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ALI SHEHZAD ZAIDI has written for Z, Against The Current, Dollars & Sense, Covert Action Quarterly and Monthly Review. His essay on the September 1998 strike at Syracuse University can be read at www.monthlyreview.org/999zaidi.htm. The author wishes to thank the Syracuse University Library for the use of its archives.
"The Successful President"
IN 1999, THE INFLUENTIAL AMERICAN COUNCIL OF EDUCATION published a primer on university leadership by one of its board directors, Kenneth Shaw, Chancellor of Syracuse University (SU). Dedicated to "academic leaders... who have created the world's best system of higher education," The Successful President is the linchpin of a buoyant success narrative presenting SU, a private research university in central New York, as a bold experiment in educational innovation. Representing organizational change in a societal vacuum, Shaw's success narrative is persuasive only to the extent that it conceals the decline of community, the looting of the academy, and such corollaries to the successful president as unsuccessful adjuncts, unsuccessful secretaries, unsuccessful librarians, unsuccessful custodians, and unsuccessful cafeteria workers.
SU, renowned for its top-ranked football and basketball teams, also vaunts five core values: quality, diversity, caring, innovation, and service. Visiting SU in July 2001 to interview Shaw, I researched the militarization, corporatization, and decline of the humanities at SU, developments related to the raw capitalism also transforming the city of Syracuse. Shaw proved to be an able communicator of a vision common to chief executive officers at research universities in the United States.
Before becoming SU Chancellor in 1991, Shaw had had a long career as university administrator, including a stint as president of the University of Wisconsin system. As he climbed the higher education ladder, Shaw found that his jokes became funnier. This humor is particularly evident in The Successful President. Executive profit sharing at research universities comes into sharp relief when Shaw advises prospective university presidents that the time to leave has come when "your board provides a Yugo as your company car." For those "experiencing the highs and lows of leadership," Shaw provides a concise definition of class in the words of a song that goes, "sometimes you're windshield, sometimes you're the bug." (17, 117, 120)
Restructuring The University
THE 1990 SEARCH COMMITTEE deliberately sought a sense of humor in the new...