TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081291/0812120.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.8 KB | 83 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 57

Putting the School First


Stanford's Donald Kennedy steps down gracefully in the wake of
scandal


    Perhaps nothing in Donald Kennedy's distinguished career
became him like the leaving of it. Last week the Stanford
University president took a step that has become all too rare
in modern American life: he resigned with grace and dignity
under pressure. His departure, effective at the end of the
coming academic year, is the outgrowth of the festering scandal
in which the university has been accused of overbilling the
Federal Government as much as $200 million for research expenses
during the 1980s. But there was no smoking gun, no dramatic new
revelation, no public ultimatum to prompt his surprise
abdication after 11 years in office. Instead, as he explained
at a valedictory press conference, "I'm the chief executive
officer of the institution, and, as has been said, you bear
responsibility when you have that job."

    Responsibility has become a word almost un-American in its
connotations. Japanese executives symbolically step down when
the good name of their company becomes besmirched. But the
American style is to gut it out stubbornly, blame overzealous
subordinates or no one in particular ("Mistakes were made") and
equate resignation with personal culpability. Kennedy, to be
sure, had become the personification of the Stanford scandal;
the university's aggressive billing techniques had included
calculating as research overhead such expenditures as the cost
of sheets, flowers and antiques for the presidential residence.
No one had accused Kennedy of personal gain or even knowledge
about the accounting practices. Against this background, there
was something admirable about Kennedy's conceding in his letter
to the trustees, "It is very difficult, I have concluded, for
a person identified with a problem to be the spokesman for its
solution."

    Until recently, Kennedy's style had been stiff-necked in
the extreme. So far, Stanford has offered to return $1.35
million to the government. Kennedy scoffed at resignation in
interviews during Stanford's spring commencement. But six weeks
of consultations and soul-searching convinced him of the folly
of such a stubborn posture. As David Hamburg, a Stanford trustee
and president of the Carnegie Corporation, put it, "He decided
as a sort of symbol of the troubles, he'd better step aside,
even though he loved the position and the university."

    These days, perhaps only a masochist can fully enjoy the
job of a university president. One of Kennedy's most
far-reaching achievements -- broadening the content of the
required Western Culture courses to be more inclusive of women
and minority writers -- became a lightning rod for conservative
attacks. Stanford faces a $95 million deficit in its two-year
budget, even if the university avoids being forced to make a
major repayment to the government. Kennedy plans to spend the
next year focusing on this financial crunch. Faced with
austerity, faculty members have their own grievances, and some
even complain of Kennedy's emphasis on undergraduate education
at the expense of research. William Spicer, a professor of
electrical engineering, grumbles, "Don Kennedy has truly lost
the confidence of the faculty, and that being the case,
everyone, including him, realized that it didn't make any sense
to stay."

    But that is precisely the point: Kennedy had the courage
and vision to subordinate his ego for the good of the
institution he nurtured. His high-minded leavetaking contains
a lesson that should not be lost on Kennedy's counterparts in
academia, business and government.

    -- By Walter Shapiro. With reporting by Minal
Hajratwala/New York and Robert Hollis/San Francisco