| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Robert Berdahl Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 3 of 6
At a certain point you chose in your career to move away from history and into university administration. I'm curious: to what extent do the skills of the historian stay with you as you have assumed this role of leadership in research universities?
Well, I think that we're all influenced by our disciplines. I have known a lot of people in academic administration from different disciplines, watched them operate, and I think we all come to problems with a mind-set that is shaped, to some extent, by the kind of disciplinary orientation that we've had. I'll never forget when I was an associate dean and we were pushing through a curriculum change in the college. The dean, who was a chemist, thought it was patently obvious what was the right thing to do, and I said, "But the politics aren't going to permit that." I viewed some of these issues from a standpoint of power politics and he viewed them from a standpoint of how you mix and match and put together the best kind of curriculum. And so I think there is a way in which what one studies shapes how one views administration.
I accidentally got into administration. I did not intend to. I was asked to come into the college on a three year stint in Oregon to lead a curriculum development. And I did that and then went back to my department, was subsequently asked to come back as dean, and decided that I'd enjoyed that. And so I sort of drifted into administration. I don't know if it was a conscious decision or not, but at some point I had drifted so far that there was no going back.
What skills are required, do you think, to run a public university?
Well, I'm sure there are a lot of skills and most of us in these kinds
of positions have only a few of them. 
I think probably the most important
factor that shapes or determines success -- I shouldn't say the most important
factor; the most important factor that shapes success is probably luck! But I
think the thing that is really critical in these positions is the sense of
values that we hold that are core values. That is, those things that we will
cling to even when it costs us to cling to them. I think that's implicit in
leadership of any institution. And if there's anything wrong with the way in
which American institutions have been driven it is the sort of market mentality
that you do what the polls tell you. I think that leadership is ultimately a
moral endeavor. So knowing what the values are that you hold dear about a
university is a kind of plumb line that is really the most important
characteristic.
Beyond that, I think the ability to live with ambiguity is important, because
there's no issue that can easily be resolved in clear, black and white terms.
The world is quite gray. Knowing what one really holds to be true and important
in that gray world is, I think, fundamental. But being able to live with the
ambiguity is also important. The thing that most of us aren't trained in (because we're all amateurs; every university president came out of the faculty with their primary experience being in research and teaching), is management. Management skills are important, because these are big, complex institutions that require a degree of management as well. I mean, they're big
operations with a business side and the need to control costs, and all of those
things that affect management.
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