“I think being a college president is a very interesting and satisfying position,” said former Boston University President Silber in an April 2003 interview with The Daily Free Press. “I think a college presidency is as about as nice a toy as any grown man gets to play with.”
While BU officials said that Silber transformed BU from a small commuter school to a nationally recognized research institution, a number of members of the BU community said they have mixed feelings about the seventh president’s legacy.
During his tenure, Silber experienced difficulty with students and faculty on many controversial issues such as tuition hikes and unionizing, as well as issues with sexuality, ethnic diversity and drug use.
Regardless, he was known for his involvement in the BU community and his candid and strong-willed nature.
“He was a great man in terms of being a leader to build the university into a major
corporation,” said Class of 1972 alumnus James Shrybman in an interview with The Daily Free Press. “Personally, [he was] very difficult to deal with, not accommodating in any way.”
Silber Becomes President of BU
Silber joined BU as president in 1971 from The University of Texas at Austin, where he served as dean of its College of Arts and Sciences.
When he started at BU, the school had an $8.8 million deficit. Silber froze salaries and asked departments to make drastic cuts to reduce the debt.
Shrybman, who was Student Union president in 1971, said Union and Silber often disagreed.
“We were at odds with [Silber] throughout that first year because he didn’t really believe that the student union had a right to exist beyond what it itself could collect [financially],” he said.
Shrybman said Silber also had tension with faculty.
“When he got to Boston University, he was trying to assert his authority saying that BU was not a democracy, BU was a hierarchy,” he said. “Everyone was running scared, including the faculty, because at that point he was thinking of getting rid of tenure.”
In 1972, Silber clashed with students about military recruitment on campus during the Vietnam War.
Shrybman said Silber sent Boston Police officers with dogs in full riot gear to break up peaceful protests in front of the military recruitment office on Bay State Road.
However, some students praised Silber for the progress BU made under his leadership.
“In less than four years he has transformed Boston University from an institution in financial despair and academic decay to one of economic hope and intellectual promise,” said alumnus Bruce Percelay in an October 1974 letter printed by The Free Press.
Percelay said in the letter that he supported Silber for accomplishing the job he was supposed to do, rather than appealing to students.
“I do not perceive Silber’s job as one of cooing a crop of perennial malcontents,” he said. “His focus should be on the academic and financial well-being of the University.”
Students criticized Silber for substantial tuition hikes, while he defended hikes as necessary for the good of BU.
“It is better to be able to raise the tuition and continue our recruitment program of outstanding faculty than hold the tuition at the present level and hold the faculty back,” Silber said in the mid-1970s.
Silber supported Judge W. Arthur Garrity’s 1974 ruling to desegregate busing and public schools.
“[The] most obvious reason why we must all obey Judge Arthur Garrity’s decision is that it is the law, and that in this country, we believe that no one is above the law,” Silber said.
Silber clashes with faculty
In 1975, the National Labor Relations Board brought charges against BU for a complaint filed by 16 Health Clinic workers, alleging unfair labor practices such as firing for complaints and harassment.
Silber was subpoenaed to an October 1975 NLRB hearing, but refused to attend.
“There are lots of people who want to make it [the trial] more colorful,” Silber told the Associated Press. “But there is no submission that shows I’m a material witness.”
The College of Liberal Arts faculty voted for Silber to be removed from his position in 1976.
Ten deans called for Silber’s resignation at a Board of Trustees meeting.
“[The deans delivered a] statement of distrust in John Silber as an educational leader,” The Free Press reported in 1976.
In April 1979, BU faculty went on a weeklong strike. Five tenured professors refused to cross the picket line, and Silber brought termination proceedings against them.
University expansion
A number of facilities were erected during Silber’s tenure. BU created the Huntington Theatre Company, located at 264 Huntington Ave., in 1982. Tsai Performance Center, located in the College of Arts and Sciences building, was completed in 1989.
Gubernatorial bid
Silber announced his campaign for governor of Massachusetts in January 1990. He took a leave of absence from BU to focus on campaigning.
Students and faculty had mixed opinions on Silber’s gubernatorial ambitions.
“He turned BU around in 21 years, and maybe he can do the same thing with the state,” said Keith Tavares, a BU alumnus cited by The Free Press.
Tavares headed the Students for Silber support group during the campaign.
However, former BU professor Howard Zinn, who had a history of disagreements with Silber, said Silber would make a poor politician.
“He’s authoritarian, unpleasant [and] unconcerned with civil liberties and human rights,” Zinn said in a January 1990 interview with The Free Press. “I can hardly find anybody in the field [for governor] who’s worse than Silber.”
In September 1990, Silber won the Democratic primary election over former State Attorney General Francis Bellotti with 55 percent of the vote.
However, Silber narrowly lost to Republican candidate William Weld in the general election.
“I regret the loss, but not so much for myself as for all of you who believed in my candidacy and in the programs for which I fought,” Silber said in his concession speech. “We stood for the proposition that politics is about positive campaigning, about straight talk directly to people and about common sense.”
Later years at BU
Silber returned to BU in January 1991 as president.
Silber was named one of the highest-paid university president in the U.S., according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
University Provost Jon Westling was appointed in January 1995 to succeed Silber as president.
In 1996, Silber announced his resignation from the presidency, and Westling took over as BU’s eighth president. Silber did not leave BU, but took the position of chancellor.
In the spring semester of 2002, Silber disbanded the Gay-Straight Alliance at the BU Academy, a private high school affiliated with BU.
According to The Village Voice, Silber accused the organization of encouraging promiscuity and “homosexual militancy.”
When Westling resigned in July 2002, Silber served as interim president for 16 months. He stayed as chancellor until stepping down in 2003.
Silber’s impact
Despite being seen as a controversial figure by many members of the BU community, Silber is still seen as having enacted sweeping changes at the university.
In an April 1996 letter to The Free Press, BU alumna Ashley Ammon said Silber’s personality may have alienated some but his role was crucial.
“Yes, BU president John R. Silber rules with a heavy fist,” she said. “However, without the abrasive and relentless persona of the Silber administration, BU would still be a debt-ridden commuter college.”
Shrybman said while he is critical of Silber, the former president’s impact on BU cannot be downplayed.
“He did a great deal for Boston University,” Shrybman said. “The size of BU now is twice what it was, and he brought great professors and did a whole bunch of wonderful things. He raised the level of [BU].”
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What do you think Dr. John Silber’s purpose was when he would tell the freshmen families at their breakfast that there was 90% chance one them wouldn’t graduate but would instead be hit by the “T” crossing Comm Ave? Yes, that is what a naive optimist (freshman) must hear, a reality check from the hard headmaster. I find it hard to visualize him resting in peace. God speed Dr. Silber.
Silber was a person of another era/mind set in America. Silber was not the type of university president who was going to show up to your BSR residence hall on a Friday morning in grey slacks, a button down Oxford shirt with no tie, with a wool Shetland sweater over-neath for coffee, muffins and breakfast and query you as to how school’s going, and how are you enjoying BU? Silber was not the type to go to a football game with students and tailgate and sing the fight song. Silber had a sneering, condescending attitude towards students. For today’s BU undergrads; if you ever saw the movie “Social Network” the portrayal of Harvard President Larry Summers was in the same zip code of Dr. Silber except Silber was more acerbic, edgier and to the right of the fictional portrayal of Larry Summers. I do not know a soul who was my contemporary at BU who would have dared to request a meeting w/Dr. Silber. He was just different and he could not be a major/bulge bracket American university president today in this Internet/Social Media world as someone previously commented. He did accomplish great things for the university but at a very high price. He alienated students which Silber myopically fail to realize were the university’s current and future donor base. He created his fair share of legal and media circuses which were a distraction to the university and a waste of precious resources. There is nothing wrong with being a hard nose, focused chief executive officer. Silber had a lot more and brought a lot more baggage to the job than was necessary. I wager that you will not see a Dr. J.R Silber like presidency (pound for pound) at any bulge bracket American college or university in this century. In this social media age, it just would not work, and being a distant, aloof, and pedantic university president who views students as children that should be seen, but not heard, is just frankly out of step with today’s realities of running a higher education academic corporation.