| Photo by Jane Scherr |
David Gardner Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 3 of 7
What does a university president do?
One of the great mysteries! It depends in part on the institution, whether it's public or private. It depends on the size and character of the institution. It depends on the institution's culture. It depends on whether it's a single campus or a multi-campus, such as the University of California. It depends on the state in which it's located. And where it's located -- is it in the state capital or in a rural community?
So it's very hard to generalize, but I'll try and do so, for public universities especially:
These are public entities. They're created by the people, for the benefit of
the people, and we should never forget that. And if we have a tendency to take
account of our own independence and autonomy in ways that disregard that
fundamental reality, in the end the social contract with the people will be
breached. What I mean by that is that universities require a high degree of
independence, a high degree of autonomy. They really need to have control over who's
admitted, what courses are offered, what constitutes grounds for awarding a
degree, who's employed on the faculty, who's advanced to tenure, who's
promoted, who isn't, who is awarded degrees, the standards in the classroom. Those are decisions that the university needs to be able to
make without interference from the outside. They need to be accountable for
those decisions. They need to explain those decisions. But the locus of
authority to make those decisions rests with the institution.
Now, the public is willing to give that authority and independence to the university in exchange for something else. And what the public wants (in my view at least) is impartial scholarship, not polemics. They want attention to teaching. They want credibility and integrity in the research. They want what the university knows to be shared with the public, in the public service sense of that term. And there are certain expectations the public has as to the behavior of these institutions [and those who work and study], and the integrity of their work. If those are breached, the public will then soon withdraw the autonomy and independence [needed by the university to do its work].
We saw that in the free speech movement. We saw it in the antiwar demonstrations [in the late 1960s]. We saw it in the oath controversy. Each one of those events, and others I could mention but won't, cost the university in terms of public regard, public respect, and also in money and resources. So there's a price to be paid when the university breaches its own obligations. There's also a price to be paid when the public is overbearing, or through its elected representatives in Sacramento seeks on its own initiative to breach the contract by directing the university with respect to certain issues.
Only the University of Michigan and one or two other universities in the country have what the University of California also possesses, which is a university created by the constitution of the state, not by statute. So in California we have the executive branch of the state government, we have the legislative branch of the state government, we have the judicial branch of the state government, and we have a fourth branch of government, and that's the University of California. Article 9, section IX of the constitution creates the institution and gives unqualified authority to the Regents to govern it, and puts on the Regents the burden of keeping it free, in its internal affairs, from political and sectarian influence. So whenever it breaches that, the constitutional position of the university is at risk. But we're very fortunate. When the legislature appropriates money to the University of California, it cannot earmark it. It can only give us so much money. It doesn't have to give us the money, but when the money's given they cannot earmark it. Now we have informal understandings, but they cannot be formal. So, in terms of the management, it depends upon all of these considerations and principles.
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