Let’s you and I be honest with one another: John R. Silber was a son of a bitch. When I became editor of the Free Press in 1986, the first words he uttered to me, after an editorial he didn’t like, were “you are beneath contempt.” I remember that fall we also had a rollicking debate over my use of the word “hypocrisy” to refer to some BU policy or another that he had ginned up. He was furious that I had called him a hypocrite. I didn’t think I had. But there wasn’t much use in arguing with John Silber. He was right and you were wrong and that was that.
John R. Silber was also a loyal mentor and, if you dared call it that, a friend. If he liked you, or at least came around to respecting you, he was a wonderful person to have on your side. Our last conversation, years ago, consisted of him yelling at me or not knowing the proper way to approach the College of Communication about a job I wanted there as a visiting professor. He “frankly” couldn’t believe, he told me, how I could have made it to my station in professional life without knowing how to go about lobbying for the job in the right way. He was right again, of course; I didn’t get the job.
By now, anyone who cares about his life, and his life at Boston University, knows that was a transcendent figure. He demanded rigor in all things, became furious when people failed to meet that standard, and ultimately harnessed that passion to benefit BU in countless ways. Students and professors who walk down Comm. Ave today could hardly imagine how shoddy it all was when he took over. By the time I got there—roughly 15 years into his tenure—the tide already was turning. Money was pouring in. The University’s infrastructure was being built, or rebuilt, and the old guard was giving way. I’d like to think that the first thing John Silber did when he got to heaven was to find Howard Zinn, or Murray Levin, so that they could start the argument all over again.
But Silber’s pride and passions and prejudices also alienated a great many alumni, like me, who saw in his relentless ambitions for the University great unfairness. Once, before I graduated, I asked him how he could justify charging students tuition that was, for a time, higher than Harvard (it still may be the case, I don’t know, look it up, Silber would say). He responded not by pretending that a BU education back then was equivalent to a Harvard education—that would have been a lie– but by saying that the students of my generation were paying more so that the students of today would have it better. Fair enough. But this explains why I know so few people of my generation who both loved their BU experience but who will never donate a nickel to the school. We’ve already donated. Stop asking us.
I’ve been told, and I believe, that John R. Silber was a kind and gentle man. I am sure by now everyone has heard about his good works and the legacy of charitable giving that he leaves behind. But I mostly remember his anger and his temper. He lost the governorship of Massachusetts over it and I believe, for some of the same reasons, that he also lost the chance a decade earlier to serve as Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education. Whether you think this is good or bad depends entirely upon your point of view. But I think it hurt him deep inside that he never made it to Beacon Hill or to Washington, never got to show the Commonwealth or the nation what he had shown BU. Every time I see the phrase “beneath contempt,” and every time someone uses the cloying phrase “he didn’t suffer fools gladly,” I think of Silber. Boston University wouldn’t be the same today without him. And neither would I.
Andrew Cohen
COM ’88, LAW ’91
60 Minutes-The Atlantic-CBS Radio News
On Twitter: @cbsandrew
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I graduated from Boston University where I had a marvelous learning experience in European history with Profs. Dietrich Orlow, John Gagliardo, and Sidney Burrell; and I also enjoyed an incredible two semesters of German language, which was an accelerated course taught by Geoffrey Waite, the son of Robert G. L. Waite, the great German historian from Williams College.
These course, among many at John Silber’s BU, prepared me to later work at BU, where the demands were high, as was the stress, but my Bostom University education allowed me to move in a milieu I never thought possible.
In the course of my work at BU, I was tasked with the upgrading of the equipment at the School of Dental Medicine. I quickly determined that finest equipment available was manufactured in Bavaria. Having had my proposal approved, I flew slow to meet the owner of this company in Ulm, Einstein’s birthplace. We met at a small eatery. And after the small talk ended, this gentlemen asked me what I could say to lower his price enough to become competitive in our price range.
I was on the spot. But suddenly I remembered a key word from my language and history studies: Schicksalsgemeinschaft – community of fate, an old German term.
So I replied, in German, Because we are all on the same Schicksalsgemeinschaft. He thought a moment, then said, very well! And added where did you learn that? And I was able to launch into a little monologue about what BU did for me. He became a major donor to BU for a number of years and I was happy to bring his advanced equipment to my alma mater to teach future dentists and oral surgeons.
But that is the essence of BU. Your work becomes an extension of your own intellectual expansion. I don’t think any other corporation would have allowed me to go on such a major undertaking alone. But that was the nature of John Silber’s BU. Had he quizzed on those Getman gizmos I would have been able to answer A – Z.
I enjoyed every minute of that 23 year learning experience.
Why does one think that is was not pssible to build a better BU without SIlber’s autocratic and cruel ways? Think of how much better the school would be if he had worked with people who shared dreams of better days and allowed them to participate in the enterprise at hand. His dismissal as “beneath contempt” (and far, far wose things he said) of all who differed with him is “beneath contempt.” He was as much Joe MCarthy as any university president I knew about in that era. The man was also a liar, given to distorting everything that hisi opponents said, using the power of the university to attempt to silence and demean critics. No, BU would have been far better off then and now with more a reasonable and understanding president. Just think of how much better NYU is, how magnificantly Northeastern has done in recent years, as well as Boston College. As Steve Trachtenberg (George Washington University president) has said, you do nit need to break 20 eggs to make a two-egg omelet.
Arnold A. Offner,
Professor, Boston University 1968-1991
Cornelia Hugel Professor of History,
Lafayette College, 1991-2012