Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

14. Valhalla on the Plains

• fourteen • Valhalla on the Plains In Norse mythology, Valhalla was the great hall where the god Odin received the souls of fallen heroes who had died bravely in battle. There he treated those with torn and wounded bodies to feasts and respect. By the time Bobby Lowder and his cronies had finished their purges, Auburn was littered with wounded warriors who deserved the joy and respect of such a place. The Way Universities Work From years of service on the Samford University Board of Overseers and contact with the school’s trustees, I learned a good deal about the way university governance systems work. At private schools such as Samford, the trustee board tends to be large, the trustees wealthy and busy. They have interests and lives beyond the university. They generally have to be persuaded to join the board, and they view their service as a gift to the school. They hire a person as president who they believe will be a strong leader and who will not need constant oversight because they are too busy to engage in the internal operation of a university. They give lots of money and advice when requested. They value the university’s various constituencies but do not grovel to them. State universities function quite differently. Their boards of trustees (BOT) tend to be smaller, more politically active, more responsive to specialized con- 352 chapter 14 stituencies, and more meddlesome with regard to the school’s internal affairs. They are more likely to intervene on behalf of hiring a friend or relative or admitting a child—their own or that of a friend, customer, or political ally. They are particularly likely to intrude into sports programs on behalf of whatever game solidifies and electrifies them or the school’s fan base (basketball at Kentucky , football at most SEC schools). They are less likely to contribute large sums of money, and when they do, it is usually intended for buildings named for them or their family or to enhance the dominant sport. Although these differences are not the sole reason that the top 20 American comprehensive universities in the U.S. News & World Report annual survey are all private, it is certainly a contributing factor. Not until the 2009 appearance of the University of California–Berkeley in 21st place and the University of California–Los Angeles in 24th, did a public school make the ranking. Only 16 of the top 50 academic universities were public, only 2 (Vanderbilt—which is private and tied for 17th—and the University of Florida—which tied for 47th) belonged to the SEC. Auburn ranked 88th among the 110 (tied with Clark, Drexel, Iowa State, N.C. State, Saint Louis, Tulsa, and Vermont). The University of Alabama tied for 96th. Clemson—Lowder’s model for Auburn—tied for 61st. Another common denominator of the top 20 was that less than half played Division I scholarship football and most of those were not very good (Duke, Northwestern, Rice, and Vanderbilt, plus the Ivy League schools). Only Notre Dame and Stanford excelled in both academics and football. A third of the top 20 had no football team at all. Not that this information makes any difference in Alabama. If I conducted a statewide poll consisting of only one question—would you rather Alabama and Auburn be number one in football or academics—I do not doubt the outcome. So in a sense, Lowder gave many Auburn people what they wanted, obsession with football to the detriment of academics. Lowder’s Hostile Takeover In November 2000 Lowder emerged from his usual seclusion to answer questions from Auburn’s student government association (though he still refused to debate faculty leaders). He grandiloquently titled his twenty-minute speech “The Rules of Life.” Beginning with the truism that an underfunded university can’t do everything, he quickly transitioned to his more controversial litany that agriculture, engineering, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, and busi- valhalla on the plains 353 ness deserved preeminence. He criticized the Plainsman for distorting facts, accused journalism faculty of unduly influencing the paper, and called for limitations on press freedom (he obviously did not distinguish between the roles of journalists and public relations people in a university). When students questioned the composition of the BOT because it consisted of white businessmen, he responded that it also included lawyers. To student charges of micromanagement, Lowder replied with a perfectly straight face, “We don’t...