The announcement of President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s 2007 retirement drew mixed reactions from faculty, who have differing opinions on the way he has pushed his initiatives.
Professors cited Trachtenberg’s academic transformation of GW as perhaps the most positive aspect of his legacy. He is credited with helping the University earn a national and international reputation.
“(GW) was pretty much a medium-sized commuter school,” said Richard Robin, an associate professor of Russian and international affairs, who has been at GW for 25 years. “It was … a pretty sleepy place. It is now a pretty dynamic institution with a lot of brand-name recognition”
Under Trachtenberg’s oversight, GW has seen applications for undergraduate admission rise from 6,000 to more than 20,000 per year, and the endowment has risen from $200 million to more than $900 million. Aside from the numbers, just walking through GW is a better experience now, Robin said.
“Trachtenberg put up GW flags all over the place. He put up all those clocks,” Robin said. “You knew you were on a college campus even though you were in a city.”
Grae Baxter, the interim director of the University Honors Program, which was created during Trachtenberg’s tenure, said she was not surprised by the announcement of his retirement.
“I consider this another act of leadership to know the right time to step down,” she said.
Trachtenberg, a divisive figure, did not receive close to universal praise from professors Wednesday. Kip Lornell, an adjunct music professor who is leading a push for the unionization of part-time faculty, said Trachtenberg has done an excellent job in some regards, but it’s at the price of students.
Lornell acknowledged the physical growth of the Foggy Bottom campus and the increased national visibility of GW as results of Trachtenberg’s tenure as president, but was wary of what is to come in the future.
“Whoever becomes president of GW will have serious faculty issues because of how Trachtenberg and the (Board of Trustees) chose to overuse and abuse contingent faculty,” Lornell said.
Economics professor Donald Parsons also had criticisms of the current president.
“Although undergraduate levels are up … (Trachtenberg) gave precious little thought to how he was going to educate those students,” said Parsons, who has written several opinion pieces for The Hatchet criticizing Trachtenberg’s spending policies.
Several faculty members have also been critical of the increased concentration of power Trachtenberg and his administration has held; some speculated that perhaps Trachtenberg has remained at GW for too long.
“Over the years he has become alienated from both students and faculty and has become more isolated in Rice Hall,” Parsons said. “I don’t think it makes sense for a president to stay at a university over 10 years.”
“Power has been more than ever concentrated at Rice Hall,” Robin said. The average term for a college president is 6.6 years, according to a 2002 report by the American Council of Education.
Others were quick to defend the length of Trachtenberg’s tenure, which is surpassed by few current college presidents.
“This would only be a problem if a leader stopped having ideas,” Baxter, of the honors program, said.
Trachtenberg, with a knack for story- and joke-telling, is adept in both the boardroom and communicating on a personal level, said outgoing Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Dean William Frawley.
“For me, he is someone who uniquely combines an incisive grasp of higher educational issues with a personal touch,” Frawley said.
Professor emeritus George Steiner, who founded the Music Department in 1960, saw three GW presidents before Trachtenberg.
He said, “(Trachtenberg has) really built the University as a university.”
Ryan Holeywell contributed to this report.
