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6 The Lehigh Years Lehigh University Pat called me in my office at Columbia one day in 1981, bubbling with excitement: “Pete, Lehigh University wants you to be a candidate for president!” She remembers well my response: “Honey, I’m still trying to figure out how to be a provost.” I was keenly aware of Lehigh’s reputation, which was exceptionally strong in areas that matched my own profile. Lehigh University was one of five schools recommended by my Stanford faculty for graduate study in structural engineering: MIT, Illinois, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Lehigh. My Tau Beta Pi fellowship could have been applied anywhere and I chose MIT, but I knew that Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society that awarded my fellowship, had been founded at Lehigh. I also knew that Lehigh’s wrestling tradition was arguably the best in the East and the best among private universities anywhere. My personal background in structural engineering and wrestling made me see Lehigh in a very positive light, but at forty-five years of age, with fewer than six years of administrative experience behind me, I wasn’t sure that I was ready for a university presidency. Pat was sure that I was ready and in good time the Lehigh trustees agreed. After preliminary interviews and my first visit to campus, I was eager for the challenge. I told the chair of the search committee that I would accept the position if offered, but I wanted to be sure that the trustees understood my family situation. I knew that Lehigh’s culture was more conservative politically than Columbia’s and I wanted the trustees to understand that I would share their fiscal conservatism but might stretch their tolerance when it came to “progressive” social policies . They hired me anyway. I served as Lehigh’s president for fifteen years and I will always have a special love for that university. This book is not the place for me to The Lehigh Years 91 describe the very successful evolution of that institution from an excellent engineering college to a fine university with additional strengths in the arts and sciences, business, and education, but that goal was pushed hard and largely achieved. The changes in the Lehigh student body over my fifteen years are more relevant to the story of my family for the parallels to be found. What I learned from my children helped me to serve my students and what I learned from my students helped me to raise my children. When I assumed the Lehigh presidency in 1982, three-quarters of the students were able to pay the substantial tuition without financial aid or part-time work; more than half were engineering majors; only one in four was female; and students of color totaled about 10 percent of the student body (about 2 percent black, as I recall). I was concerned about this demographic profile for two stated reasons: (1) As a business proposition it seemed unsustainable to be limited in attracting students to that increasingly small minority consisting of affluent white males interested in engineering. (2) In recognition of the powerful demographic and societal trends in America, and the degree to which students learn from each other, it seemed likely to be increasingly difficult to provide an excellent education for the real world to any group of students as homogeneous as those being attracted to Lehigh at that time. Every university president faces a multitude of challenges every day and most people (including trustees and regents) evaluate a president’s performance on the basis of his or her success in meeting these constantly changing secondary challenges.A president’s conscientious self-evaluation is, however, based on different criteria that address the question: “Am I helping my university improve its prospects for success in the long term?” By historical criteria, Lehigh was an absolutely splendid institution when I arrived in 1982, and its alumni and friends in industry were wonderfully supportive. While appreciating its virtues as my background uniquely prepared me to do, I felt that Lehigh’s success was not sustainable in the long term without significant diversification of its academic strengths and its student population. Changes in university cultures cannot be commanded by their presidents, but they can evolve over time in ways their presidents can significantly influence. Lehigh’s culture did change in the course of my fifteen years of service and it continues to evolve positively under the fine guidance of the current president, Alice Gast...

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