When Boston University physics professor William Skocpol accepted his position as Faculty Council chairman in 2001, he expected to hold it for the Faculty Council’s constitutionally mandated one year term. But nearly two years later, the task of being the BU faculty’s main conduit to administrators is still in his hands.
That doesn’t bother the professor, who is now in his 16th year of teaching at BU. His career has been filled with faculty leadership positions at BU, including College of Arts and Sciences faculty representative, chairman of the Committee on Bylaws and Credentials and both secretary treasurer and vice chairman of the Faculty Council.
Now in his second year as Faculty Council chair, Skocpol is working hard to ensure that the needs and concerns of BU’s 4,000 faculty members are heard.
Skocpol essentially makes reports to the University Council and Faculty Assembly, while at the same time taking into consideration issues and concerns raised by faculty representatives from each college within the university. Oh yeah, and he teaches classes too.
The most important part of the job is to be a unified faculty voice to BU’s upper administration, he said.
‘I think the important parts are to provide faculty influence on the development of policy and topical issues as they come up,’ Skocpol said. ‘The chair helps make sure that everyone’s input within the Faculty Council is heard and that we keep moving forward.’
PRESIDENTIAL PROGRESS But still more daunting than assuming all of the responsibilities Faculty Council chairman and teaching classes is Skocpol’s role as a member of the primary search committee for BU’s next president.
He described the committee as a ‘large, diverse group with a variety of powerful people on it.’
Thus far the committee has focused on selecting a firm, Isaacson, Miller, to help staff the search, Skocpol said. Many people have also been suggesting names of possible candidates.
‘I personally have picked up half a dozen names that have been suggested to me,’ Skocpol said. ‘I do know there are roughly 50 names that have been mentioned to the Board of Trustees or to the search firm.’
The search committee is still in the very early phase of what Skocpol believes will be a long road to finding BU’s next president.
Because of the nature of the academic schedule, it is very unlikely a new president will be found by next school year, according to Skocpol.
‘The academic year rules our lives in some sense,’ he said. ‘So one either does a crash search to try to make July, or one does a more relaxed search that comes to peak next fall with a longer lead time.’
The search committee is currently on a more relaxed track which Skocpol feels will ultimately result in finding the best possible candidate for president.
The next BU president should be able to commit at least 10 years to the job, while helping the faculty and staff venture off in new directions to enhance the university, Skocpol said.
‘There is a widespread feeling that the reputation of the university hasn’t caught up with the reality,’ Skocpol said. ‘The new president should be a communicator that should be out there helping that reputation to catch up.’
BIG CHANGES Over his two-year term as Faculty Council chair, Skocpol has weathered and adjusted to numerous changes.
The departure of former BU president Jon Westling during the summer of 2002 left the Faculty Council in uncertain territory, he said.
‘We had developed a very congenial and constructive relationship with President Westling and Provost Berkey,’ Skocpol said. ‘Initially we wondered what life would be like given the unexpected sudden change.’
Since Chancellor John Silber took over the reigns as president, he said, little has really changed.
‘We are pleased to report that generally good relations have continued,’ he said.
But good relations have not always existed between the Faculty Council and administration, Skocpol said, and many faculty members feared the worst when they heard Silber was returning to a daily role in the university’s top office.
‘The truth is the Faculty Council feels that the present situation is much better than some people who remember the past had worried it might become,’ Skocpol said.
Skocpol refers to the Faculty Council’s relationship with Chancellor John Silber as a ‘constructive engagement’ with continuing good relations.
‘Of course Chancellor Silber has raised a whole lot of issues in the air,’ Skocpol said. ‘So there have been a number of initiatives coming out of his office that we have responded to and dealt with.
‘Things reached a real impasse at one point when people decided that it wasn’t productive,’ Skocpol added later. ‘But people came on the council with a new mindset and also a new president to deal with.’
Aside from administrative changes and brief periods of stagnation, circumstances have not drastically altered since Silber re-took the reigns, Skocpol said.
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