Presidential legacies:
Maintaining standards of excellence and making room for growth
Ohio Today: What do you consider your legacy as president of the university to be?
GLIDDEN: I can tell you what theirs is. I can't tell you what mine is. [Laughter]
ALDEN: You want to know what I would like to be known for? I was worried when I first came here because I had never been involved with a public university before. I had the impression that the students went through a sort of lockstep order in taking these requirements and so on, so I thought maybe they would have a kind of mediocre experience. So one of the things I wanted to do was identify the outstanding young students and develop a special program for them. That started out with the Honors College; then it became the Ohio Fellows Program, where they had internships and they had special programs together. Later, after I left, I was just delighted that the Cutler Scholarships came along, with the internships and the involvement with the alumni and so on. So I think that the fact that I was very much interested in the quality of the undergraduate experience is one of the things that I would like to be remembered for.
Secondly, I would like to be remembered for the fact that I tried to preserve what (President Emeritus) John Baker had started, and that is maintaining the Georgian style of architecture. I think that the appearance of our campus is terribly important. We have buildings that are just wonderful. We have a character. When people come here, they are just astonished at how beautiful the university is. You have Walter Hall, and even the Convocation Center has brick on the outside, and the new student center. It all conforms into a basic sort of architecture that fits into these lovely hills. And so when you come here in the fall or in the spring, the experience is just magnificent.
Also, another thing that I had to work hard on was to develop private funding for the university. I thought we needed more public funding, and so that was one of the reasons that I accepted President Johnson’s invitation to help him on the war on poverty, because that brought in the money that we so badly needed for the development of southeastern Ohio. I had thought for too many years that Ohio had neglected its neighborhood, and (thought) we ought to do something to build up southeastern Ohio. It would be to our benefit to do it. So out of that I also think came the funding that we needed to move the river that bothered us every year, to build the Appalachian Highway. So the public money that we got was important and, of course, was important for research and so on. So those were things that I felt were kind of important to do in my period.
PING: I think you're being modest. In fact, Vern raised the national visibility of the campus in several important ways. And, it's awfully hard to assess your own legacy. The place was rich in people, and that is one of the reasons that I came. Extraordinary faculty, just everywhere you looked. The more (people) I met, the more excited I became. And it is rich in place; it's a lovely place. Vern's insistence that the basic scheme of architecture would continue was important. And it's rich in history, and all of those, it seems to me, combined to provide a sense of pride and focus. I hope that the years I served the university there was a growing sense of pride and beauty of the place. I remember a conversation with John Baker. (At the time) there were a lot of discouraging things, one of which was the condition of the campus, and he said, "Charlie, don’t get discouraged. When I arrived in 1945 there hadn't been a paintbrush applied to any building in 20 years." [Laughter, as Alden nods in agreement] Anyway, I think the thing that struck me was that it was a far better place than the people who were most directly involved would let themselves believe, and I hope we nurtured the sense of purpose and the sense of pride.
ALDEN: It is very important also that you have a strong president. Bob Glidden was strong, Charlie Ping was strong, and they weren’t discouraged by faculty protests. They weren't discouraged by The Ohio University Post. They went ahead and provided leadership. And I think Rod is providing leadership now, also.
PING: [Laughing] I'm so glad there was no e-mail when I was president.
GLIDDEN: Well, let me give you my perspective on the legacy of these two gentlemen, because I don't think that there is much point in talking about the legacy of a president who is just done. But I do think that Vern did have this remarkable way of building leaders. I mean if you go back and look at some of the alumni who have come out, (look at) the positions they have achieved … he certainly did do something. That didn't just happen. That was because he went after that. And certainly, we are very grateful for his insistence -- and, I am sure, against a lot of opposition -- that we maintain this red brick Georgian architectural style. Because the temptation in those days was to put up modern-looking buildings and so forth, and aren’t we grateful now for that?
So, those are two of the things that are very important. I knew about Ohio University obviously before I came here, but I came to appreciate it after I came here. I mean Charlie really saved the university in terms of its academic reputation. There is no question that it had taken a downward turn and things were falling apart and so forth, and so he is really the savior of that and with just the right kind of educational values and just steady insistence on improving. And he is right: You know the people here, they are excellent faculty, excellent programs, and I found the same thing when I came. We were a lot better place than the people here recognized. There were people around the country that thought more highly of us than we did ourselves in many ways.
So I never felt any obligation to establish my own legacy. I mean, I honestly would rather build on what John Baker, Vernon Alden and Charlie Ping had built and to try to analyze things to say, "Where can we improve in little ways here and there and so forth?" So I guess if my legacy were to be that I continued a tradition set by these gentlemen, I would be quite pleased with that because I think we have just continued to grow in academic stature.
I think one of the things that I am proudest of, and these gentlemen can tell you that a lot of things happen during a president’s tenure that he or she has nothing to do with -- but we can take credit for it, right? Because you get blamed for stuff you didn't do. [Laughter] But I think our deans and department chairs and so forth did a great job of hiring new young faculty during my tenure. There was a big turnover and a lot of retirements and so forth during my tenure. And I was very proud of the quality of people. And in a way, I always thought that an institution or a program (can) measure its national prominence by the kind of people it can attract. No. 1 is graduate students, and no. 2 is faculty. When you get to the point where you can attract faculty from the best institutions, those that are recognized as the best, and they want to come to you, that is a good sign, and I think we got to that point. And I am very proud of the faculty that we hired during the 10 years that I was here.
Ohio Today: What would each of you like to say about Dr. Glidden's legacy?
PING: I think he came into the university at a time of transition. (He understood) the whole world of electronic communication. … I was a dinosaur in that environment, floundering in it, and I think he really made the campus a leader in being able to use contemporary technology in some very remarkable ways. I think putting computers in students' rooms, building the networks and the Bicentennial Campaign was a sort of culmination of the next stage. Each was a step along the way: John Baker planted it, Vern so well cultivated it, I began to reap some of the fruit from it, and Bob continued that and magnified it.
All universities, particularly public universities, doubled in the '50s, redoubled in the '60s, so you had a great many faculty who came on board in the '50s and the '60s, and (Ohio) had an extraordinary group. They were getting old, and during that decade (of Glidden's tenure), one of the great achievements was that quality was enhanced by the appointments that were made.
ALDEN: Right.
Continue to Section 7: A new alumni house
Return to the introduction
Posted 09-12-06 |
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