Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1997/04/16/letters_to_the_editor.php
Wednesday, April 16, 1997
Wah-Hoo-Wah
To the Editor:
Our roving photographer snapped this at the Barbados Hilton last week. Best wishes!
Dick Pace '41
Pensacola, FL
Recalling Presidents
To the Editor:
As a Dartmouth graduate in 1930, when Ernest Martin Hopkins was president, and one who spent over fifty years as an administrator in eleven institutions of higher education, all but two privately controlled, I was particularly interested in your article on career men and Professor Campbell's appraisal of Dartmouth presidents, all of whom since my day, I've known. In fact, in 1965, I offered the academic vice presidency of the University of Rhode Island, where I was then president, to then Professor Kemeny, whom I had met in 1958, when he was on the college circuit, promoting computers. He declined, saying he did not want to be an administrator. But later, when he was president, he autographed my history of Dartmouth by writing: 'To Fran Horn, who first started me thinking about the job of a college president.'
My own positions have included three other presidencies (I am president emeritus of all four), vice presidencies of three, and dean of three others. In addition, I had 110 presidents as bosses when I headed the New York State Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities and knew hundreds of presidents who were members of the American Association for Higher Education, when I headed that 25,000 member organization. And though my first teaching in 1930 in Egypt was English literature, and my last in 1985 in Taiwan, also in English, my other teaching assignments were as a professor of higher education, teaching courses in the organization and administration of colleges and universities. Hence I consider myself competent to comment on the articles in the Review.
You are correct in one respect, wrong in another, and partially right in a third. You are correct that administration has become a profession in itself and that administrators are interchangeable. You are wrong in suggesting that administrators 'govern' their institution. If the term 'govern' is to be used at all, it applies to the board of trustees, who have ultimate responsibility. In practice, of course, much of that responsibility is delegated to the president. But his responsibility is shared in most aspects of running an institution with the faculty. The ideal situation is one in which collegiality prevails — that is, joint responsibility. The most important of the president's responsibilities as Professor Campbell points out, is the recruitment and hence, the strengthening of the faculty.
But this is a responsibility shared with the department, the department chairman, and the dean. Thirty-five years ago, when I was president of the University of Rhode Island, I was able to appoint faculty on my own, individuals whom I knew of. This is no longer possible in these days of affirmative action, search committees, and faculty unions (the AAUP is a union!). In fact, in some public institutions the affirmative action office must approve prospective appointments.
The president must get along with the faculty. And as Professor Campbell states, President Dickey, Kemery, and Freedman did know how to work amicably with the faculty; President McLaughlin did not. His experience in corporate America may have caused the difficulty; but President Hopkins came out of corporate America to be the most popular and most successful of Dartmouth's twentieth century presidents.
And recalling President Hopkins brings me to commenting on the major concern the Review seems to have: the president's rapport with students. In my day that was not important. I spoke to President Hopkins only twice: when he signed my admission scroll as an incoming freshman and once when he bought some clothing at Campions, where I worked during college. I saw the dean, Craven Laycock, only once, when he called me in to congratulate me on my freshman record.
Whatever the relationship between the president and students, its success is not determined by whether or not the president is an alumnus. A Dartmouth alumnus became a successful president of Stanford; others of Cornell, the University of Washington and several other institutions. And ever since Dartmouth became coeducational, it is a much less distinctive institution than it was in my day. It is so similar to the other top-rated institutions, that I am not sure that today I would choose Dartmouth over one of the other Ivies, or one of the little Ivies (Amherst, Bowdoin, Williams, etc.). Too many of old Dartmouth's distinguishing traditions have been scuttled.
Fran Horn '30
President Emeritus: Albertus Magnus College, American College of Switzerland,
Pratt Institute, & University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI