[579] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Bacow to leave MIT?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Linda M Yu)
Wed May 9 08:20:42 2001
Message-Id: <200105091220.IAA19420@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 08:22:47 -0400
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: Linda M Yu <lindayu@MIT.EDU>
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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/129/nation/Tufts_seen_picking_Bacow_as_pre
sident+.shtml
Tufts seen picking Bacow as president
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 5/9/2001
Lawrence S. Bacow, the second in command of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is
expected to be named president of Tufts University today, say sources
close to the Tufts
presidential search committee.
The Tufts board of trustees is scheduled to meet in Boston this morning to
vote on appointing the
MIT chancellor, who was recommended by the 12-member committee.
''He's the guy,'' one senior Tufts administrator said of Bacow yesterday.
''He has really impressed
everybody, and people believe he can do great things for the institution.''
Bacow, 49, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
An environmental economist who has served as chancellor of MIT since 1998,
Bacow oversees
undergraduate and graduate education, student life, international
research, and student exchange
programs. He worked on tightening conflict-of-interest policies at MIT,
where professors are now
expected to seek clearance for some outside consulting work. Colleagues
say he is energetic and
keenly interested in preserving a high-caliber faculty.
The appointment comes at a crucial time for Tufts, which has a
5,000-student undergraduate
college and is known for its health, science, and international affairs
programs. At the Tufts medical
school, in downtown Boston, and the School of Arts, Sciences, and
Engineering in Medford,
professors and some administrators say that financial problems have
prevented them from updating
aging facilities and recruiting some faculty stars.
The current president, John DiBiaggio, is retiring after nine years. He is
widely considered a
personable leader and dedicated fund-raiser.
But rising costs for technology and energy, combined with a relatively
small endowment, have put
Tufts in a vise. While many elite schools have jumped in college rankings
and seen endowments
soar in the stock market, Tufts has performed unevenly by both measures.
''Our faculty salaries have been pretty low, and there have been a whole
host of financial pressures
here,'' said one Arts and Sciences department chairman at Tufts, who asked
not to be named.
''There's a strong feeling that we need a change in direction.''
Colleges in the region have been filling presidencies at an unusually high
rate in the past six months.
Along with Tufts, Princeton, Harvard, Brown, and Bowdoin College have
named new leaders.
In many ways, Bacow's resume resembles that of Harvard's incoming
president, Lawrence H.
Summers. They are MIT-trained economists and friendly rivals, and both
were nominated for the
Tufts and Harvard jobs. Now they lead campuses 4 miles and two subway
stops apart, and both
go by the nickname Larry.
Sensitive about the news leaks that marked Harvard's recent search, the
Tufts search committee
closely guarded the names of its finalists.
But people close to the process say that other attractive candidates
included former US energy
secretary Bill Richardson, a Tufts alumnus; outgoing Harvard provost
Harvey Fineberg, who was
also a finalist for the top Harvard spot; and the president of Willamette
University, M. Lee Pelton,
who would have been Tufts' first African-American leader.
Richardson's candidacy drew particular attention on campus, given his high
profile in Washington
and his ties as a former Tufts student. But several people said yesterday
that he was hurt by last
year's espionage controversy at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which the
Energy Department
oversees.
Bacow's youth, his experience with overseas programs, and his decades of
experience as a social
scientist and professor strongly appealed to the Tufts committee members.
He has been an environmental consultant to Israel and taught there and in
Chile, Italy, and the
Netherlands. He has helped build a popular research- and student-exchange
program between
MIT and Cambridge University. He also served as chairman of the MIT
faculty from 1995 to
1997.
Bacow earned a bachelor's degree in economics at MIT, a law degree from
Harvard, and a
doctorate from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He lives in
Newton with his
wife and two sons.
Friends say Bacow is also fiercely competitive; he has said that one of
his proudest
accomplishments was finishing the 1997 Bay State Marathon in under four
hours.
Larry Vale, associate head of Bacow's academic department at MIT, Urban
Studies and Planning,
said yesterday that the chancellor is well-suited to lead a university. He
said he thought it was not
unusual for Bacow to pass up a chance to succeed to the top spot at MIT,
after the current
president, Charles M. Vest, decides to retire.
''The reality is, since Bacow's not a scientist or an engineer, there are
probable limitations in how far
he could go in the MIT hierarchy,'' Vale said.
