University President Lawrence Bacow is a great guy.
This is not something we hear a lot at Tufts. A university president is an obvious target for anybody with complaints about a school. And everybody, it seems, has complaints.
Overall, however, Tufts has thrived during Bacow's tenure. Admission at Tufts is increasingly selective. Student satisfaction and retention ratings are high. Tufts students enjoy great opportunities for research, study abroad and exposure to an international perspective. Former U.S. presidents speak here on a regular basis. And Tufts continues to grow and innovate. The Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, established last fall by the largest donation in University history, is an unusually creative and progressive university investment. Tufts has had a good few years.
Of course, Bacow is not always responsible when things go well at Tufts. But he routinely gets held responsible when things go badly, whether or not he is at fault. To an extent, this is his job. But the concerns and complaints lobbed at Bacow range from the serious to the very, very trivial.
At a meeting with Wren Hall residents in 2003, for example, Bacow was asked what he was going to do to address the issue of skunks living underneath the Wren Hall bridge. Bacow wryly told the student that the skunks were not under his jurisdiction. When students whine about minutiae, Bacow typically handles their concerns with understatement and grace.
More importantly, Bacow handles serious matters with care. He has a demanding constituency - parents, students and trustees - with diffuse interests. Students want Tufts to be more fun, trustees want Tufts to be better-endowed and everyone wants Tufts to be less expensive.
In addition to trying to address all of these groups' concerns, Bacow deals with the governments and citizens of Medford and Somerville. He goes to Washington and talks to the scary people there about federal funding for education. He runs marathons. He battles heart conditions. He gets up before 6 a.m. every day. Bacow is an impressive man.
Bacow gets a lot of sass for various perceived injustices. Tufts students alternately accuse him of trying to dismantle the Greek system, ruin the Naked Quad Run and generally make Tufts an autocratic fun-free zone. But reality does not bear out these accusations.
The Naked Quad Run is as alive, well and naked as ever. Many of the problems the Greek system has encountered in recent years have been self-generated - hazing, more than a puritanical administrative conspiracy, has been behind the probations of Chi Omega and Delta Tau Delta. If the Tufts social scene is boring or dying, it is up to Tufts students to enliven or revive it.
Like relocating skunks, providing students with fun is not in Bacow's job description. But he's doing well with everything that is.
