The scandal involving Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick has little to do with his "inappropriate" sexual relationship. For that relationship, according to a report in The Seattle Times, was "the final straw in a series of disappointments over McCormick's performance" as president at the University of Washington. It was only this last straw, as the president of the UW Board of Regents admitted, that led him to encourage McCormick "to reconsider the opportunity at Rutgers."
The Rutgers Board of Governors, never questioning McCormick's sudden change of heart and neglecting to conduct the thorough investigation the situation so obviously demanded, took over UW's problem. Many alumni were reminded of the circumstances about which insistent rumors circulated at the time the BOG selected McCormick's predecessor, Francis L. Lawrence. Eamon Kelly, then president of Tulane University, was said to have given Lawrence one year to find a new position elsewhere. The Board of Governors stepped into the breach, with one of its most powerful members personally championing his candidacy.
Setting aside the question of how much truth there was to these rumors, it's worth recalling now because the latest news about McCormick points to a similar scenario. According to Seattle Times press reports, many of the reasons the UW trustees wanted to get rid of McCormick had to do not only with his performance but with a series of simmering athletic scandals: the firing of football coach Rick Neuheisel in the wake of a gambling episode, the NCAA's decision to put the UW basketball program on probation for recruiting violations and the recent investigation of a UW team physician for supplying players with illegal steroids and lying about his medical credentials. This was the same athletic program new President McCormick proudly pointed to as the corruption-free model Rutgers would follow under his administration. Yet no member of the BOG saw fit to ask any very searching questions about UW athletics.
It is possible to see the major problem at Rutgers, in short, as simply the latest in a series of failures in university governance. Recognizing that governance was at the heart of the University's decline in recent years, several fellow alumni and I met with McCormick last spring to discuss a White Paper we had composed on the structure of university governance.
The White Paper documented the history and current status of the system for selecting members of the BOG. It also proposed specific measures for mending the structural flaws in the system. Executive Summaries were shared with several current and former board members. Our proposals specifically included: multiple nominations for trustee seats by open ballot sent to all Rutgers alumni, increasing non-alumni representation on boards, shorter terms of appointment and elimination of "perpetual trusteeships" through designated "emeritus trustees." These and other proposals were directed at removing the perception of cronyism and inside control that has for so long discouraged the best of our society's leaders from serving Rutgers and the citizens of New Jersey.
That is why we are especially disheartened by the recent controversy surrounding McCormick's presidency. In the light of recent events, prospects for bringing even the modest changes in governance that we have proposed are dim indeed. As with their previous support of a badly compromised Francis Lawrence, the BOG has now circled its wagons and taken McCormick into its protective fold. He is therefore in no position to exercise the kind of independent judgment and principled leadership needed to initiate a process of meaningful change. Instead, he finds himself deeply in debt to those with very little grasp either of the issues involved in this latest scandal or, more importantly, of the academic and intellectual values that ought to be at the center of Rutgers as an institution.
The real crisis at Rutgers has nothing to do with the legacy of Francis Lawrence, the sexual peccadillos of Richard McCormick, or even with the fact that Rutgers is fast gaining a reputation as a dumping ground for administrators unwanted by other institutions. It has to do with the process through which members are appointed to the BOG. Rutgers and the citizens of New Jersey deserve better. They need, and should demand, a BOG made up of members of national stature, men and women who have achieved genuine distinction in a variety of fields and who have the competence and breadth of vision it will take to move Rutgers to take its place among the top public institutions of higher learning in the country. It was towards that goal that our White Paper was intended to make a modest beginning.
There is a simple way of seeing where Rutgers stands today. Should Richard McCormick resign tomorrow, it is this same BOG who would choose the next president. That, it seems to me, is an alarming prospect and the real problem that urgently demands attention.
Rudolph S. Rasin, a 1953 graduate of Rutgers College and a president of Alliance Brands LLC and Rasin Corp. He is a member of the Poetry Foundation, which publishes Poetry Magazine.
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