Bollinger Stays Popular Even In Hard Times

One of the defining moments in University President Lee Bollinger's tenure may have come in April 2003, when the 109th Varsity Show labeled him "PrezBo."

Even though current juniors, sophomores, and first-years were too young to see the show, the moniker has lived on among undergraduates. The majority of students have never met Bollinger, but they're on a nickname basis with him.

To say simply that Bollinger's predecessor, George Rupp, never had a nickname would be to understate Rupp's perceived distance from students. In a 1998 Spectator survey, the majority of students said they wouldn't know who Rupp was if they bumped into him on College Walk.

"Rupp was much more staid-harder to connect with," said David Bornstein, a University senator who entered Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences immediately after graduating from Columbia College in 2004. "He wasn't so present in the students' imagination. As a result, Bollinger is the much more popular president."

Bollinger certainly has his detractors, especially local residents who think he's been too secretive in planning for a possible Manhattanville campus, students who say he's been unresponsive to their concerns about hate crimes on campus, and faculty members who felt unsupported during last year's controversy over Middle East studies. But the nickname seems to show that the majority feels some degree of affection for its leader, which may have prevented them from turning against him en masse when things aren't running smoothly.

"You always wish you had done more to connect to the people," Bollinger said. "But I feel very close to the students and very close to the faculty."

But some say that reality belies the perception that Bollinger cares deeply about students' concerns. Reggie Gossett, CC '06, who has worked with the president on a number of issues during the past four years, said he rarely felt supported by the University's central administration.

"He's displayed an interest in working with students, but there hasn't been much concrete follow-through," Gossett said, adding that Bollinger did reach out to students during the protests against racism two years ago. "That one thing that happened hasn't been his general way of operating."

And although several faculty members declined comment on the issue of hate crimes, citing lack of expertise, many said that professors thought Bollinger did not stand up for their academic freedom when it was under attack from outside groups last year.

A documentary from a Boston-based Zionist group called The David Project created an outcry over the conduct of a few professors in the Middle East Asian languages and cultures department last fall, and several other outside groups fanned the flames. For the next several months, Bollinger said he was considering the complexities of the issue, leaving faculty members feeling vulnerable to other charges.

"My personal opinion is that he did not handle it all that well," said astronomy professor James Applegate, a longtime member of the University Senate who currently serves on the executive committee. "He let the situation run him; he was always responding. If he had come out more strongly from the start my sense is it would have died down more quickly."

Bollinger acknowledged that he would do things differently if he had the chance to go back in time.

"I wish I had addressed the MEALAC controversy a month earlier," he said, adding that, in general, "there was a point at which I didn't fully understand diversity issues on this campus."

But despite the president's perceived mistakes, faculty members and students who also worked with Rupp's administration said that Bollinger is more accessible and personable than his predecessor. Much of this perception may relate to a few campus events Bollinger has created in an ongoing attempt to unite and energize the student body.

Dozens of students join Bollinger's Fun Run, a 5K loop through Riverside Park that the president sponsors-and participates in-every fall. Hundreds have seen speeches by major international figures through the World Leaders' Forum, which coincides with the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Many more have secured free or reduced-price tickets to major performing arts events through the CU Arts Initiative.

"One of the things I believe is important is for people to listen to people who have positions of extraordinary power. I hope that this will become a very significant part of the educational process," Bollinger said about the World Leaders Forum.

The arts initiative, he said, is designed to connect students with New York City in a way they might not be able to accomplish on their own.

"There are countless small but meaningful things that [CU Arts Initiative director Gregory Mosher] has done to help students experience art or be artists," he said.

All parties agreed that there is work to be done to improve Bollinger's relationship with different constituencies.

"I felt that he was a man in a difficult position," said an untenured member of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the governing body elected to represent faculty from 12 Columbia schools. "My impression last year was that both ECFAS and President Bollinger were committed to making the relationship work, but that it was going to take time to establish trust, especially given the often adversarial history of relations between faculty and administrators at Columbia."

The faculty member declined to be identified because of concerns about how words perceived as criticisms of the University might affect the tenure application process.

Bollinger said that his next step would be to "provide more context for serious interactions with students."

"It takes three years before you feel like you have sufficient knowledge of an institution," he said. "Then you have a great group of people to work with, and you can do some terrific things to better the University."