When College President James Freedman three weeks ago announced his resignation, effective next summer, the one word on the lips of many people at the College was: why?
To the average student who might go close to his or her entire four years at Dartmouth without ever seeing the College president, Freedman's job is no doubt a bit of a mystery.
Sure, he gives a speech at Convocation and Commencement, and meets a few times with faculty and alumni, but how demanding could the job really be?
But to the group of men and women who preside over America's colleges and universities, running an institution of higher learning can be a thankless -- and often exhausting -- undertaking, that can push a person to his or her very limits.
Freedman's reasons for quitting -- most specifically his desire to have more free time to spend with his family -- were validated by a number of Ivy League university presidents, both former and current, that The Dartmouth interviewed over the past two weeks.
'A small city'
Freedman has said his busy schedule -- a 75-hour week which often includes dinners, travel and fundraising -- leaves him very little time to reflect or to be with his family.
"Your day is like a dentist's," he told The Dartmouth recently. "[They're] all good activities, there's just a great many of them."
Freedman's 11-year term is a far cry from John Sloan Dickey's 25-year tenure or Ernest Martin Hopkins's 29-year marathon presidency.
But being a college president is not what it once was: Hopkins and Dickey did not jet-set from one end of the country to the other, raising money and meeting alumni, at the pace that current university presidents routinely do.
In fact, the average national term for presidents of colleges and universities is just five years -- half of Freedman's tenure.
Vartan Gregorian, who resigned as president of Brown University earlier this year after nine years, called his work equivalent to "running a small city."
Gregorian said he worked 14- to 16-hour days while president and traveled extensively.
"No president should serve more than 10 years because they're exhausted in the process," he said.
Gregorian said the most difficult part of his job was having to balance the demands of students, alumni and faculty, and he can sympathize with the challenges of Freedman's presidency.
"The choir did not perform well in Portugal, who do they call? President Freedman. The football team loses, who do they call? President Freedman," he said. "Everybody has access to the president."
Gregorian, now head of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a foundation which donates money for the advancement of education and international peace, said he was the main speaker at Freedman's 1987 inauguration as president of the College, and has known him since Freedman's days as Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Law School.
"James Freedman is a contemplative person," he said. "He wants to write and he needs to think."
Fatigue and stress
The high stress endured by college and university presidents was perhaps best epitomized by Harvard University President Neil Rudenstine's leave of absence in 1995.
Rudenstine, president of Harvard since 1991, suffered from fatigue and physical exhaustion, stemming from the high demands of running the University's $2.1 billion capital campaign -- the largest fund-raising drive ever conducted by a university.
Gregorian's successor as President of Brown, E. Gordon Gee, formerly the head of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio is no stranger to the rigors of college presidency, either.
Gee said one Tuesday schedule included a 7 a.m. meeting with the state legislature, a rotary club meeting at noon, and a evening dinner and speech.
"The time demands on you and your family make the job so difficult," he said.
Gee said another challenge to being the president of a major institution like Dartmouth is balancing the demands of alumni and friends who "love Dartmouth" and want to have an impact on the institution.
"Because of constituent groups the ability to lead is much more limited," he said. "Universities are not businesses."
Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings, said Freedman became a friend when he succeeded Freedman in 1987 at the helm of the University of Iowa.
Rawlings, president of the University of Iowa for seven years, and has been at Cornell for the past two-and-a-half.
He said the "constituencies" he has to deal with as president include students, faculty, staff, alumni, federal agencies, the public and the New York State legislature, organizations that present him with diverse demands.
Rawlings told The Dartmouth his schedule was so busy, he had to run to a press conference which began nine minutes after the beginning of his interview with the paper -- and he travels to New York once every ten days on business.
"I travel across the U.S. and abroad constantly," he said.
Harold T. Shapiro, president of Princeton University, is also no stranger to Dartmouth's president. He met Freedman when he was a speaker at Freedman's University of Iowa inauguration.
Shapiro -- formerly the president of Michigan University -- said the job was more simple years ago than it is now for contemporary University presidents.
"Campus communities have grown," Shapiro said. "Colleges and universities have gotten to be more and more complicated."
Shapiro said he understood Freedman's demands for a much-needed vacation.
"Over time you feel you want to take a less intensive approach to life," he said. "[Freedman] has had a long, distinguished career."
But, despite working from 7 a.m. "until well past the dinner hour" seven days a week -- a schedule which Shapiro called "unrelenting" -- he said the job still has its rewards.
"Every day is very different," he said. "There's an enormous variety to the job. I feel like I'm getting a liberal education every day."
