2003, it’s hard to get a job at BU without some of those credentials.
Silber, who says he counts BU’s faculty transformation among his largest achievements during his 32 years at the university, has gained respect from many faculty and alienated others as he orchestrated the evolution.
RECRUITING TALENT
Distinguished faculty members serve two functions, according to Silber. They provide students with first-rate educations from scholars who play an active role in their particular fields; they also draw prestige — and dollars — to the university as a whole. In Silber’s tenure, both student achievement and research grants and scholarships have increased dramatically, raising BU’s profile on a national scale.
This year, annual research funding reached $311 million, compared with the $13 million pulled in under former BU President Calvin B.T. Lee.
Silber has recruited four Nobel laureate professors, and BU now boasts professors such as International Literary Prize winner Saul Bellow and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel — along with more talented students.
“I think there is a general agreement that Boston University is a much more competitive institution for research dollars and for outstanding students,” said BU Faculty Council Chair Herbert Voigt, a biomedical engineering professor in the College of Engineering, “and the investments made under Silber’s tenure will pay mighty dividends in the coming years.”
Voigt stressed the importance of quality faculty members who conduct scholarly research and are effective classroom teachers. Silber, he said, did a good job of “picking some outstanding deans and then getting out of the way.
“Maybe not completely out of the way, but after he was convinced of a particular plan of action, he provided the resources that would insure that the plan got carried out,” Voigt continued.
More than 95 percent of BU’s current faculty were recruited since Silber came to the university in 1971. When he arrived, his overhaul included removing all but one of the deans, a move he says allowed other faculty changes to take place. In an interview Saturday, Silber praised BU’s administrative team, calling it “second to none of any university I know about.”
School of Management Dean Louis Lataif, hired in 1991 from the business world to serve as dean of the developing professional school, said Silber plays a behind-the-scenes role in faculty hiring, demanding high standards but depending on individual deans to find, hire and develop faculty members. Lataif praised Silber’s ability to “sort through fluff versus substance” when evaluating faculty — a skill Silber himself identified as a strong trait.
“I think I can really spot talent in people and as a result have been able to pull together a team of people who have been leveraged in all this drive toward excellence which I could never have done by myself,” Silber said.
Lataif said Silber has lent a hand in recruiting knowledgeable professors that have helped SMG reach great heights — a sentiment several deans repeated, including those at the School of Education and Metropolitan College.
Silber said appointing strong department chairpersons helped improve existing departments, programs and facilities, citing his relationship with Economics Department Chairman Laurence Kotlikoff.
“Here you had a chairman who was in our face all the time,” Silber said, referring to Kotlikoff’s abundant hiring and funding requests after he was promoted to chairman in 1986. “That’s what an excellent chairman does. Once you have an excellent chairman, he builds on excellence.”
CHALLENGING CLASHES
But changes did not come without strife. Put off by a leadership style some have considered heavy-handed, many faculty members voiced dissatisfaction with Silber’s policies and leadership in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Faculty concerns have waxed and waned over the years. The faculty “overwhelmingly” voted for the Board of Trustees to remove Silber as president twice during the 1970s, according to outspoken Silber critic Howard Zinn, a political science professor emeritus. Tensions ran particularly high when Silber clashed with BU’s faculty union in 1979.
In April of that year, members of the faculty went on strike when disagreements over contract agreements with Silber and the Board of Trustees reached an impasse. At the time, the head of BU’s Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, history professor Fritz Ringer, estimated that 75 percent of the 888 faculty bargaining members would join the strike. Later that month, both sides conceded on certain issues to resolve the dispute, but many left the bargaining table bitter.
Ringer left BU to teach at the University of Pittsburgh, adding his name to a list of several faculty members who left crying tyranny against Silber and the central administration.
While some left, others stuck it out. Zinn and fellow political science professor Betty Zisk have become known for continually criticizing Silber’s administration. Silber’s creation of a separate International Relations Department particularly upset her because Zisk said it created divisiveness and unnecessary barriers between faculty members in political science and international relations.
“I generally regret that I was here when it happened,” Zisk said.
The professor went on to say it was “very clear that Silber was disturbed” by professors like Zinn, who she said were “penalized” both for being too radical and for not being tough enough on grades.
“There have been marked tensions on account of the few radicals that Silber viewed as a thorn in his side,” Zisk said.
Zinn was even more derogatory. Describing himself as Silber’s greatest critic and comparing Silber to a “marine colonel,” Zinn said Silber “didn’t like people who criticized him.”
During the late 1970s, when faculty criticism peaked, Zinn said he was “in charge of picketing,” referring to faculty demonstrations outside Silber’s office during the 1979 strike. BU’s focus changed under Silber, Zinn said.
“Silber set a bad example for students by saying that power and money were the important things,” he said.
More recently, faculty criticism has included a 1996 Faculty Council report calling for a complete overhaul of the university’s administration, based primarily on cases of denied tenure and abuses of academic freedoms.
“Over the years, there have been many unhappy professors, at times including a majority of the faculty,” said former Faculty Chair William Skocpol, a physics professor in ENG. “President Silber has never believed that faculty representatives should waste their time trying to help him govern the institution.”
SALARY ISSUES
Money has been a central conflict over the years. While admitting the administration is not completely satisfied with faculty salary growth, Silber noted the marked growth in average salaries of Charles River Campus faculty.
As that average has jumped from $18,064 in 1971 to $106,215 in 2002, Silber said the overall average for all levels of professors and instructors has increased from $13,700 to about $79,000 over the same period.
While Voigt, of the Faculty Council, stressed that professors are motivated by much more than money, he noted the absence of a salary increase over the past year. Silber’s implementation of a salary freeze during his first year in office remains another unpopular and controversial decision.
The faculty has prepared their annual reports, and Voigt said he hopes for a merit-based salary increase in January.
“All around us, costs are going up,” Voigt said. But, he continued, salary freezes can benefit the university as a whole.
“I might have done it differently, but this way we have all contributed to the university’s growth — we just can’t claim that contribution on our tax returns,” Voigt said.
LOOKING AHEAD
Silber said talent comes “first and foremost” when looking for new faculty. Despite his reputation as a tough intellectual opponent — SED Dean Douglas Sears warned against ever approaching Silber without a well-prepared argument — Silber stressed that talent is more than simply academic brilliance.
“Talent is more than just intellect,” he said. “It also has to do with the character of the individual. You don’t want members of the faculty who prey on students ... Consequently, faculty members have to be persons of good character who respect the privacy and independence of students and who don’t try to impose on them.”
Now that Silber has assembled a talented faculty, President-elect Daniel Goldin will arrive at BU with different responsibilities, some professors said. SMG professor Douglas Hall, who came to BU in 1980 and praised Silber’s recruiting achievements, said he hopes Goldin can stir up “some faculty excitement” that is currently lacking.
“We want to be inspired by an institutional mission,” Hall said. “I think that would really give a new leader an amazing foundation to build on. There is an untapped pool of caring about the university and hope for the university.”
This story has been corrected since it was first posted.
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