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The New Man Takes Command
As Yale’s 22nd President, Richard C. Levin inherits an institution that has been steadied by a year under Acting President Howard Lamar. But problems with finances, dilapidated buildings, and an ailing host city have not gone away.
Summer 1993
by Jennifer Kaylin
Jennifer Kaylin, a former reporter for the New Haven Register, is a regular contributor to this magazine.
About
fifteen years ago, when Richard C. Levin was a bright but still relatively
unknown economics professor, A. Bartlett Giamatti, then beginning his stay
in Woodbridge Hall, perceived something exceptional in the young man.
Confiding to the headmaster of the school Levin’s children attended,
Giamatti prophesied: “Someday, he’s going to be President of Yale.”
“That
story is getting to be like the one about who was in Yankee Stadium when Babe
Ruth hit his last home run,” chuckles Levin, clearly a little embarrassed as he
shifts uncomfortably on the sofa in his office and runs his hand down his tie.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come out of the woodwork to tell me they
heard the same thing from Giamatti.”
Still,
whether the story is mere mythology or an example of uncanny prescience, it can
only help Levin as he takes over as Yale’s 22nd President to be linked to one
of his most beloved predecessors. And there is a further link. As the Babe Ruth
remark might suggest, Levin, like Giamatti, is an ardent baseball fan, a fact
underscored during the April 15 press conference announcing his appointment
when he declared that “before today, I would say the most exciting day in my
life was the day the Giants moved to San Francisco.”
But
it’s more than the associations with Giamatti and the all-American game that
has members of the Yale community feeling more optimistic than they have in at
least a year. Although some thought it curious that an exhaustive ten-month
search would ultimately tap somebody from Yale’s own backyard, Levin is widely
viewed as a wise choice. More a number-cruncher than a wordsmith, Levin, at 46,
is seen as a highly intelligent and skillful administrator who possesses an
insider’s knowledge of Yale, a sound understanding of the University’s economic
needs, a keen respect for scholarship, and a youthful energy. Known as “Rick”
to colleagues, friends, and students, Levin is described as a good listener and
an easygoing, accessible teacher. One colleague said that in the scores of
meetings he watched Levin conduct over the years, he never once saw the
economist lose his temper.
Yet
Levin’s résumé offers far more than credentials as an affable insider. A native
of San Francisco, Levin has studied on both coasts and abroad. His father was a
sales executive for a liquor importer, and his mother’s family owned a company
that supplied costumes to local theatrical groups and helped spark Levin’s
enduring interest in opera. (When Levin’s not listening to Mozart during his
severely limited spare time, he’s playing basketball with his New Haven
neighbors, who say he’s got a formidable jump shot.)
The
new President attended Stanford as a member of the class of 1968, and during
his sophomore year studied at the university’s campus in Florence. It was there
that he met his future wife, Jane Ellen Aries, who was also a Stanford
sophomore. They were married a week after graduation and went on to study at
Oxford, where Bill Clinton, ’73JD, was then enrolled as a Rhodes scholar.
Levin, who says his contact with the future United States president was only
passing, terms himself an “A.O.B. (Acquaintance of Bill),”
rather than a member of that elite cadre known as “F.O.B. (Friends of Bill).”
Levin
went on to earn a PhD in economics at Yale in 1974, and was named to the
economics faculty that same year. He has since become nationally known for his
work on industrial organization and studies of technological change and its
impact on industry. In more than two decades at Yale, he has served on several
important University committees, including the budget committee and last year’s
Faculty of Arts and Sciences restructuring committee. He also served as
chairman of the economics department from 1987 until last year, when former
President Benno C. Schmidt Jr. appointed him dean of the Graduate School.
Levin’s work as
chairman of the once-fractious economics department is often cited as the most
compelling evidence of his effectiveness as an administrator. “One of the first
things he did was to bring the parties together to think about different
solutions,” says William D. Nordhaus, an economics professor and Yale’s acting
vice president for finance and administration. “He found common ground among
the different research groups, and the problem disappeared.”
Asked about the
diplomatic magic he reportedly worked to bring both sides together, Levin
explains that he eliminated the department’s two-tiered “caste” system by
making membership in the prestigious Cowles Foundation, a Yale economics
research group, voluntary rather than selective. How did he persuade professors
to give up such a coveted honor? “Therein lies the magic,” he says with a sly
smile.
Frederick P.
Rose, ’44E, a member of the Yale Corporation, defines Levin’s selling
points another way. “Most important,” Rose says, “we were looking for a leader,
but someone whose leadership qualities were grounded in academic excellence.
And secondly, we wanted someone with administrative abilities, which calls for
diplomacy as well as an understanding of the economic impact.”
Acting
President Howard Lamar, who has led Yale since Benno Schmidt’s resignation last
May (and who officially became Yale’s 21st President by vote of the Corporation
following Levin’s selection), says it is Levin’s energy and efficiency that
convinced him the Presidency is being left in the right hands. “About a month
into my year, I had to fill an important administrative post,” Lamar recalls,
“so I appointed a search committee to be chaired by Rick.” According to Lamar,
Levin made hundreds of telephone calls, held hours of committee meetings, and
within four days had identified a candidate. “It was then that I realized he
and I should switch jobs,” Lamar says.
Marie Borroff,
a professor of English who served as counselor to the search committee (see page 44), says it was a combination of attributes that sold her on Levin. “He knows the University, his specialty is economics—which will be invaluable to
Yale at this time—and he’s a wonderfully warm, balanced person,” she says.
Levin’s
appointment also raises to four the number of presidents of Jewish descent at
Ivy League institutions—Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and now Yale—that once
limited the number of Jewish students they admitted. “It shows how far we’ve
come,” Levin told the Yale Daily News. “We’re a meritocracy. People with
ability are judged on their ability, not their backgrounds. That’s something
I’m very committed to preserving.”
Despite a
seemingly unanimous chorus of approval on its outcome, the Presidential
search—which lasted for 40 weeks and involved a total of 837 interviews—was not
without obstacles. The fact that three other universities—Duke, Columbia, and
Chicago—were all hunting for presidents at the same time only intensified the
pressure to fill the post before the “ideal” candidate was snatched up by
another school.
The search was
conducted by a 12-member committee comprised of eight trustees and four faculty
members. (No previous Presidential search had ever included faculty
representation.) The committee was chaired by Robert Wood Lynn, ’52BD. In
keeping with traditional search etiquette, this one was conducted in secrecy.
But the dearth of public information only served to fuel the rumor mill, at one
point producing a dizzying array of names of would-be contenders. Some of those
included: George Bush, ’48, George McGovern, Mario Cuomo, Paul Tsongas, ’67LLB,
Oklahoma senator and Yale trustee David Boren, ’63, University of Michigan
president James Duderstadt, ’64E, Indiana University president Thomas Ehrlich,
and Carnegie Institute president Maxine Frank Singer, ’57PhD. From within the
University, the most-mentioned names were provost Judith Rodin, Law School dean
Guido Calabresi, ’53, ’58LLB, Larned Professor of History Gaddis Smith, ’61PhD,
and economics department chairman William Brainard, ’63PhD.
When three
informal deadlines for naming the new President were missed, rumblings began in
the press that the search was in a “troubled” state, even in a “shambles,” and
that at least one candidate had turned an offer down. During the press
conference held to announce Levin’s appointment, Senior Fellow Vernon R. Loucks
Jr., ’5’, and Lynn took pains to refute these charges. Loucks stressed that
Levin was “the first choice,” “the best choice,” and “the only choice,” while
Lynn insisted that the only “trouble” associated with the search was
encountered by frustrated reporters, who, he declared, had failed to “penetrate
the confidence of the search committee.”
Those
statements did little to squelch the suspicions of some undergraduates. Says
David Leonhardt, a Yale junior and editor-in-chief of the Yale
Daily News: “Obviously, Levin wasn’t the corporation’s first
choice, and their defensiveness made it all the more clear that he wasn’t. It
doesn’t take ten months to find someone sitting under your nose.” The
newspaper’s published report that the job was turned down by Stanford history
professor David Kennedy has never been formally challenged.
Regardless of
whether Levin was the corporation’s leading choice, on July 1 he officially
took charge of Yale’s affairs, and the growing sentiment seems to be that he is
the right man at the right time. As the country’s third-oldest university has
evolved from a cozy academic fortress into a billion-dollar educational
enterprise, Yale has developed requirements for a leader that could not have
been imagined by Presidents as recent as A. Whitney Griswold, who served from
1950 to 1963. Levin’s combined talents as a respected scholar and a savvy
economist, a shrewd administrator, and a trusted insider, are seen as just what
Yale needs to lead it into the 21st century. And just as parallels between
Levin and Giamatti were eagerly drawn, so too are people quick to play up the
contrasts between Levin and his predecessor, whose six-year tenure was widely
regarded as a disappointment.
Unlike
Schmidt—who was criticized for a remote style of management, nonacademic
agenda, unpopular appointments, and frequent absences from New Haven—Levin is
seen as a consensus-builder, a friend of the faculty, and a solid local
citizen. When Schmidt last spring unveiled his controversial plan for
restructuring the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, it was Levin who was credited
with helping to defuse the tension among faculty members. It has also been
pointed out that unlike Schmidt, who holds a law degree, Levin has a PhD, which
is generally regarded as a basic ticket for a President to have punched.
Borroff says
that Levin’s wife and four children, who live in New Haven, are a welcome bonus
that comes with his appointment. (Jane Levin earned a PhD in English from Yale
in 1975 and teaches literature courses in the College.) “These may sound like
old fashioned values, but we could use a dose of that after the last six
years,” she says, alluding to the fact that Schmidt’s wife and daughter
remained in New York, giving rise to complaints that Schmidt’s was a commuter
Presidency. Indeed, trying to schedule a Saturday interview with Levin proved
difficult, not so much because of his added professional obligations, but
because his appointment book was filled with family commitments: His 8-year-old
daughter Becca had a cello lesson in the morning, followed by a soccer game; in
the afternoon, son Daniel, 17, had a lacrosse game. “These are things I don’t
want to lose touch with,” Levin says.
There seems
little doubt, then, that Levin possesses many of the qualifications and
attributes desirable in a Yale President for the 1990s. But whether he can
solve the lingering problems that plague the 11,000-student campus is unclear,
and given the size of the task, even his most ardent supporters are tempering
their enthusiasm with caution. Will he, for example, be an effective
fundraiser, as was Schmidt, lauded even by his detractors for his wizardry at
bringing in $590 million during a recession? Given Levin’s lack of experience
running a large organization and as a national spokesman, his talents in those
vital areas are also largely untested.
Sheila
Wellington, who was appointed Yale’s secretary by Schmidt and left office last
month, says that in addition to the obvious problems—a projected $22-million
budget deficit in 1993–94, diminished federal funding, the highest tuition and
fees in the Ivy League ($25,110), the need for campus renovation, and the
persistent social and economic problems of New Haven—Levin faces some
overarching challenges. “For starters,” Wellington says, “he must preserve
Yale’s intimate family feeling, which makes it unique. Kingman Brewster used to
say that everyone wants to see the head waiter. Well, that’s very
time-consuming, to maintain that intimacy of involvement with faculty,
students, staff, and the city.” Beyond that, Wellington says the greatest
challenge of the Presidency is to avoid getting lost in the thicket of
day-to-day responsibilities. “You’ve got to stay focused on the larger issues,”
she says.
Although Howard
Lamar has been widely praised for rebuilding a sense of collegiality at Yale
during his year as Acting President, he was faulted by his critics for what
they saw as an overeagerness to preserve harmony. Evidence that Levin is
willing to weather opposition and take tough stands when necessary can be found
in his handling of the Graduate Students and Employees Organization (GESO), which last spring demanded health
benefits and higher wages for some teaching assistants. When these demands were
turned down by the dean, the group sought to file a grievance, a move that
Levin also blocked.
“Frankly, I’m
quite surprised by the position he’s taken” says Corey Robin, a political
science graduate student and GESO chairman. “I worry that the true colors of the new administration have really
been revealed. He could have sent a message of respect and fair treatment if he
had let this process go forward, but he chose instead to obstruct it.” Levin
counters that GESO was seeking an
inappropriate way to solve its problems. “They were trying to take an issue of
policy and subject it to the grievance procedure,” he says. “We can still
discuss the issues if they want, but the grievance process is not the right
channel.”
Tough talk. But
as Levin well knows, a dust-up with GESO shrinks in comparison with the other problems he’ll face as President.
Beyond those mentioned by Wellington lies the fundamental question of whether
Yale is losing ground to some of its competitors. Just three years ago, Yale
ranked number-one in U.S. News & World Report’s annual
rating of America’s top universities. Those ratings are widely ridiculed by
educators who criticize their methodology, but administrators and applicants
concede that they can make a difference in an institution’s image. This year’s
poll placed Yale third behind Harvard and Princeton. And whatever the validity
of the ratings, Harvard and Dartmouth both enjoyed hikes in the number of
applications this year, while Yale experienced a 1.7 percent drop in the
overall number of applicants, and a 12 percent drop in applicants for early
admission.
Adding to the
image problem, Vernon Loucks Jr., who in addition to his role on the
Presidential search committee is spearheading Yale’s $1.5-billion fundraising
campaign, has been drawn into a very public controversy. In March, Baxter
International, Inc., the company Loucks heads, pleaded guilty to a felony
charge of violating the U.S. law against cooperating with the Arab boycott of
Israel. Although Loucks himself was not charged with any wrongdoing, student
groups and the mediagenic Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz, a 1962
graduate of the Yale School of Law, have called on him to resign his Yale
posts.
Sitting in his
austere office in the Hall of Graduate Studies, Levin exudes a soft-spoken
confidence that he’s up to the task of meeting these and any other challenges
that may be thrown in his path.
“First of all,
you will not hear anybody saying, ‘Where’s Rick?’ I intend to be very much a
fixture on campus,” he says, referring to the campus taunt, “Where’s Benno?”
that bedeviled Schmidt throughout his administration. Although Levin says he
recognizes the importance of fundraising, he says he plans to involve the
University’s officers and administrators to a larger extent so that he won’t
have to take as many trips away from campus.
His top
on-campus priorities include picking up where Schmidt left off on renovating
many of the campus buildings. He also hopes to eliminate the budget deficit
within five years by reducing support services and administrative operations
and downsizing several departments as recommended by last year’s restructuring
committee. “The whole process will involve lots of people and widespread
discussions, not orders coming down from on high,” he says.
Working with New
Haven officials to help solve some of the city’s severe economic problems is
another of Levin’s goals. The importance he places on fostering constructive
town-gown relations was made evident during the April 15 press conference.
Asked by a reporter what his first act would be as President, Levin replied
that it would be to shake the hand of New Haven mayor John Daniels, who had
been invited to the event. In light of the facts that a Yale undergraduate was
murdered two years ago, that New Haven’s poverty continues to affect the
security of the Yale campus, and that all of New Haven’s problems are
reportedly making it harder for Yale to recruit both faculty and students, that
gesture took on more than diplomatic importance.
But Levin also
hopes to be an advocate for Yale specifically and higher education in general
outside the confines of New Haven and Connecticut. “There’s a mood of
anti-intellectualism out there that I want to challenge,” he says. “I want to
send a new message about the value of higher education. In a poor economy
there’s a tendency to think colleges should be more vocationally oriented,
training students for specific jobs. But the burdens of being a responsible
citizen with a real breadth of knowledge and the ability to think critically are
greater now than ever.” He also hopes to be a strong voice for increased
federal funding for research universities: “I believe the case needs to be
reasserted that the cutting that has taken place in the past few years is very
shortsighted.”
It’s an ambitious
agenda, even without factoring in the countless unanticipated issues that will
inevitably crop up to divert an administrator from his course. For example,
Levin will immediately have to turn his attention to filling some high-level
administrative posts. He has to name a new secretary of the University, a new
vice president for finance and administration, and he’ll have to find someone
to replace himself as dean of the Graduate School.
Nevertheless,
Levin supporters say he’s up to the task. “A real mensch” is how Craig Albert,
a fifth-year graduate student for whom Levin serves as a doctoral adviser,
describes the new President. “He’s a substantial person. He’s been here long
enough and seen the problems that have developed over the last six years. I think
he’ll do a good job.”
Gerald Jaynes,
professor of economics and chairman of African and Afro-American studies,
played softball with Levin for six years and coached Little League with him.
“You really get to see a person’s temperament, what kind of man he is, when you
play ball with him,” Jaynes says. He describes Levin as “very competitive,
while always maintaining fairness.” Jaynes recalls that, as a Little League
coach, Levin was under pressure from parents to give the best athletes more
playing time. “But Rick stuck by his guns,” says Jaynes. “He made sure all the
boys got equal time.”
While nearly
everyone on the campus seems optimistic about Levin, many add that he has
received a tremendous boost from Lamar, who expended great energy over the past
year calming the waters after Schmidt’s turbulent tenure. “Lamar has done a
good job of improving morale and pulling this place out of its funk,” concedes
the News’s Leonhardt.
Lamar himself
says he’s pleased that he was able to accomplish some goals and not serve
merely as a caretaker President. He notes that he took about 15 major
fundraising trips and that by June, the capital fund drive was slightly ahead
of schedule and had already passed its halfway mark of $750 million. Lamar also
named Richard Brodhead, ’68, to serve as dean of Yale College, appointed a
search committee for a new athletics director to replace the retiring Edward
Woodsum, and empaneled an urban advisory committee to develop ideas for
revitalizing New Haven.
In many ways,
the avuncular Lamar—who speaks in gentle tones of “civility,” “leisured
excellence,” and “traditional Yale”—represents the old style of university
president. Levin, who attended college during the upheavals of the 1960s and
whose field of expertise is rooted in fiscal reality, could well represent the
new.
How effective
that new style will be in dealing with the weighty problems confronting Yale
remains to be seen. It will undoubtedly be a massive job, but in taking it on
Levin may be aided most of all by an attitude he expressed at the news
conference announcing his new responsibilities. Having begun his speech by
saying, “I am honored to accept the invitation of the Yale Corporation to serve
as Yale’s President,” he concluded by dparting from his text and adding, “I
love this place.”  |
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