Speaking of Rochester; 203; Dr. Robert Sproull

Yeah. How do you do ladies and gentlemen. I'm Barbara Connell. This program is called Speaking of Rochester. In the course of this program we'll talk with one of the pillars of our community here in the greater Rochester area about the past in the present of the future of our remarkable community. It's a pleasure to have as our guest today Dr. Robert Sproul a former president of the University of Rochester now retired but around most of the year or at least a substantial part of the year and working all over the world in various consultative roles.

Bob welcome to our program it's a pleasure to have you here and waiting to be here. You were born out in Illinois. You went through Deep Springs College and then Cornell. Got your advanced degrees at Cornell as a physicist and somehow got over into the administration of higher education. Would you tell us a little something about that. Well I don't regard it as a choice I don't think I had any choice I had been working for years to try to get facilities at Cornell for my group and a group of others around me. And that was IT department in the physics department and we had brought in some spectacular young physicists on the staff. And it was perfectly clear that with my activities raising money and getting a building started and so on that they were going to take the best graduate students not me. And so it was no who is they. These young people that I had helped bring in young assistant professors. And the crop right after the war which was just a

spectacular crop of able to young people. And clearly they were going to be the attractive place for graduate students to choose to do their thesis research not me. So I had to become administrator or do something else. And. And you started out at Cornell. Thats true yeah. Higher education administration. In other words yes and went to Washington. You went to Washington. To work in the Defense Department you can write for ARPA. Yes I was director of ARPA-E for what is that stand for the Advanced Research Projects Agency. In other words you some sort of an oversight over the new weapons that were coming up or the potential for a science in defense of that overstates rather profoundly well stated properly that our POWs a small agency at that time was about 500 million dollars a year. It's now about four times that I think. But it's a light foot a light hearted agency

did works on advanced projects. Risky things things that are appropriate for all three of the military services not just one of them. They don't doesn't try to have any oversight on the overall program it tries to look farther ahead. New technologies and its most valuable asset is its relations with the scientists and engineers out there out in universities out in industry. In other words you want weren't working on weapons you were working on the research that might eventually Regie of benefit to the country particularly the military services right. How long were you there. Twenty years you were there two years and that was during the Kennedy administration. Well the assassination occurred three or four months after I got there so it was mostly the Johnson administration. I went during the Kennedy administration and that you had gone from Cornell and you went back to corner and from there. Yeah. All right now then how did you happen to come to Rochester.

Well it was an interesting place. I actually had worked in Rochester for Kodak the summer of 1940 so I knew the community. And I had been up here lecturing and we Cornell and university Rochester had joint projects particularly in the library and physics departments used together get together its candy Atlas for breakfast of crabs from time to time so you know you know what he's eat. So Rochester was a familiar place to me. And Alan Wallace was looking around for a number two person. Alan was then the chancellor. You know no he was the president he was the president he was the number one man president. He was looking for a number to approach. And I could never quite. Be comfortable with Alan Wallace's politics. But I admired him as an individual and got nothing but rave reports on him from his associates in Chicago before he came here.

So when Alan offered me the job I took it and at that point what was your job at Cornell. Vice president for academic affairs. You were high in the in the education administration there. Gore and I isn't exactly the word I would use is true that I would have the first half hour with the president. Usually in the morning but but I was you know high as it is is not the right. We'll make our own judgment. I think you're a little modest. You came here and you had an understanding with Alan Wallace at that time that you would be the operative side of the administration of the university. Actually we never talked about it I just kind of got into it. I spent the summer of 1968. Many weekends up here talking to people finding out what the problems were. And it became very clear that Allen wasn't interested in operations on the campus and that that was a service that I could provide I was I was more of a hands on operator than he was by far he

was an educational theorist and writer. And as you know economists statistician all those elegant things but he wasn't interested in the day to day operation. And. In corporate terms he was a fine CEO but he didn't want to be a CEO a chief operating officer. Well you came here as provost and that's right. That's traditionally the number two man in the verses you know but years your situation changed shortly after you'd been here if you'd been here a couple of years. Well it had to. Good job as I say because Alan was less interested in it. And in 1970 without my knowledge actually Alan went to the board of trustees and got all of our titles changed he became chancellor I became president and we got a right on doing what we've done before number one or number two. There was a rumor that you were going to go somewhere else I think and he was well protect your status here.

He thought that I was going to be president of Brown. Narrowing two things wrong with that. One is that Brown wasn't asked me and the other is I wasn't except if asked but there was no way of disabuse again because I didn't know what he was up to. He may have wanted to use that with the board of trustees of Rochester. Good day. Doing You are Machiavellian too. Oh no no I'm not Macchiavelli him but I see reality when I see that reality when I see it. Well. In fact then your status didn't change when I doing what you are doing running the universe today while he sat around and thought he was very influential in lots of ways he knew he operated with the board of trustees and and could interpret for them what was going on in the campus. There was with the bad old days if you remember stuff starting in the late sixties it's very difficult for higher education where there are lots of people in Rochester who thought we ought to put a cyclon fence around the university have everybody wear picture badges and nuts to all of this business of protests etc..

And we try think you've got a corner just in time as far as that was concerned. As well that may have been that Cornell didn't handle the problem as well as Rochester did. You've opened up several hours of discussion at that point. I wouldn't want to make. I think probably we don't need several hours on it. It is interesting to know that you've felt things could be worked out and proceeded to work them out for trite and we had very little problem the serious takeover of the building it was the building it was a floor of a building was the black students protesting against the faculty who was against the administration at all. And we eventually solved that one with their help. The black students help within a very short time so there was no really serious disruption in the work of the university because of these protests which were endemic throughout the rest of the country. There were a lot of all night meetings there was a lot of a lot of drama a lot of attention that we should have been paying to education and finance and

things like that that we had to spend on just keeping the peace. But yes you're right we never had a really serious problem. Now about the came a time when you became number one also here at the university register. Tell us about that. Well in 1972 Allen went to the board and said he would like to retire if the board could find somebody that was suitable. He meant by that not always appropriate as judged by the board but appropriate as judged by Debbie Allen moas and the board then came to me and said Would you like to be the number one person. And I said yes but I would not like to be designated that by the board that way. Because life is sad enough and difficult enough for the chief executive of a university without having the accusation of illegitimacy leveled at him before he even takes office. If you want what I don't understand it why would you be considered illegitimate if they do as if he hadn't gone through a national search. If you'll go through a national search you'll find that you're that

I didn't say this but I did assume they would find it. They could not attract the people they had been thinking about like Elliot Richardson for example who was a prominent name then yes it was a very prominent a member because he'd been fired several times and I think were appropriate reasons reasons. I mean I didn't write exactly the Saturday Night Massacre and all that. Well anyway they they went through the search and in fact I think they asked Richardson but I'm not sure. I never really inquired. And they came out what I considered to be the right answer namely designating me. So what year was that 1972 73. It was May of 73 when the board said Wouldn't you like to do this. And how long were you the president. July of 84. So you had 11 years of running the University of Rochester and that was a troubled period wasn't it.

Well it was better every year than the year before. We spent more time on educational things and less time on keeping the peace. Each year it's true we had terrible financial problems and we had we had a system of limiting the spending we could do new Dolman which Allan and I had put through with Joe Wilson's help that we would be limited to Feydeau Wilson had been the head of Xerox right. Well yes and he had been chairman of the board of the university and he had been far more than that at the university he had. Joey had given the perspective and the goals and aspirations of the university you know extremely healthy and positive way so he was more than the chairman of the board he was more than the chief executive of Xerox. He was more than the guy that decided to make the 914 America an elegant guy. Well the 914 you mean a model the model that won the start of the modern information age. I think we sometimes forget how important Joe Wilson was to this community. Well

it's easy to think of George Eastman because Eastman Kodak is his name. Yeah but Wilson was very important to the growth and strength of Xerox was in me and and his foundation continues to do great work here in the community. That's correct. He took the wrists he had the vision and the whole thing is a lengthening shadow of Bill Wilson. Well let's talk a little about the financial problems you had. Rochester had been given a lot of Kodak and and. Xerox stock by various former officers of those companies. And they kind of held onto it didn't they. Yes. And then they came a time when the value of the stock began to level off and well the office is doing giving it to graciously went down. That's right and you were faced with the problem of what to do

about that you know diversification I assume was the answer. Well when I came aboard the university was to a large extent something like 80 percent in just three stocks IBM Kodak and Xerox. Much of it had been given much of it been bought by selling other stocks. Burke trip was was there a fabulous director of investment office and vice president for investments had done this. Unfortunately Burt retired and the new investment office kept at up long much too long. When the magic had gone out of formula so little bristly kept forever is it true. And so Bob Francis who is a budget officer of the university had it and somebody who should get a lot more recognition than he has gotten in Rochester. I really had to. Peace together things in a in an imaginative way to keep university going

because for three years running we had to use less from the dominant each year than we did the year before. And that's hard to do. Rochester has been an extremely wealthy college university at least compared to the other universities in this area. And so it had tremendous competitive advantage but that was failing. And it was saved by diversification and a wiser policy than the policy is the best idea. And by a very lean management and budget cutting that had to be done. It used to talk about the comparison and that's true but we compete for students with the Ivy League again and soon the University of Chicago and you know in more recent years we saw today who are practically giving it away. And so you don't have the comfort of just competing with those other institutions we have to compete for students with places that have more endowment per student than we have had.

Do Asian level much below yours. That's it. That's what that's what hurts. But you have you've had some marvelous professors University right you got a boy. Yes. What departments are particularly strong. Well the medical science identical science and economics may be the very strongest English has always been strong and they were hit by the Grim Reaper a few years ago and have been rebuilt since. But it's now again a very strong department. Chemistry is extremely strong. Physics is strong but spread in to a lots of different fields of physics so it has a hard time getting the recognition it deserves in the medical school a strong medical school is very strong and of course the Eastman School of Music is one of the jewels of the world. But. Looking at your period of time what were your biggest challenges. The biggest challenge the first few years from 68 to 73 or so

was student unrest was student unrest keeping the university going as an open institution where everybody could give any lecture he wanted and not have it broken up. And from then on the next few years it was a financial problem competing with places where we should get students and deadened and so on. I remember that that was also the time when a lot of single sex unit universities and colleges were going coed again. We had enjoyed the privilege of being one of the few coed private universities in the east. Very few was Cornell and Pennsylvania and that was about it. That did change the competitive so that we made it and it made it very much harder to compete. Up till that time we had have the benefit of women that did not were not admitted to Princeton and Harvard they were admitted to Radcliffe and then more but not to not to those other schools. And so we

had the double whammy of lower use of the investment income and higher competition for entering students. But during that period of time of course Roger's a great research university also. You took some steps that changed the equation and that to some degree particularly in laser fusion. Well that was one of the that was the only bet that we put our money on in the whole field of science and engineering that was beyond just building the strongest. Local program you can. We did take a strong risk there there was a very imaginative young man Moshe Luban who had invented ways of going about laser fusion that were interesting and deserve support and investigation. And then in more recent years Robert McCoury has been a first rate director and had even more imagination. And this project continued

to bring in first rate young engineers even in the worst times of the Vietnam experience when engineering got a kind of a bad name in most places. But nevertheless we continued to get the cream of the crop because of the excitement of the laser lamp. Well that continues to be an important part of Rochester's program does yes indeed. And of the national program I'm sure as a physicist you are particularly interested in that. Well yes but I tried to I tried not to use it as a hobby horse but of course it was hard because as you say I was interested in. Well you retired several years ago and when you reached the age of 65 there was a retirement fuss at that time I know but not not trying to force you out you thought you had to leave because you take the position that you should be subject to two terminations reaching a stage.

We had tried to fight your friend and colleague called Pepper and Claude was a tough guy to fight I don't know I thought it was Social Security a good deal. But but you retired at 65 you've served on a number of corporate boards since then and you've done some very interesting work with. Really a form of the Foreign Service. Tell us about that. Well Mary and I did two missions for her as your wife. Yes. Yes. For the International executive service corps. Which typically there are typical project is to respond to an appeal from some African Republic that's been trying to build a truck tire plant and gotten into trouble. So I see Sens a retired chief of engineering of a tire plant here over to Africa and he spends six months or so and straightens them out that's their typical mission. My mission was completely different. The first one was to Kazakhstan and it was to

try to straight down to because Iraq Academy of Sciences. And to connect them to the west they were totally disconnected from the. They of course have been totally dependent. USSR that's right is part of the US is our Kazakhstan was was kind of the stepchild and there really was no USSR there was not a Union of Soviet republics It was a dynasty. And I'm from Moscow a colonial empire run from Moscow for the benefit of European Russia not for the benefit of Kazakhstan. It was treated like a colony in Central Africa. And so they were they really deserve far better unfortunately I don't think that mission my mission was really very successful although Mary and I both worked hard and and we did the best we could and we made some good friends and we've got some journals started and a few things like that. But the problem was still there were they still have a long ways to go in other words. The other mission was to the Republic of Georgia and then the other part of the former U.S. is exactly

also in 1901 made independent. George Herbert Shevardnadze there. Yes I had a 25 minute one on one whichever Nazi It is I have about the same thing. It was a very impressive character very fine very and I was and I feel sorry for him with that. The GA you and the relations with Russia you know well the Russian Day to Day from time to time protest Shevardnadze But if they get rid of him they get rid of everything because the European community and the US are looking to Shevardnadze as the leader of the country and that's why they give aid to be sure our listeners understand that Shevardnadze was the minister of foreign affairs for a long time under Gorbachev in the USSR in Moscow and that he went resign from that and went down and took over the leadership of the Republic of Georgia when it became independent and they rely on him very heavily and if they lose him they lose the real

confidence that the West has and were you doing the same sort of thing in Georgia. No it's a completely different. I was helping five very patriotic young people found the an organization which is very much like the Rand Corporation think US think tank but with no military involvement entirely political energy export markets things like that trying to get Georgia back on its feet as an independent country. I have never seen people that really were as devoted to a country as sees five young people in that work. So Mary taught English and I worked with them and we went on trips with them on weekends and we had as good a time as you could have with this bad food as we had. But there are the that think tank I think is still functioning and doing well. We don't have a lot of time left. You now have an office over used to be on the board there I know you know that often does in Boston long building on the university campus. Oh

no no no I have no connection with hospital corporation anymore. But you but you have an office here in town. Right. And spend your winters in Florida. Yes and are you going to do more of this international. No no I'm going to work. Getting too old for that. I will respond to an invitation but I doubt very much if an invitation would come along that to my food feel capable of dealing with it. You maintain your ties with lots of friends of the University of Rochester. Yeah. What do you think of the future of that is to do should. Well I think the future is very bright I have a great deal of confidence in Tom Jackson. The university now is taking an enormous risk in the medical school. It may but it may very well be the best thing that ever happened to the university. They're setting their sights very high in medical research. And if it comes off as I hope it will and I think it will then it's really going to put the university where it should be and medical research medical research is where America is in

this great great emphasis on that. Well it's a it's a and the fields they've chosen to work on neurology aging and so on are really the frontier fields and the university register medical school is a particularly strong institution to begin with. That's true that a lot of really top people there have been away. Yes it's unfortunately and spent most of its life emphasizing service which is fine for the community of Rochester but it is rather downplayed research. And this is more a more balanced approach that's going to be ahead. We're reassured to know that you're maintaining your ties here in Rochester Bob you've been a very important part of the community and we're grateful for the leadership you've given to that central institution the University of Rochester here. You're optimistic about the future I guess and a very good ladies gentlemen are our guest today has been Dr. Robert Sproul the former president University of Rochester and a well-known member of our community.

Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for being with us by the glory here. I'm Barbara Connell this program is called Speaking of Rochester's. If you'd like a copy of this program send 1095 to WXXI. Post Office Box 21 Rochester New York 1 4 6 0 1 0.