There is something profoundly wrong with governance at Boston University. The lack of independence of the Board of Trustees and the president (and other high administrators) bound together by business dealings and financial interests has led to the current horrendous situation, which places in jeopardy the future prosperity of the university. The recent press coverage of the way in which the Trustees have conducted themselves throughout the ‘search’ process (including the ‘negotiations’ with the president-designate) does not inspire confidence in the Trustees, to put it mildly. While Chancellor John Silber may go away, the apparatus that he has built remains in place; the financial arrangements between Trustees and the university have not changed. All of this, despite the intervention by Attorney General Scott Harshbarger about a decade ago, which clearly did not go far enough to solve the deeply-rooted problems.
Major restructuring is now essential to restore the credibility of the Board of Trustees. A good first step would be for all the members of the Executive Committee to step down from the Board of Trustees; they should also be made to assume personal responsibility for the astounding financial costs incurred by their mismanagement (which go far beyond the actual severance package to Goldin).
The questionable uses of university resources of the kind discussed in Steve Bailey’s column in The Boston Globe on Oct. 31 (‘University Deluxe’), including extravagant lodging and compensation packages for high-level administrators particularly in the context of very substantial contracts for business with Trustee-related companies are certainly cause for concern, as are investment practices (For example, in 2000-2001 school year, according to national endowment statistics in addition to Daily Free Press reports, BU’s endowment declined by 27.2 percent, a percentage rate of decline exceeded by no other American university save the University of Guam). Scrutiny is badly needed, but is unlikely to be carried out by anyone now in power at the university nor by anyone who will be allowed to assume power, as we have just seen.
These extravagances are in stark contrast to the relatively low levels of compensation to faculty (with the notable exception of those in power or in favor). Like the Trustee dealings, this situation has been deliberately obscured by the administration. Until collective bargaining was quashed by Silber, there were procedures in place for faculty access to information (in the aggregate) about salaries within the university, and this information was also reported to the American Association of University Professors along with comparable data from virtually all other universities in this country. Boston University has been anomalous in refusing to participate in that survey and such information is now cloaked in secrecy. At one point when I was denied information from the administration while serving as chair of the Faculty Council Committee on Compensation, I requested this information (the same data we had previously been given on a regular basis as a requirement of the university’s agreements with the AAUP) through the Freedom of Information Act. The university successfully contested the release of those figures on the grounds that how much it pays its faculty is a ‘trade secret.’ It is high time to lift the veils and operate with transparency.
I wish the new president ad interim, Aram Chobanian, much luck in trying to restore the reputation (and the spirits) of the university. His actions now will be critical for recovery from this unfortunate sequence of events, and we look to him for the healing influence he has suggested he might provide. I hope that he will have the wisdom to help us get a fresh start, not only by spearheading Trustee reform (and replacement), but also by reinvigorating the upper levels of the administration. It is time for a change and new vision throughout the leadership positions within the university and an end to the top-down, repressive culture if the Boston University community is to gain confidence in the university administration’s integrity and achieve genuine inclusion of the faculty and students in university governance. We can also hope that Dr. Chobanian will insist on due process which has not characterized certain recent high-level appointments, nor changes with regard to procedures for tenure and promotion. With respect to the latter, the faculty was not properly consulted about these changes and has not even been informed of the details yet, although (apparently) these new procedures are already in use!
This is the second time in recent years that we have lost the opportunity to bring in an outside president (the first being the blatant disregard of the faculty mandate for an open and national search for a president on the occasion of John Silber’s ascension to the chancellorship, when a ‘Committee for Continuity’ was constituted, in lieu of a search committee, with the unsurprising outcome that Jon Westling was promoted into that position). Although it seems that a search will now begin again for a new president, our chances of bringing in a strong and independent academic leader from outside have seriously diminished as a result of what has just transpired.
This leaves many of us feeling quite saddened and demoralized. In any case, if this latest rejection of outside leadership is an indication that we will simply be returning to BU business as usual, I think the administration may be shocked to discover that many of us are just not going to take it any more.
Carol Neidle is a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures and a member of the Faculty Committee for the Future of Boston University.