The President Next Door

Shafik’s resignation and the role of the University President.

By Chris Brown

“If [administrators] are really concerned with discovering who is doing his utmost to destroy this academically-promising, backwardly structured University, they ought to look long and hard at themselves,” read a 1968 editorial in the Spectator. The article was published immediately following the “Spring Revolution” of that April, when Columbia erupted into protest over civil rights issues and before President Grayson Kirk’s resignation. 

With Minouche Shafik’s resignation from her brief, controversial stint as Columbia’s president, the University’s highest office once again provokes heated discussion. Shafik boasts the second shortest tenure in the University’s history (trailing only Charles Henry Wharton, who never showed up to his post in 1801). But, as we return to a 1968-esque scene, we are left wondering: What should the president’s relationship with students be?

A student’s view of the university is necessarily self-centered. Of the trinity that makes up daily life—the students, the faculty, and the administration—we see ourselves as the heart of the school. Without us, there is no university. Yet we also sit lowest on the totem pole of academic life: relying on an implicit trust that our professors and the administration will facilitate our learning in a fair and safe environment.

But while professors can disappear after classes are done for the day, administration is never far out of sight. The rarely-entered Low Library at the heart of campus is a constant reminder of that presence. And though most students’ experience with their president bookends their college career—as freshmen at Convocation and at Commencement four years later—he or she is, in fact, always in view. Anyone eating at Fac House or walking on Morningside Drive is in eyesight of the President’s House, located right on campus. But despite their presence, they are impersonal and faceless; we have relationships with professors, rarely do we have them with administration.

But who our neighbor is, we have little choice in deciding. It is the Board of Trustees, the University’s behind-closed-doors decision-makers, who choose the president. When searching for someone to replace President Lee Bollinger after his retirement, the board publicly described their ideal candidate: someone with “a vision for the University” who “is known for important advances in their field of study.” Simultaneously, they sought someone to “represent the University impeccably” and “be a passionate and effective fundraiser.” 

Illustration by Ben Fu

Which brings us back to President Shafik. Chosen by the Board and implanted among us, her appointment prompted the typical reaction to administrative decisions: jokes and quiet indifference. But she brought a clean slate, and students gave her the benefit of the doubt. Her first semester, though rocky, did not seem to indicate that a record-speed resignation was looming. But in the spring, amidst a student body that truly erupted for the first time in 40 years, our new neighbor left with nobody satisfied.

Columbia and her presidents are no strangers to student criticism and protest. Bollinger saw multiple major protests during his two-decade-long tenure, including an eight-day occupation of Low Library and multiple sit-ins. Eisenhower, during his five-year tenure before accepting the Presidency of the United States, was frequently called “absentee” due to his work in Washington and his time spent golfing in Georgia. But neither President ever faced pressure to resign like Shafik. 

Kirk is her closest analog, ending his tenure after the Spring Revolution despite insisting that he would remain. He was also the last President before Shafik to have summoned the New York Police Department to campus. Unlike Shafik, however, Kirk had spent fifteen years at his post before the fateful events of 1968. And rather than resign, he used the opportunity to announce his retirement.

So what made Shafik’s tenure different and untenable? Put simply, she had lost the trust; both the students and Board felt that she could no longer perform the job.  When she first ordered the NYPD onto campus in April, there was a palpable feeling of betrayal among the students. Thousands watched as the student protesters were arrested. The academic bubble had popped. No longer was discord at Columbia an internal issue; it had been opened up to the world.

Neighborly trust was shattered. Columbia was in the national news; politicians arrived on campus while students were locked out. Shafik’s emails were met with dread. The president had positioned herself in conflict with her students. Where before the Office of the President had been an afterthought, it was now an object of resentment. 

This was how the school year ended. Seniors were denied a full graduation, which had been an administrative justification throughout the entire conflict. Those of us who weren’t seniors finished up our classes (largely online) and were sent back home. But the scars on campus and the collective psyche remained. Maybe we were misguided to envision the resident of the President’s Mansion as having our best interests in mind. It is not too much to ask, however, that alongside her fundraising ability and vision, the president of our University should do no harm to her students.

As we inaugurate another school year and a new president, perhaps the administration and highest office will return to their place: back of mind. As we move on, it’s worth remembering words from nearly 60 years ago. Going into the fall of 1968, Jerry Avorn, CC ’69, wrote on the front page of Spectator: “In a community in which the process of change has become the status quo, it is reassuring to see that a few constants are left. The uneasy smile, the stiff freshly-bought suits, the clinging overdressed mothers, the look of optimistic awe–despite the Spring Revolution, these eternal traditions of Freshman week returned to campus yesterday, innocent, naive, and unblemished.” Though few will be wearing suits, it is important to retain and nurture some of that optimistic awe. Love thy neighbor.