Minutes of the
Townhall Meeting
on the Next SLU President
3:00pm-5:00pm: Friday, May 10, 2013
Carlo Auditorium, Tegeler Hall, Saint
Louis University
Attendance: c. 40-45
including students, staff, faculty,
alumni, & Jesuits
Facilitator: Bonnie Wilson (Department of
Economics, John Cook School of Business)
Recorder: Tomás O’Sullivan (Department of
Theological Studies, College of Arts and Sciences)
OPENING
The meeting opened with a
welcome to all participants from the facilitator on behalf of the contributing
editors of the Heithaus Haven. She suggested we are gathered to share, to learn
from one another, and to begin to discern the qualities and characteristics of
our next president. Out of respect for the fact that we are gathered in a
Catholic, Jesuit institution, she invited all, whether Jesuit or not, whether
Catholic or not, to join in silence for an opening prayer.
The prayer offered thanksgiving
for the Jesuits, who share their mission with us; for the administrators and
benefactors of the university; for Fr. Biondi as he discerns his new role; for
Mr. Adorjan and the trustees as they embark on the task of finding a new
president; for our students, currently in the midst of their exams; and for the
least among us; and asked for the blessing of being gracious to others and of
knowing ourselves.
FRAMING THE QUESTIONS
The prayer was followed by a
brief introduction to Fr. Claude Heithaus, S.J., to the Heithaus Haven, and to
its mission:
Through
the provision of an open and public space for dialogue, with focus on how our
institution’s internal norms, practices, and structures embody (or fail to
embody) its core values, the Heithaus Haven aims to provide a forum for
discovery that fosters solidarity across all members of the SLU community
through reasoned discourse; and that advances Saint Louis University as a
world-class Catholic, Jesuit institution in “pursuit of truth for the greater glory
of God and for the service of humanity.”
The facilitator thanked all
participants for joining the Heithaus Haven today as we seek to live out and
practice this mission. Before the floor was opened to participants, she offered
SLU’s own Mission Statement as a context for the discussion:
The Mission of Saint Louis University is the pursuit of truth for the greater glory of
God and for the service of humanity. The University seeks excellence in the
fulfillment of its corporate purposes of teaching, research, health care and
service to the community. It is dedicated to leadership in the continuing quest
for understanding of God's creation and for the discovery, dissemination and
integration of the values, knowledge and skills required to transform society
in the spirit of the Gospels. As a Catholic, Jesuit university, this pursuit is
motivated by the inspiration and values of the Judeo-Christian tradition and is
guided by the spiritual and intellectual ideals of the Society of Jesus.
She also directed
participants’ attention to the definition of the president’s role provided in
Article III, Section 3 in the Bylaws of Saint Louis University:
The
President shall be the chief executive and administrative officer of the
University. The President shall understand and be committed to the University’s
Jesuit, Catholic tradition which is integral to the University’s identity and
will be responsible for carrying out this tradition in every aspect of the
University. The President shall have the general and active management, control
and direction of the business operations, education activities and other
affairs of the University, and shall execute all authorized bonds, deeds,
mortgages, notes or other securities of the University in the name of the
University, excepted where required or permitted by law to be otherwise signed
and executed, and except where the signing or execution thereof shall be
expressly delegated by the Board of Trustees to some other agent or officer of
the University. The President, together with the Secretary of the University,
shall sign all diplomas issued by the University. The President may delegate to
the Treasurer authority to sign and execute, in the name of the University, all
authorized bonds, deeds, mortgages, notes or other securities of the University
…
With this context in mind, we
ask: what are the qualities and characteristics of a leader who will actualize
SLU’s mission?
The facilitator suggested the
gathering take three minutes to be silent, and reflect on words and phrases
that come to mind in relation to this question; and to consider what questions
we need to be asking ourselves and others; and possible answers to these questions
which may help the Board of Trustees as they seek to actualize new leadership.
[Three minutes of silence
followed]
The floor was then opened to
comments and questions.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Could someone define “servant leadership”? It’s a term
I’ve been hearing a lot lately.
[Silence]
Facilitator: What does “servant leadership” look like? What does
it feel like? Why do we not know? [Laughter] Or are we perhaps being shy?
Participant: One national expert on “servant leadership” is a guy
named Larry Spears; he lives in Indianapolis. Perhaps we could invite him to
SLU to present or contribute to a future forum to offer some help or guidance
on this issue.
He
has identified ten characteristics of servant leadership.
[Further information:
Spears’ website is available at: http://www.spearscenter.org/
His LinkedIn profile can be found
at: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-spears/8/620/547
The ten characteristics of servant
leadership Spears identifies are: listening; empathy; healing; awareness;
persuasion; conceptualization; foresight; stewardship; commitment to the growth
of people; and building community. Further information on these ten
characteristics can be found in his article “Character and Servant Leadership:
Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders,” available here: http://www.leadershiparlington.org/email%20uploads/spears_final.pdf ]
On Holy Thursday this year, my daughter served as an altar server; and at that Mass the washing of the feet by the priest takes place. My daughter pointed out that it’s not the priest but actually the altar servers who have the really hard work. The readings for that Mass identify what it means to be a servant leader.
[Further information:
The readings for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper are available here:
The most significant reading in regard to servant leadership is the Gospel: John 13:1-5.]
Facilitator: I generally worship at an Episcopal church, and on
Holy Thursday our rector asked us whether there was a third great sacrament [in
addition to baptism and eucharist]: what if, every week, we not only dined at
Christ’s table but also washed one another’s feet? It is a very intimate thing
to touch another’s feet; but there are two parts to this, because it’s also a
very intimate thing to put oneself in the position of having another wash your
feet. We should be mindful that there are challenges on both sides, and a need
for intimacy and trust in important ways.
Participant: Servant leadership makes me think of Paul’s hymn in
Philippians [2:5-11] which says of Christ: although he existed in the form of
God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied
himself. Jesus didn’t exploit equality with God, but he humbled himself. In
this regard I’ve been inspired by the present pope: he has every right to wear
the triple tiara and all the fine vestments; but he hasn’t done that (quite to
the consternation of some). That’s been impressive to me, because he’s leading
by his own example. It goes back to that hymn in Philippians and the way Christ
exercised his lordship: he simply did not exploit his power.
Participant: SLU undergraduates can teach us a lot about service. I
have a good friend who graduated from SLU two years ago. When I was here, in
the sixties, there was no organization to encourage and enable undergraduates
to engage in service. There certainly is now! She is working at a homeless
shelter. She has inspired me. If we want to know about service, we should ask
our graduates who have gone on to serve.
[Further Information:The organization referred to by this speaker is most likely the Jesuit Volunteer Core: http://www.jesuitvolunteers.org/ ]
Participant: I would like to shift the perspective and look at the
question from a different, collective, sociological, political viewpoint. From
a sociological perspective, leaders always come out of the public: it’s not an
individual phenomenon. Therefore, service needs to be worked out together
rather than alone. (An example of this is the way many of us have worked
collectively over the past year.) So I would hope for a President who can be
part of us, and serve us not as an individual but collectively. I feel it is
important to establish that as a model of leadership.
Facilitator: So we have: servant leaders; collective leadership; an institution that inspires our students to do as the Jesuits do; a desire for leadership that is collaborative and for building institutions that would support a collaborative process.
Participant: We should also think about what the important attributes of followers are: the people who are going to be led. Part of the crisis we just went through was related to an abdication of responsibility on the part of many people. So we also need to think about the characteristics of good followers.
SHOULD THE NEXT PRESIDENT BE A JESUIT?
Participant: A question: must the President be a Jesuit?
Facilitator: The President must not be a Jesuit. As of 2003, the
bylaws required that the President had to be a Jesuit. But the bylaws have been
revised (in 2010 or 2011?) so that requirement is now removed.
Participant: I ask again: must the President be a Jesuit? For SLU,
must the President be a Jesuit – is it important for our identity to have a
Jesuit President?
Facilitator: De jure we
do not have to have a Jesuit
President – but do we need a Jesuit
President?
Participant: The bylaws say “The President shall understand and be
committed to the University’s Jesuit, Catholic tradition which is integral to
the University’s identity and will be responsible for carrying out this
tradition in every aspect of the University.” It doesn’t follow from this that
the President must be a Jesuit, but if “the President shall understand and be
committed,” etc.: who better than a Jesuit?
Participant: In addition to the business role of the President,
there is also the apostolic care of the University which is vested in the
President and always has been; what would that look like if we had a lay
President?
Participant: Seven out of twenty-eight Jesuit schools are now run
by laypeople. The first lay president of a Jesuit university was John J.
DeGioia at Georgetown University. He cares deeply about the mission and Jesuit
identity; he has taken the full 30-day version of the Spiritual Exercises. For
me, as a layperson who loves the Jesuits, I very, very much want the next
President to be a Jesuit. I think it is incredibly important for a number of
reasons, not least the symbolic value. The question is whether we can find
someone who is to the satisfaction of all constituents.
SLU
is the second oldest of the Jesuit universities; it is bigger than most of the
others. It could be viewed as a springboard or a step up: a Jesuit who has
experience and has established a record at a smaller Jesuit school could move
into a bigger job at SLU. But I don’t know details regarding specific Jesuits.
[Further information:For more on the Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, see: http://www.ajcunet.edu/institutionsFor a full list of the current presidents of these schools, see: http://www.ajcunet.edu/directorsFor more on Dr. DeGioia, President of Georgetown, see: http://www.georgetown.edu/president/biography/index.html ]
Participant: Perhaps Fr. Michael Garanzini from Loyola Chicago?
[Further information:
For more on Fr. Garanzini, see: http://www.luc.edu/president/biography.shtml
]
Participant: It would be nice to have a Jesuit: but I don’t think
any will be available. I would welcome a layman or a laywoman. There has only
been one woman who has been President of a Jesuit University: Maureen Fay at
the University of Detroit Mercy; and she was a Dominican sister. Whoever our
next President is, the person should have an awareness of Jesuit history and of
the Spiritual Exercises. The first person I directed in the Spiritual Exercises
here, many years ago, was a Quaker; and she said she thought it was the best
experience she had. The next President can be a man or a woman, a Catholic or a
non-Catholic: but they need to know the history of the Jesuits and to make the
Spiritual Exercises.
[Further information:
For more information on Dr. Maureen
A. Fay, O.P., President of the University of Detroit Mercy from 1990 to 2004,
see:
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEXT PRESIDENT
Participant: I would like to bring the conversation back to the
qualities and characteristics of a leader. In lists of the qualities of good
leaders – trustworthy, honest, etc. – one quality that is consistently mentioned
can be described as “likeability.” The person should be nice; someone people
can get along with. That is a quality I would like to see in the next
President.
Facilitator: A pastoral quality?
Participant: Yes.
Participant: I would like to add two more words to describe the
next President: someone who can humanize
and encourage within the community. A
person who offers recognition of the dignity of everyone working within the
university, and can call the gifts out of everyone working in the university:
someone who can harness the true value of their work. That’s the kind of
pastoral leadership I think we need.
The next
President should be informed by the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity,
cultivating a spirit that we are all in this together, in solidarity with each
other and with the entire world.
Participant: Leaders should also recognize those occasions when
they don’t know something; they
should not just consult others, but draw on others’ expertise, particularly the
expertise of staff, but also of students and faculty. They need to be able to
admit: “I don’t know … but I will find out.” They recognize that this is a sign
of strength, not of weakness.
Participant: Drawing on what has happened here at SLU and
elsewhere, it is important to recognize that a genuine leader has to have a
sense of what people actually do: the various people among all the
stakeholders. Increasingly university administrations have become increasingly
separate from those who are led: they live separate lives in separate places
doing separate things, and thus they don’t understand and therefore don’t
appreciate what is going on. This seems to derive from corporate culture
seeping into universities, primarily through sports. The President of an
institution like this has to be able to assert what is different about a not-for-profit
university, and what is different about this institution in particular. This
really boils down to its mission, which makes it very different from corporate
culture. But that corporate culture seems omnipresent, and once a leader buys
into it they are led by a different mission and a different ethos. We need a
leader who will speak back and push back against the message of raw power with
the message of truth.
Facilitator: At this point I would like to read some remarks made
by the new Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Adorjan, in a recent
interview in the Beacon.
“One
thing you don’t want to have in this job is a business guy … We need somebody
who understands academics. We need somebody who understands health care. We
need somebody who has the ability to add to the endowment and grow this
university. Most business people don’t understand the faculty and the academic
world.”
Participant: I am just a staff person [cries of No! No!], but with
all the things being said, I think the Jesuit mission is imperative to the SLU
community. Whether it is a woman or a man or a Jesuit proper [laughter], we are
looking for someone who models the mission; someone who has a strategy for
incorporating the whole community. I also here a lot of business propaganda:
but in what business is there no incentive for the staff? Where’s the
rationale? Where the direction? We need someone to model it and to lead it.
Participant: How much are we going to expect the next President to
be a corrective to the last President? Maybe I’m getting away from the point,
but I do think the question of whether the next person should be a Jesuit gets
right at this issue. It’s going to take us a while to process what has
happened; we’re not even sure if we’re clear to start the conversation. One of
the things we need to think about with regard to the qualities we want in the
next President is whether we are expecting the next person to come in and to
counter some of the issues we have been facing.
In a lot of
ways we need to restore credibility in the Jesuit mission: it’s often presented
front and center, but we need to work through what it actually means.
Facilitator: Some questions I have heard people asking with regard
to the next President: Should
we have a short search for a person who can lead us though the bicentennial in 2018? Or
should we search for a long-term candidate who can lead us through the next
20-plus years?
Participant: I’d like to come back to the issue of the people being
led. I know some people whose children graduate from Marquette, and apparently
their current President lives with students – perhaps in one of the dorms – and
eats with students. This is an example of the kind of person we’re talking
about: someone who realizes that his or her actions are always symbolic.
[Further information:For more information on Fr. Scott R. Pilarz, S.J., President of Marquette, see:
http://www.marquette.edu/president/biography.php ]
Participant: A lot of people are saying we don’t want a business
man – and yet we want someone who can grow the endowment. That someone must
inherently be a business man. If you look at the description of the President
in the bylaws, the first third focuses on Jesuit values, but the next two
thirds are all very financial. If we look at the trends of presidents’ roles
across the country, there is a need to be entrepreneurial, a need to innovate,
a need to find a third stream of funding; all the traditional sources of money
are going down. I love higher education; I want to speak for these higher
values; but funding higher education is the next big crisis. We need to think
about how our next president is going to handle this.
Participant: I see tensions here that are going to make it very
difficult to find someone. I think Mr. Adorjan’s tripartite description is very
apt: academics; the healthcare aspect; and someone who can grow the endowment.
These are three excellent qualities. What we’re talking about here is also an
excellent quality: the moral dimension of a leader. I can’t say which of the
four is more important. It’s going to be a very difficult thing finding someone
who has expertise in all four areas: it may be a difficult search.
Participant: I think we also need someone with some political
knowledge. We do have divisions in our community and we need someone who is
comfortable with on-going division. There are many people, with many different
priorities. When the focus is only on unity and community, then it’s the
already-marginalized who always end up even more invisible. So we also need
someone who is comfortable with conflict.
Participant: Whoever the leader is, there should be a period of
intense preparation. I would suggest that he or she – or the Jesuit – should
make the 30-day retreat of the Spiritual Exercises, which would give a very
good foundation for service and servant leadership. And after the retreat, he
ought to have a Spiritual Director who can monitor his ongoing progress and
provide guidance and discernment in his on-going spiritual journey. There needs
to be some very intense spiritual preparation for the job.
Participant: We need someone with wisdom and integrity and a
listening ear. Teresa Sullivan at the University of Virginia is a really
significant model here, with regards to connecting with a lot of different
stakeholders. We need someone who is very involved in the projects of academic
programs, someone who can be an ally. Something very important will be lost if
we don’t value the academic. So we need someone who will do more than just grow
the endowment: we need someone who will engage with the academic priorities of
the university.
[Further information:For more information on Dr. Sullivan, President of UVA, see: http://www.virginia.edu/president/biography.html ]
REFLECTIONS FROM FR. J. TETLOW, S.J.,
AND FR. J. PADBERG, S.J.
At this point, the
facilitator acknowledged the presence in the audience of invited guest
speakers, Fr. Joseph Tetlow, S.J., and Fr. John Padberg, S.J., and asked them
to take the floor. The facilitator introduced both speakers, stressing Fr. Tetlow’s
expertise in spiritual direction and reading some of his own words on his role
as a spiritual director; and praising Fr. Padberg’s passionate commitment to
scholarship and spirituality.
Facilitator: I would like to add that we at SLU have been richly
blessed by your presence and your contributions here. Given your experience,
can you help us to pull these reflections together, and further contextualize
and inform our conversation?
Fr. Tetlow: I would like to say a little but more about why I’m
interested in what has happened. I have been faculty; I have been a dean; I
have been a president; I have been on five or six university boards. I have
been involved in several angles, from several positions, with this sort of
struggle. While I was on staff in Rome, Saint Louis University was one of the
beacons of light: it really is a very important institution.
I
liked a lot of what I have heard, and what I am going to say picks up on a lot
of what has already been said.
Service
leadership begins with respect for the others you are serving. Take the example
of seeing, in every sick person, Jesus Christ. Whatever position we are in, we
need to see Jesus Christ in others. A servant leader models the mission. Do we,
at this time, need a corrector? Someone who picks up the needs of this place at
this time and matches them as well as he can? He needs to be himself; and he
needs to listen, to really listen.
There
are ten elements or qualities I would like to highlight.
Scholarship. There are 14,000 students at SLU, including the
graduate programs: therefore, we are looking for a scholar.
Faculty
Member. We need a person that faculty
would like to have as a fellow faculty member; thus, he needs to be a faculty
member. The President is the head of the faculty, like Jesus is the head of the
church.
Charism
of Leadership. He needs the charism
of leadership – which is something that cannot be learned at Harvard Business
School.
Collaboration. The Jesuit who comes needs to know that we decided
long ago that we are not only men for others, but men with others. We are with
them as colleagues. He needs to be able to collaborate.
A
Jesuit. Should he be a Jesuit? I
think so. I believe it should be an American Jesuit: a Jesuit from the U.S.
Ecumenism. He needs to understand ecumenism; and to do what Pope
Francis did when he had the journalists – of different faiths and nationalities
– all together, and said “I want to give you a blessing: I pray you can be as
blessed as you can be.”
[Further information:For more information on Pope Francis’ blessing, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/world/europe/with-blessing-pope-shows-an-openness-to-other-faiths.html ]
Enabling the Faculty. The President’s role is to enable the faculty. The talk I gave made this point: SLU will remain what it is because of the faculty; not the President, deans, or Board. Your responsibility echoes back on you: if the faculty wants it to be a Catholic university, it will be, even if you have Godzilla as the President!
[Further information: For more information on Fr. Tetlow’s presentation, “Our Heritage: Catholic and Jesuit,” see: http://www.slu.edu/x74233.xml ]
Faith that does justice. We are looking for someone who really is committed to the faith that does justice. He needs to be unable to sleep at night when he finds out some of his people are not being paid well; he needs to worry about that. If he is a scholar, if he is part of the faculty: he will do that.
A Businessman. A President feels like he’s running a business; well, he is! Higher Education is now one of our major industries. It makes a superb contribution to humankind – but it is also a big business; and it is coming towards a crisis. Tuition has gotten to the point where students are saying: it’s not worth it. This is going to keep happening; and the crisis is not going to go well.
A Scholar among Scholars. Perhaps most importantly, the President should be a scholar who belongs with scholars, who knows who they are, and likes being with them.
And all of us should be concerned about the crisis in this industry called Higher Education.
[Applause]
Fr. Padberg: After listening to Joe, I am almost reduced to
silence.
Fr. Tetlow: It’s never happened!
Fr. Padberg: I thoroughly agree!
I
was a member of faculty here for five years – from 1964 to 1973; I was also
Academic Vice President here for those last four years, and then Acting
Executive Vice President. We were in the midst of a severe financial crisis,
and Fr. Reinert had made it clear he was going to be retiring. All of these
issues came up then too. With SLU’s growth, they are even more acute now.
I
would like to make a point about being a Scholar, and what a President who is a
Scholar can do. It’s an experience I had on one of the Boards of Trustees on
which I served. At the beginning of our meetings, after the prayer, the first
thing the President did was hold up a book or an article produced by a member
of the faculty. He would tell us about it, and then say, “Remember: this is
what we’re about.” It really made a difference.
We
need someone who is comfortable with entering into conflict. There are going to
be differences of opinion that need to be expressed strongly or truthfully.
Take, for example, the time I spent on an Executive Committee for Academic
Affairs: I can remember strong differences of opinion between the Medical
School and the Law School. Or running a meeting of a Faculty Relations
Committee: even if they all disagreed with each other, they could still agree
that the president was not doing what he should be! At the end of my service,
they gave me a nicely-bound copy of the Faculty Handbook – which we had fought
over for years and years! So the President is going to have to deal with
differing views of what the place is like and what it ought to be.
Third:
the President is going to have to model what this place is and what it is
about. He has to be a scholar – but you cannot expect him to sit down and
produce scholarly works while he is President, because it is also a business,
and he will have to focus on that.
I
had listed some things people have already mentioned, such as service
leadership, and whether the President should be a Jesuit.
I
was on the Search Committee for the President of Georgetown. It was like
nothing I had ever done before. We were also blessed with God’s grace, because
there were 50 people on that search committee, but there was not one single
week when an angry word was spoken. I hope they get a strong and gracious chair
for the search committee, who can keep it controlled, and move it forward. Not
one angry word in all those months, even though we had strong differences of
opinion! The head of that committee established an atmosphere in which everyone
was respected. But don’t expect the search committee to achieve results very
easily.
I
would like to have a Jesuit as President. I think there are several people, who
have not yet been Presidents but have been in administrative positions, who
could take the job; there are also those who are already Presidents of smaller
institutions. Look at Fr. Fitzgerald: he was President of Fairfield, and he was
happy there. But then he was recruited: “Look, Fitz; rise to a challenge!"
[Further information:Thomas R. Fitzgerald, S.J., was the 6th President of Fairfield University (1973-79) and the 30th President of Saint Louis University (1979-87). See further:Let me try to sum up some of what was talked about, and present a summary of the material discussed thus far, in a schematic format. I see three major headings (and then subheadings):
http://www.fairfield.edu/about/officeofthepresident/universitypresidents/thomasrfitzgerald/http://www.slu.edu/readstory/homepage/4087 ]
§ Commitment to the Jesuit and Catholic Mission.
§ Experience in Higher Education.
o This includes an academic and administrative willingness to become familiar with the administrative process of the medical center.
§ Presence to and service with—not to—
o the university community,
s faculty,
s students,
s staff;
o the Jesuit community;
o the Saint Louis community,
s civic community,
s service community,
s benefactor community.
Can he induce trust that he is doing a good job: the best job he can? Does he want to find out from and learn from the rest of the university community how he might do a better job? Any president is inevitably going to have a series of distractions, transient or long-term: he needs somebody or some people he can rely on to be honest with him, with whom he is comfortable. It doesn’t have to be another Jesuit, but it does have to be someone he can really trust. If anyone here is asked to fulfill that role by the next president, they should consider it a burden and a privilege. I was president of Weston Jesuit School of Theology for ten years: it was a great privilege, but I could never have done it without people I could rely on.
Participant: Could you help us by searching your experience from
the search committee at Georgetown? What was the role of the chair? What was
the role of the trustees? Who was the committee accountable to? Here the trust
between Faculty and the Board is, at least, complicated.
Fr. Padberg: An excellent question. At Georgetown, the first thing
the committee wanted was a Jesuit: no-one disagreed on that. We approached two
Jesuits, and, if either had said yes, they would have had the job. Two other
Jesuits might have liked the job, but we thought they couldn’t do it. So you
may find the same situation.
The
Search Committee was appointed by the Board of Trustees; by the Executive
Committee of the Board. Sometimes the Chair of Board is the Chair of the Search
Committee. This wasn’t the case this time, but the Chair was a member of the
Board, trusted and respected by the Board; and he gained the trust and respect
of the Committee as we worked together.
The
composition was utterly unwieldy: if one group had one thing, the next group
had to have two, et cetera, et cetera. The best work of the Committee was done
by about six or seven, maybe eight, people, who had sort-of sub-committee
responsibility. They were appointed by the other members of the Search
Committee; I think the Board consulted the Faculty Council regarding
appointments. This group worked very hard.
I
went through twenty-six meetings of the Search Committee. How did it work? One
of the first and most important things we did was to hire a first-class
national academic search company. The Committee gave them the characteristics
they wanted in the president. We relied mostly on Jesuit members of the
Committee to ferret out potential Jesuit candidates. The company came up with a
large number of possibilities, most of whom we discarded immediately, because
they didn’t have characteristics we thought were essential. Then we went
through the CVs and recommendations of about ten people. We interviewed four.
It came down to two people, whom we interviewed at greater length. And we
recommended these two to the full Board. The question arose as to whether we
should rank the two candidates. We decided we did not wish to, as either would
have been acceptable. And the Board picked one of them.
It
was a good choice: he knows the Jesuit tradition; he has done the Spiritual
Exercises; he has people he relies on. He has internalized the mission to the
extent that he knows it innately.
WHAT SHOULD OUR NEXT STEPS BE? /
DISCUSSION OF FR. TETLOW’S & FR.
PADBERG’S REFLECTIONS
Facilitator: I think before we go on I would like to say that –
while it has been a long year – the really difficult work lies ahead of us. As
was mentioned earlier, it’s time to put our shoulders to the plough and do whatever
hard work is required to make SLU embody its mission. So: what should the next
steps be? And what can we do now?
Participant: There is an unknown problem … which reminds me of the
Ba’ath Party after Saddam Hussein was toppled. How do we move on – and respect
the Vice Presidents and other administrators who were appointed by Fr. Biondi?
We need advice on making that transition.
Fr. Tetlow: I’m sitting here thinking: Jesus said, “Be
compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.” This may be the first
quality faculty need to exercise. I have been very careful to stay out of the
developments this year. I see that a man – who gave his life for a quarter of a
century and transformed this institution – was brought to the point where he
knew he needed to resign. He has been given the grace of failure. It is a grace
– but it’s very painful: look at the crucifix. So compassion is needed now. Be
compassionate and patient. We also need to be compassionate with our own
colleagues, because the faculty itself is divided.
I
mean it when I say the institution will remain Catholic as long as the faculty
does. I will call you to that: call you to compassion.
Participant: What we have been talking about here is fruitful and
serious. But can the Trustees hear this? How can we help the Trustees see these
things also?
Fr. Padberg: I think there are two things to bear in mind.
One:
I hope the Faculty Senate can mirror the kind of thoughtfulness that has been
evident here today, because the Trustees and administrators can’t deal with every
faculty member every day – but if the Senate can mirror things, that will be a
big help.
Second:
whoever comes in to be President would be utterly foolish if he tried to do a
house-cleaning of upper administration. There would be people who would want
that, but the day-to-day ordinariness of any institution is carried out by
those people who know what needs to be done.
More
than anything else, let the Faculty Senate act as a representative body: and
you communicate to your representative. The Senate are going to have as great a
task for the coming year as they have had for the past year.
Participant: I think this event has been so helpful. When the
Search Committee is formed, would it be a good idea to continue to have these
events – involving students, staff, faculty, and members of the Search
Committee? This forum could play a role in keeping them grounded, and open to
everything; we can help the Search Committee stay grounded.
Fr. Padberg: Remember that on the Committee there will be some
non-academic people in business, who are successful – and busy. Don’t ask them
for more than they can deliver. Coming to a whole series such as this might
discourage their involvement.
Fr. Tetlow: The big thing is communication. Any time there is a
meeting of the Committee, this is essential. Much of what happens in higher
education could be eased by greater communication. There are often failures on
both sides.
Participant: I want to ask a hard question. And I ask it with utter
respect. I have spent 35 years of my life at three different Jesuit
institutions, and I hold the Jesuits in the highest regard. But – for those of
us who hope the next President will be a Jesuit – are there features in Jesuit
spirituality that helped bring about the situation we have had? And should we
be wary going forward?
Ignatius
himself was a soldier. The Jesuit superior is a ‘general,’ not an ‘abbot.’ Is
there a tendency for a command-and-control model which maps unhelpfully onto
our own culture: the corporate command-and-control model and the ethos of the
Midwest (which we have seen in many on-line comments this year: if you don’t
like it, just leave)?
Second:
if you look up the word ‘Jesuit’ in the dictionary, the second definition
includes ‘a tendency towards casuistry; equivocation; willingness to say one
thing and mean something else.’ I don’t want that person as our next president!
Fr. Tetlow: One, Ignatius was not a solider. He liked to fight,
but he was not trained militarily. He made miserable decisions, stupid ones,
and he suffered for it. In every constitution, a man is put in charge, to make
the decisions about what he is to do, unless he thinks of something better.
Ignatius was more tart with those who obeyed literally without any reflection.
What has happened here is not because of that. After all, many virtues have a
shadow side. If you put three Jesuits in a room, you will have at least eight
opinions! The Superior says what needs to be done, and everyone does what he
thinks should be done.
Fr. Padberg: We have had very few Superior Generals who acted with
the top-down model: because we’re reasonably independent-minded people, and we
are trained right from the beginning to ask questions, and to ask questions of
superiors. We do have the reputation you described, but there’s very little of
it in actual reality. If it is found, it’s due to individuals’ characteristics.
Devious people are manipulative – and this has applied since the beginning of
society. Two Sundays ago I gave a talk at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in
the County. I was speaking about the new pope, but some of these issues also
arose. Have there been such people? Oh yeah, I know all the naughty stories
about the Jesuits – and if there aren’t any good ones, I lie and make them up!
I agree with Fr. Tetlow on the importance of
compassion. But since Saturday I’ve heard faculty members express concern that
Fr. Biondi is still going to be around for another year. The fact is that
people are still frightened he will take some kind of revenge or retribution: what
would you tell those people?
Fr. Tetlow: I don’t know the situation well, so take this with a
lot of salt. Any action he may take is going to be made public and stay public
– and then those who can take action, shall take action. I think the idea that Biondi
is going to spend a year getting even is a mistake. It’s not wise on his part.
What is he going to do next? If he fires people they won’t even let him into
the Jesuit villa. I would not be afraid of that myself.
Fr. Padberg: He will certainly be under a microscope. I don’t
think he is an unintelligent person. I presume, as an intelligent person, he
will recognize the situation; and there are people who can speak to him, and
people on the Board who will speak to him.
Participant: But since October he has made a series of decisions
that were not in his own best interest (such as supporting Vice-President
Patankar). What if it was, and remains, a question of emotion, not reason?
Fr. Tetlow: I think the early decisions about the VP are very
different from revenge. Backing one’s own man is not the same thing.
Participant: I’m concerned about whether and how we might address
inaccurate perceptions on the part of the Board of Trustees. For example, the
idea that faculty had accused the President (or Trustees?) of diverting funds. Perhaps
there was a misquotation, but we never made that accusation. What else has been
attributed to faculty? What else are people thinking, are Trustees thinking?
There is concern that the new Chair of the Board thinks that the faculty made
accusations against Trustees that have not been made. If there are similar
misconceptions, how will we ever know what they are going on?
Fr. Tetlow: Do you know the President of the Faculty Senate? Talk
to him or to her, and say ‘you really have to let the Chair of the Board know
the situation.’ Communicate! Communicate!
Fr. Padberg: Talk to the Faculty Senate Chair and make sure the
communication happens.
Participant: In response: it’s been clear in my conversation with
Trustees that there’s been a massive break-down in communication (for example, Mr.
Adorjan’s recent misunderstanding regarding the phrase hoi polloi). We are going to see more of those misunderstandings.
We have been seeing them as chinks in the armor; but now we just have to keep
on communicating, and doing it in an effective way.
I’d
also like to address your experiences at Georgetown. I’ve worked for seven
Vice-Chancellors: some were mad, some were bad, some were dangerous to know
(like Byron). In my experience the good ones were scholars – that is so
important – but the real test lies in trying to understand the impossible job
the President has. Look at all the things the President is supposed to do: no
one can do it all, it’s an impossible job! The test for the ones who did it
well was the quality of the people they had around them. One of the things that
drew me when I came here three years ago was the high quality of people in the
department and in administration. One of the problems since has been seeing
them pushed aside. All of the many people we have had at SLU in interim positions are a sign of a
President who had lost his way. In talking to Trustees, we agreed that he had
difficulty in find people to give him good advice. But it may be a criterion
for us to keep in mind for the search: when judging an individual candidate, to
try and push them on the kind of advice they wish to receive and the kind of
people they want around them. It would be very wrong to do a clean sweep, and
attempt to ‘start again’ from ‘year zero.’ They will need time to put together
advisors, and I hope they find people of higher quality than some of the
contemporary bad advisors.
Fr. Padberg: One of the most successful Jesuit institutions I have
been around is Boston College; and I don’t think I ever saw as good a group of
Vice-Presidents as I saw there. One of the other successful elements I have
seen was that they tried very hard to create an environment in which Members of
the Board could feel free to say anything in the course of a meeting. It was
extraordinary: the President would propose something, and none of the Trustees
felt any problem intervening and asking ‘Have you thought of this?’ And the
President modeled what he wanted: he would take on the Board and tell them
exactly what he thought. I’ve been on one Board where you could barely think
you should interrupt at all: you were almost decorative! I’ve seen good and bad
Vice-Presidents, but at BC the VPs were good across-the-board.
Participant: Perhaps we could communicate with the Search Committee
and suggest they ask for anonymous references from the people who had been
working for the candidates – their immediate subordinates?
Participant: That could be a difficulty because of issues of
confidentiality.
Participant: We could ask: has this person empowered you in your
leadership?
At this point the facilitator
drew the meeting to a close, thanking Dr. Kenneth Parker and Dr. Gregory
Beabout, as well as Fr. Tetlow and Fr. Padberg. She concluded by thanking
everyone for coming, and assuring us: “We will be talking more.”
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