Barreca says BU building for future

The following interview with Boston University Board of Trustees chairman Christopher Barreca was conducted on Friday, April 25 by Daily Free Press Assistant News Editor Patrick Gillooly.

DFP: Well, first off, a major concern of students on campus these days is the presidential search.

Barreca: That’s a major concern for the trustees as well.

DFP: Well that’s good to hear. I think sometimes students are kind of taken back by the Board of Trustees, they are not sure what you guys do. So, what would your role be with the presidential search?

Barreca: Well, basically the Board of Trustees of Boston University, like the Board of Trustees of any university, or the corporation counterparts to that, have the responsibility for overseeing, not doing the day-to-day work that obviously is the job of the people who have the jobs to play in that regard, the Board of Trustees is a group of overseers quite frankly.

DFP: Okay …

Barreca: The responsibility is to be sure that people live up to our expectations.

DFP: Okay, you may not know the answer to this question, but when do you expect a new president to be selected?

Barreca: That depends on the success of the search obviously, we’re … we want to be sure we have an opportunity to consider the best available candidates, I think the academic world knows we’re searching for a new president, and hopefully many of the people on the search committee of course have ideas of who they think might do a good job and we have a search outfit as well, and I am not sure if you are familiar with the group, Isaacson, is probably the preeminent group in that field, so we’re looking for the best possible candidates I don’t think we can say at this point how long it is going to take because it is going to take as long as it takes to find the right person. And it could be weeks, hopefully not months.

DFP: So… are you trying to push forward the process a little bit, trying to like, I mean we have now been a full year with Chancellor Silber acting as president, are you trying to… you said hopefully not months…so are you trying to move it as quickly as possible?

Barreca: …A lot… a lot depends on the person or people that we zero in on, some of them have commit… obviously, but the best candidates have commitments in the jobs they are in… and whoever, let’s assume it’s a president of another university or college, which I think may be one of the major sources of candidates for it, obviously those people have responsibilities where they are and you want a responsible person which means they are not going to be able to come the next day, but hopefully it won’t be… it will be weeks rather than months (laugh). But that depends on the circumstances, we are not setting any preconceptions on this, we want the best possible person we can get because we think Boston University is a wonderful place and is one of the preeminent universities, not just in the country but in the world today. I hope you all agree with that (laugh).

DFP: I love being here. (Barreca laughs) I guess, another issue on campus is how it is going to look in the future?

Barreca: What was that?

DFP: How… how it’s going to look in the future both with staff, like bringing in faculty and professional staff as well as the physical features, there’s a lot of construction going on in the university?

Barreca: Yes…

DFP: So… what is your broad goal, what are your broad goals for the university in the next few years?

Barreca: Well, what’s the old cliché ‘to be the best we can be’ (laughs) its… I don’t think, obviously individual trustees at Boston University have their own particular areas of interests their own particular objectives and goals so any board of trustees is a group of people that have these various goals but we hope the one goal is, is preeminence for Boston University. And, frankly it isn’t the job of the trustees to run the university on a day to day basis, that’s not what the board of trustees is for, that’s what the administration is for, and the best thing and most important thing that the board of trustees can do is to be sure that we have the right kind of leadership in the university.

DFP: Specifically they had talked about, just kind of a long question, sorry, job cuts earlier in the year, Chancellor Silber and… had made mention and the Globe had said something about it specifically, what will the university be doing, especially with the economy these days, to save money. Will job cuts be something the university is going to be looking to to save money?

Barreca: That really is the responsibility of the administration the trustees, at least in my judgment, a good board of trustees, doesn’t get itself enmeshed in the details, because if they do then you don’t need the administrators and that’s not the role in my judgment of the Board of Trustees to be involved in that, we are the overseers in the sense that we evaluate their performance, we evaluate the performance of the executives at the university in the same way that a corporation board evaluates the performance of the officials in the corporation, but the corporation boards, just like the university’s board are not running the university, that is not their job.

DFP: Well… would you say…

Barreca: A matter of fact sometimes the job of the chairman is (laughs) to make sure the individual trustees don’t assume that that’s their role.

DFP: Do you see this sometimes, individual trustees trying to..

Barreca: We…

DFP: … assert their power?

Barreca: I think, just like any other group of people you’ve got some individuals that are excited and interested and… and they want to do more sometimes then they should, but that’s not, that’s not unusual. As I am sure you know… in in your activities.

DFP: (laughs) Yeah. Well, if the job of the board of the trustees is to oversee then, how do you feel Chancellor Silber has been doing in his job, in the past few years, or overall?

Barreca: Well, let’s look at it overall, because I think that, John is probably more than anyone hopes we can act sooner rather than later in finding a new president, but frankly I think that it is hard for the Board of Trustees at Boston University not to admire John Silber for the job that he has done, there may be some that have different views on a lot of issues but I don’t know of any trustee at Boston University who doesn’t applaud the job that John Silber has done as the leader of this university for the number of years that he has been here. As a student going back many, many years (laughs), I’ve seen a lot of executives, we’ve had some very fine ones, we’ve had some not so fine ones, but, but when you look at what has happened to the university during John Silber’s tenure, whether you like his personality, or style or approach I think an objective person, frankly, would have admiration for the job he’s done. I certainly do.

DFP: How do the Board of Trustees hope to increase relationships between parents and students and with the university, in terms of…

Barreca: Who?

DFP: Parents and Students both as…

Barreca: Again, that, in my judgment at least, is not the role of the Board of Trustees, the Board of Trustees are not, should not be involved in the day to day operation of the university, in my judgment.

Colin Riley (BU Public Relations): I just want to say something when the administration might have a new strategic approach or something they wanted to run by the trustees they bring it up at a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees and present to them some of their new ideas in either fundraising or capital improvement or academic changes, etc. They do present it in…

Barreca: Oh yeah because, because the board ultimately has to pass on all of these proposals and ideas. For example, you don’t build a new building on the campus unless the Board of Trustees has authorized it. I don’t know if when I use the word ‘oversee’ that that gives you an understanding of what I am talking about when I talk about the role of the Board of Trustees or not, but its an overseer role, its not a hands on role, that’s the job of the administration.

DFP: Have there been anything the administration has presented to you recently that the Board of Trustees rejected, or said it was not a good idea for the university?

Barreca: Not that I can think of, we are sort of in a holding position right now because we are frankly looking for a president for the university, and so, there isn’t, and this is one of the concerns that we have that we don’t take so long that the university to lose its momentum, I think its hard for the university to lose its momentum with John Silber in the caretaker role because he’s not… (laughs), he’s not a shy person.

DFP: (laughs) What kind of president do you want to see personally then?

Barreca: Well, I want to see as president of Boston University a person who is a leader among his peers, who is frankly admired by other university presidents as a leader. It’s interesting actually, and John Silber deserves a lot of credit for this, the university is one of the preeminent universities in the world today and John Silber played a very important role in that accomplishment. So, we’re looking for what’s that cliché, ‘the… (laughs) the best of the best.’

DFP: Do you have any…

Barreca: And I think, and I think we’re going… I think we’ve already got candidates in the pipeline from, who are already in very significant university roles around the country.

DFP: Do you know when the second phase, which I assume you would be more involved with, will begin, in which the candidates are actually interviewed?

Barreca: The Board of Trustees have a search committee and the search committee of the Board of Trustees is responsible for bringing back to the full board a candidate or candidates.

DFP: So they would be the ones who would interview the ones that are being selected now?

Barreca: The search committee is looking at people as we speak.

DFP: What did you think of the community input on this process, specifically the…

Barreca: What did I think what…

DFP: The community input on the presidential search process, specifically the low turnout of the student open forum earlier this semester.

Barreca: Were you there?

DFP: Yes.

Barreca: … when I was there in that group, I guess I can understand it in some respects because I guess when you’re a student your primary objective is to do well as a student, but I think I said in that meeting that I was disappointed that there weren’t more people there, because we were looking for inputs from all the various groups and obviously the student group is a very important constituency in the university, so I was disappointed there weren’t more there, but not so much that I didn’t understand why students were not there, (laughs) I would have been frightened if there had been that many there.

DFP: Yeah, could have been a little scary if the room was filled to the brim.

Barreca: I interpreted the fact that there weren’t more there as being an approval (laughs) of what was going on. At least there weren’t any protests.

DFP: You had talked about fundraising earlier, if the administration wanted to do something with fundraising it would go to you, does the Board of Trustees do any fundraising on its own?

Barreca: Well, you know… Boston University has one of the finest people you could have in that role in Chris Reece, he is a very special individual. And, he regularly contacts the trustees to make sure that they are aware (laughs) of their obligation in the situation. We don’t judge a trustee’s performance by how much, or whatever they have contributed, but on the other hand many of the people on the board are able to give support to the university and quite frankly we are gratified that they do.

DFP: Is it a requirement to give, to be a ….

Barreca: No.

DFP: You’ve been the chairman for the Board of Trustees for a full semester now, what have you done with this position personally and how has it affected your view of the university and the Board of Trustees?

Barreca: Well it’s, first of all, it has substantially increased the number of trips from Connecticut (laughs). I told my wife last night that it’s a good thing that my car knows the way (laughs).

DFP: (laughs).

Barreca: But, it’s about a three-hour trip from here to where we live in Connecticut, and it seems to get shorter and shorter. Which I guess is good because the alternative is that it gets longer and longer. But I am up here a lot more than I used to be.

DFP: What is the role of the chairman, specifically. Do you oversee the overseers?

Barreca: It’s like any other organization, and student organizations are not unlike the Board of Trustees in that regard, different individuals give more, and I am not talking about money now, I am talking about themselves, give more of themselves other individuals tend to take a more passive role, or seem to take a more passive role, but you can be fooled on that because sometimes quiet people have deeper thoughts but some of us who are more outspoken, but its like any other group that oversees an activity. The main thing that I think, from your standpoint, that you need to recognize is that the Board of Trustees is not the operational leadership of the university. The operational leadership of the university is here and the people that are doing the day to day work like Colin and others are the ones who are responsible for those day to day operations. But like any group that oversees another group’s activities you can either admire what’s happening or you can be disappointed at what is happening. I would say overall we are very pleased with what’s been happening here at Boston University and the development, growth, the respect which Boston University has not just in the United States but around the world today is pretty great.

DFP: Is there anything you haven’t been pleased with, or is there anything within the university that you would like to change?

Barreca: I think that the main area that I felt the university was lacking in, quite frankly, was recreation facilities. And, I certainly have been among those who have been encouraging the university in that direction and I think what is happening now, and I don’t know how you all feel about it, but I think what is happening now in terms of facilities, recreational facilities, athletic facilities and so forth, is a very positive sign. I think we all recognize that the first and foremost thing at a university is the academic aspects of it, but, I guess I am among those who believe in the old Greek tradition of the complete person. I think the university is catching up in that area and very quickly. I think what is going on right now on Commonwealth Avenue is very encouraging as you drive by and listen to the rivets (laughs) and the hammers.

DFP: I think that was all I had… Well thank you for your time.

Barreca: You’re very welcome, thank you.