E-Mail This Article to a Friend Mystified Former NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin has been named Boston University’s next president. Why? BY STEPHEN M. MINDICH

WHEN IT WAS announced last week that Boston University’s board of trustees had named former NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin the university’s next president, I must admit that I, for one, was disappointed. I had, in truth, been disappointed the week before when the pool of finalists was announced. With the exception of law-school dean Ronald Cass — whom I happen to know personally and whom I thought would be a first-rate choice — I was unfamiliar and less than impressed with any of them.

You see, I am a BU alum. And I don’t mean to take anything away from Goldin — or from any of the finalists, all of whom, I presume, must have a lot more to recommend them than was readily apparent to me. But somehow, perhaps stemming from nothing more than school pride, I expected the search committee to name a president of truly great and immediately recognizable stature to carry on where John Silber would leave off. Whatever one thinks of Dr. Silber — and there is no one with any interest in this subject who doesn’t think something about John Silber — there is no question that over the more than three decades of his stewardship, (1971–2003), in nearly every important way, he raised the standards of BU such that today it stands among the finest private universities in the country.

So when Goldin, 62, was named BU’s next president, I couldn’t quite understand: why him? Yes, I’ve read of his background and learned something about his successes at NASA. I recognize that as the longest tenured head of NASA, from 1992 to 2001, he was reputed by many to be a solid administrator of the science-based government agency and a successful lobbyist who kept most of NASA’s projects funded by Congress. In both regards, I can see his potential value for BU. But as BU president, Goldin will assume many more responsibilities for which he has no experience or credentials whatsoever. That, coupled with a few not-so-favorable reports on his management style and performance at NASA, rouses my disappointment and consternation.

To be sure, a July 12 Boston Globe article quoted several former colleagues and associates who praised Goldin for his "vision and tenacity." More, however, pointed to his abrasiveness and absolutism. Indeed, a July 11 report in the New York Times cites failures of management over time, obviously including the period of Goldin’s tenure, as partly responsible for the circumstances leading to the space shuttle Columbia’s deadly accident in February. As the Globe article put it, "Goldin ... is a controversial leader whose abrasive, top-down management style alienated subordinates at NASA, while his ‘faster, better, cheaper’ philosophy raised concerns about safety, according to former NASA officials who worked with him." Given this developing picture of the new president, the trustees’ choice, and Silber’s presumptive sign-off, are even more puzzling.

Perhaps the most revealing answer to the question, "Why Goldin?" comes from Christopher Barreca, the 74-year-old Connecticut lawyer and long-term trustee who was recently elected chair of BU’s board. "We’ve had that kind of leadership, and it has done great things for BU," Barreca told the Globe. The new BU president, he continued, "is obviously an achiever, and achievers do not please everyone." Here, Barreca implies that Goldin’s style and temperament are comparable to Silber’s. Yet how odd, out of touch, even patronizing. For John Silber’s one paramount flaw, it is universally acknowledged, is that he exercises precisely "that kind" of leadership style. That the trustees, or at least the board’s chair, set out to find a candidate with Goldin’s style (he already may have had Goldin in mind), was presaged in an interview Barreca gave to the university house organ, the B.U. Bridge, soon after he was unanimously elected chairman of the board in January. In it, Barreca commented on Silber’s tenacity: "In some people’s eyes, [Silber] is a controversial figure, but it’s only because he has always been a fighter. And in his position, sometimes you need to be."

Of course, John Silber also brought to his position a long list of extraordinarily positive qualities that he used to vault BU to its current high status. It’s hard to see how Goldin fits that bill.

Take, for example, the crucial matter of fundraising. The university is about to launch a billion-dollar capital campaign, the largest in its history. We all know that fundraising is among the major responsibilities of any university president. (Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Globe columnist Joan Vennochi, in one of her several screeds against UMass president Bill Bulger, essentially argued that fundraising was, for all meaningful purposes, a university president’s only job.) Now, raising a billion dollars from BU alumni would be no easy matter under the best of circumstances, let alone for a new president who, among other seeming weaknesses in his rŽsumŽ, has no connection to or personal experience with the university or its alumni.

We all also know (except Vennochi, apparently) that a university president sets the tone and direction of the institution’s every single move. From its academic standards and the quality of its faculty to the politics of a university’s place within the community, the president is the university’s chief standard bearer. A university president is charged with reconciling everything from the financial needs of the institution’s various schools and colleges to making certain that current students and alumni alike feel good about their university. The way I see it, the president of a major university must have a "feel" for and an understanding of everything the institution comprises. That means he or she must be genuinely comfortable talking with the faculties of the English, theater, and music departments, as well as with those in the sciences and the business and law schools.

With all due respect to Goldin, I see nothing in his history to suggest such breadth of experience — or even, I dare say, a deeply felt passion for diverse subjects and responsibilities. In fact, he has no academic credentials and no previous experience in — let alone experience running — an educational institution. Not only that, but beyond raising money from Congress for NASA, Goldin has never led a major fundraising effort for anything, anywhere. At least as reported, his CV doesn’t seem to indicate personal interest in anything more than "extraterrestrial life." Nor does it list personal accomplishments in music, art, literature, or even sports. Thus, I remain confused by and disappointed in the BU trustees’ choice — which I presume was also Silber’s.

In my puzzlement, I reached out to a culturally and politically savvy insider who is familiar with the higher reaches of university politics. My source, who requested anonymity due to a current professional position, at first responded somewhat cynically: "It’s because that’s who Gerald Cassidy wanted." For those who, like me, don’t travel in the world of academic administration, Gerald S.J. Cassidy is a BU board member, a well-known Washington, DC, lobbyist, and a close long-time adviser to John Silber. It is well known in these circles (and has been broadly reported) that for some time now, BU has made major efforts to secure substantial government grants, such as the recently canceled $89 million NASA-satellite grant. The school has also relied heavily on the feds to develop many of its cutting-edge science programs. According to my source, Cassidy’s fingerprints are all over Goldin’s selection. Indeed, press reports seem to bear out the notion that Cassidy, though not on the search committee, was heavily involved in convincing the board that Goldin was the right choice.

He must have been pretty persuasive, since nontraditional academic presidential appointments, while on the rise, are hardly common — and for good reasons, reasons with which BU’s trustees must be familiar. Indeed, the May/June issue of Trusteeship, the magazine of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, addressed the matter just recently. (When I served as a college trustee, I received an unsolicited subscription to Trusteeship, so in all likelihood the entire BU board of trustees gets the publication as well.) The issue includes a letter signed by Theodore Marchese, of the Academic Search Consulting Service in Washington, DC, who my source describes as "a seasoned pro in the higher-ed field." Marchese writes, in part: "... 88 percent of all collegiate boards electing a new president these days choose an academic insider.... Investigators looking at the history of appointments of nontraditional chief executives have found that they usually don’t work out well [emphasis added].... Still, a sizable 12 percent of collegiate boards concluded recent presidential searches with a nontraditional appointment — a number twice as high as it was a decade ago.... [B]ehind this impulse often lies an unspoken but false idea that we can fund-raise our way out of our problems, or if we lobbied better those appropriations would flow again. What gets ignored is all the other things a president must be: academic leader, market strategist, communicator of vision, staff developer, and so on — functions that benefit mightily from on-campus experience.... A seasoned insider is more likely to know the industry — the unwritten rules, how its games work, where the bodies are, what ‘better’ is, and how to take a college there."

Assuming that the university and Goldin can come to an agreement over the terms of his contract — and even announcing his appointment before concluding that delicate process is also rather unusual — Daniel Goldin will become the next president of Boston University. (According to Alex Beam’s Tuesday Globe column, the terms still being "negotiated" concern the role, or more precisely, the non-role John Silber is to play after Goldin assumes the presidency, and not with Goldin’s salary — which Beam reported as an astonishing $750,000, exceeding even Silber’s.) And maybe, if his "connections" in Washington are strong enough, say, to salvage the canceled NASA contract, his appointment might be successful. But for me, a university alum whose son is also a graduate, Goldin’s appointment doesn’t swell my chest with pride. And I wonder if any leading university has ever appointed as president a person whose principal qualification is that he headed a government agency? Even the diminutive Donna Shalala, who became president of the University of Miami following her stint as President Clinton’s secretary of health and human services, had a long academic record, most recently as president of the University of Wisconsin. As my source said to me, "A first-rate university might appoint the former head of NASA to a lectureship in its school of government, but not as its president."

Time may prove my misgivings about Goldin’s appointment unjustified. But right now, my alma mater doesn’t feel like the great university it seemed to be just a week or two ago.

Stephen M. Mindich is publisher and chair of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group.