Indulgences in Self-Pity:Disproved stereotypes show anti-tryst worth sharing beer with

I had never seen him before, but I knew his history. The Man. The Chancident. The anti-tryst. Dr. John Silber.

I knew about his backward cable policies that kept me from watching hockey in my room. I knew about his decadent university funded and maintained castle of a house. I knew that for the past 31 years, Boston University’s administration has come across as a bunch of sexist good ol’ boys who slap rape victims such as Kristin Roslonski by suspending them.

And I knew that as long as he remains at BU, none of these things will change. We won’t have real changes in the guest policy. We won’t have a rape crisis center. We won’t have a new building for the College of Communication or the College of Fine Arts. But we will have attractive office space for Provost Dennis Berkey and any future president. And until Silber leaves, we will be hemorrhaging an $800,000 salary on a morally conservative dinosaur who has lost touch with how to steer the school he built so well.

I knew all this before I met him. I knew that after years of being so set in his ways, there was nothing that Silber was going to hear that would make him say, ‘You’re right. I’m wrong. Let’s change this.’

So why did I bother showing up at Metcalf Science Center on Wednesday night? Because I had never seen him. I had never asked him a question. I had never heard his Texan drawl or felt his Godzilla laser-beam stare directed at me. I wanted to know more about The Man.

So here I was as The Man entered and walked to the front of the auditorium. The room quieted down, and the only sound was 100 whispers of ‘there he is.’

The Man was introduced by Student Union Senator Erik Dawson, who in his two-minute opening said, ‘The challenge lies with us to learn as much as possible about Dr. Silber and our university,’ with the same simplistic, blasé tone of a seventh grader saying, ‘We are here to learn as much as we can about Zambia.’

Silber started his speech by warning students about believing stereotypes, such as the John Silber ‘caricature’ that he said is drawn by the news writers at The Daily Free Press. He then mockingly analyzed several articles about him, including one paragraph in which a student said that the next president should have drive. ‘I ain’t got none,’ said the president who had the drive once to set up illegal dummy real estate companies in order to purchase more property for BU.

Student questions about BU were asked and were rather promptly dodged. To paraphrase quite loosely:

Student: When will we have a rape crisis center?

Silber: Why don’t you all just stop getting raped?

Student: What is BU doing to increase recruitment, enrollment and retention of black students here?

Silber: Not much, but we do give good lip service. You got any ideas?

Me: When are COM and CFA getting new buildings?

Silber: As soon as we have $100 million that I don’t spend on a marble-floored office.

But students asked another brand of questions, as well non-BU questions like, ‘What are your thoughts on going to war?’ After listening to Silber’s five-minute response, I was convinced that Colin Powell has been a scourge on U.S. foreign policy for the past 25 years and that the French have been a scourge on the earth for the past 100.

Then there was the apparent softball question, ‘How has your study of philosophy helped you in life?’ This was met with some of the most interesting philosophical talk I have heard, including a story that began, ‘I was talking to Carl Sagan once at a party hosted by Elie Wiesel …’

Without a doubt, the biggest crowd-pleaser was Silber’s use of the chalkboard. At various points in the night, Silber drew all sorts of diagrams. He drew a station wagon with five shovels inside to illustrate what he thought art was not.

He then told a story about his son, who failed out of the College of General Studies, largely due to how he provoked his professor. His son theorized that among three windows in their house, the number of window panes would decrease when the window was higher off the ground. With Dr. Silber’s story came a chalkboard diagram of his house with the three windows one with 16 panes, one with 12 and one with four.

Throughout the night, I kept trying to see the Evil Chancellor Silber. Instead, all I saw was a wise-cracking old man drawing pictures on the board and insulting the French. A brilliant man whom I would gladly invite to help me clean beer out of my fridge before Spring Break. It’s a side of him that BU students seldom have a chance to see and The Daily Free Press seems to loathe to report.

I agree with most students; John Silber has flaws. It is time for BU to move on and bring new blood into the presidency. But a man is much more than the office he holds, and it’s time that BU students and The Daily Free Press realized that.