When University President George Rupp leaves his Low Library office for the last time next summer, his legacy will likely feature a record-setting fundraising effort, impressive jumps in admissions throughout the University, and an ambitious revamping of the University's physical assets.
That Rupp will likely not be remembered for any memorable influence on the education or faculty at Columbia comes as no surprise to both the people who hired him and to those who have served under him. Indeed, Rupp's focus on the administrative aspects of his job is exactly what enables him to call his presidency successful.
The search committee that hired Rupp saw him as an established and proven administrator up to the task of continuing the momentum created by Michael Sovern, President from 1980-1993.
Sovern is remembered mainly for two capital campaigns (the second finished under Rupp), the sale of Rockefeller Center to boost Columbia's endowment, and three Columbia College-centered initiatives: going co-ed, guaranteeing four years of housing, and maintaining need-blind admissions.
Rupp inherited many of those programs in their infancies and was able, by almost all accounts, to successfully guide their growth.
But the question facing the committee that will choose Rupp's successor is whether to continue the momentum that Sovern began and Rupp maintained, or to effectively point the University in a different direction.
The next President will undoubtedly share some of the qualities for which Rupp and Sovern are known. He or she will have to fundraise effectively and continue to attract world-renowned faculty members.
Indeed, the job of Columbia's President is geared toward administration--or at the least, the very nature of the job necessitates that presidents are remembered mostly for their administrative deeds.
But just as the problems that Rupp faced in 1993 were vastly different from those Sovern encountered, the next President will find a different Columbia from the one Rupp inherited.
Columbia, which The New York Times in a story headlined "Reseeding Ivy" said was "on a roll," now has a new student center, vastly updated residence halls, and what many call one of the world's leading libraries. It also features an endowment over $4 billion, more than double what it was when Rupp took over.
Perhaps most notably, though, recent debates about Low Library's most visible plans--distance learning and intellectual property--have shown there may a widening disconnect between professors and the Administration.
The discussions that have taken place in the Senate between professors and the Administration have been civil, but often tense, and are just the latest incarnation of a gap between Low Library and the faculty that has existed for at least 50 years.
Dwight Eisenhower, President from 1948-1953, once insulted professors by calling them "employees." The riots of 1968 and 1969 created a generation of students and professors who were aghast at the conduct of the Administration, led by President Grayson Kirk.
A decade and two Presidents later, Sovern was hired to mend the fences. Sovern made progress, but the fences still need patching, and the 2001 Presidential Search Committee may look for a candidate who can connect what professors see as educational values with the national statistics that the Administration has touted for a decade.
The search committee, headed by former Chair of the Board of Trustees Henry King, CC '48, will also decide between tapping one of the University's current administrators or professors or looking at external candidates, and, of those, choose between former affiliates of Columbia or those who have no connection to Columbia at all.
The committee will look for a seasoned administrator and will almost definitely look for somebody who is an accomplished academic as well.
Rupp and his Successor
King led the search committee that picked Rupp in 1993.
"We were looking for a person of high academic achievement and standing," King said in an interview yesterday, describing that the new committee will largely look for similar qualities in the next President. King said the committee was also looking for someone "who'd had administrative experience running something of size and complexity."
Beyond the basic academic and administrative requirements, King said, the committee also looked for a candidate who "had the capacity to arrange for fundraising and had the capacity to do it himself or herself ... somebody capable of pulling people together."
When asked about differences between the goals of the former and current committee, King again cited scholarship and administrative experience.
"Any president has got to worry about space, building, raising money, and attracting good faculty."
King's new committee, though, will need to mold its choice on where it thinks Columbia needs to go in the future.
As Robert Rawson, the chair of the committee that will choose Princeton's next president put it, "The decision that is made [by a presidential search committee] is by definition special to the institution."
Special to the institution also means taking into account the status of a university at the moment.
John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus Wm. Theodore de Bary, CC '41, who is also a provost emeritus, noted that Rupp was partially hired to strengthen an increasingly weak Administration.
"My impression would be that [Rupp] set out to be a strong administrator," de Bary said. "His contribution has been in relation to tighten up the Administration and assert its authority after a long period after it was rather weak."
Chair of the History Department and Allan Nevins Professor of History Alan Brinkley, who has been at Columbia since 1991, said that Rupp will likely be remembered for his consolidation of the Administration.
"He and the administrators he helped appoint did an enormous amount to change both of those things: to expand the resources available to the University ... and to modernize the Administration and make it more efficient and transparent," he wrote in an e-mail.
As for Rupp's successor, Chair of the Political Science Department Robert Shaprio, who has been at Columbia since 1982, said that the qualities of the next President should not differ from the qualities he sees in Rupp. The next President should be "someone who is similarly ready to be most attentive to fundraising and Columbia's continued growth," he wrote in an e-mail.
Brinkley said he would like to see the next President more able to focus on academics. "I would like to see a President with Rupp's administrative and fundraising skills, but also one with a strong engagement with the academic and intellectual mission of the University," he wrote in an e-mail.
De Bary agreed, and distinguishing between his personal and business relationship with Rupp, said, "I would hope that a future President would try to see that [Columbia] College was not just as it's called, 'The Center of the University,' but [for the President to be] an active leader in the development of educational policy."
Rupp was brought in to turn Sovern's momentum into prosperity, and the next President will need to worry less about establishing Columbia's reputation. By all external measures, Columbia is thriving. And while fundraising and recruiting always need to be done, the next President will likely have to focus more on internal policy.
Possible Internal Candidates
If the committee picking Rupp's successor follows Columbia's recent history, it will likely chose a President who is in some way affiliated with Columbia. [See graphic, page 15]
Most of Columbia's current senior administrators, nearly all of whom were hired after Rupp assumed the presidency, have little Columbia background or extended scholarship.
The notable exception on both fronts is University Provost Jonathan Cole, CC '64, Sociology '69, who will complete his 14th year as provost in May.
Cole is an established administrator who is well known in academia; he is a noted Sociology professor and he chaired the influential Association of American University's report on Intellectual Property in 1999.
Of Cole, Mari Jo Buhle, the chair of the advisory committee that helped choose Ruth Simmons as Brown president, said: "I'd imagine he would be a very viable candidate."
But Cole was passed over in the last presidential search, in part because many faculty members opposed his candidacy.
King said Cole's presence in the 1992 search would not affect the new search.
When asked if he would be willing to become Columbia's 19th President, Cole said, "I will give that some thought, and we'll see what develops with the search committee."
Emily Lloyd, executive vice president for Administration, and John Masten, executive vice president for Finance, rank just below Cole in the Administration. Although both have been relatively popular and very successful in their positions, neither has the academic background the next President will likely have.
Lloyd said as much, saying the job "would not be a fit for me. I think the [next President] has to have very, very strong academic credentials."
Masten showed little more interest in the job, saying that "it's a question that I've never even thought of."
Dean of Columbia College Austin Quigley, who brings both administrative and academic experience, is likely to be on the initial short list and will likely bring the influential backing of alumni.
When asked if he would be willing to succeed Rupp, Quigley said, "I'm very happy with my current position as dean of the College, and I'm not looking to move elsewhere."
Dean of the Business School Meyer Feldberg may also prove a viable candidate, but his experience in academia has mostly been as an administrator rather than an academic.
External Candidates
and Searches
University of Michigan president Lee Bollinger, Law '71, will likely be a candidate if the Harvard presidential search committee does not choose him first. He is a well-known legal scholar, and as president of the largest public university in the United States, is a proven administrator.
Stephen Trachtenberg, CC '59, whose son Adam graduated from the College in 1997, is in his 13th year as president of George Washington University. He is an attorney, and has been the president of a university since 1978.
Rupp noted on Saturday that Columbia's search should not interfere with concurrent ones at Harvard and Princeton because "institutions look very closely at alums or at faculty members of their own institutions."
In the end, King said, people will be attracted to Columbia regardless of most external factors.
"All of our success ... will help us attract a very good candidate," King said. "We have a tremendous amount of momentum going, and I think somebody will be attracted to that."
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