By James S. Tyree

Transcript Staff Writer

Who knows where the University of Oklahoma would be if David Boren were a bit more superstitious.

OU probably still would be in Norman. But the university might not have grown in such dynamic fashion if not for Boren’s decision to become its president.

Boren, 63, recently spoke tongue-in-cheek on agreeing to become OU’s 13^th president. November 17, 2004, will mark the 10^th anniversary of his inauguration.

“I thought maybe I should wait for someone else to become president so I don’t have to be 13,” Boren said at a dinner honoring him and his wife, Molly, for their 10 years at OU.

To the contrary, many say OU has been lucky to have Boren at the helm.

At the anniversary dinner November 10^th, it was announced OU has received $1 billion in gifts and pledges since Boren became president.

Boren has established the Honors College, overseen numerous building construction and renovation projects throughout the Norman campus, expanded OU-Tulsa by negotiating the Schusterman Center purchase, and created a central campus for the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City.

Students also have stepped up. Total enrollment on all campuses has grown to more than 31,000, average ACT scores among incoming students has risen from 22 to nearly 26, and OU has more National Merit scholars per capita than any other comprehensive public university.

Boren recently had a conversation with the Norman Transcript about his first 10 years as president. The former Rhodes Scholar spoke of the presidency’s rewards and challenges, what he considers most important at OU and the people who inspire him most to get the job done.

To begin with, Boren said being a university president is a bigger juggling act than serving as governor our U.S. senator.

“When you’re a U.S. senator, the vast majority of people in Oklahoma, on most issues, feel pretty much the same. If that issue is school prayer, if that issue is helping the oil and gas industry, if it’s helping the agriculture industry or whatever, generally, Oklahomans have a prevailing view.

“At a university, you have very different constituencies and they’re often going in different directions.” He explained those groups vary from faculty and staff to students and alumni, from donors and the general public to even the news media.

“You have many, many constituencies and you are charges with operating one of the biggest business operations in the state, because the operating budget at this institution is over $1 billion a year and we have close to 10,000 employees.”

Boren said the university compares to a small town because it has its own police force and medical services, one of the state’s largest food service and hotel operations and those thousands of students and employees. Yet, he said, OU is not a business.

“You cannot simply administer a university as if it were a business because its product is not measured by any financial bottom line. It’s the capabilities of students, developing their potential. It’s the values you’re passing on, turning out good citizens.”

While sitting on a couch in his spacious office, Boren spoke often of citizenship. Million-dollar donations grab headlines, as do OU’s business partnerships and new or improved building sprouting up all over campus. Yet, Boren said “our greatest responsibility is to turn out great citizens and also great leaders.”

“The university’s chief mission,” he said, “is to educate great citizens and to educate young people so they can live fuller lives. That doesn’t mean educate them to make money, or to even grow the economy. It means educate them to have depth in their lives. It means educate them so they will think ethically, so they will enjoy reading books all of their lives, so they will always have the arts as a part of their lives. It means leaving room for the spiritual dimension.
On the other hand, Boren considers it “very positive for the university to have research which ends up creating new business, which ends up creating jobs so Oklahomans don’t have to move away to find employment.”

He’s also pleased with the growing number and magnitude of business partnerships, like the Weathernews Americas deal spearheading private industry at the Research Campus-South and the $10 million donation from Devon Energy announced this month to help build an engineering building.

Such corporate dealings account for the lion’s share of the $1 billion given or pledged to OU since 1994. But even there, Boren said the university must be careful when accepting big money.

“You want to have good, solid partnerships and corporate support, at the same time you don’t want to let any outside forces dictate what the educational mission of the university should be,” he said. “So you have to maintain a balance, an independence. You cannot afford to accept gifts if the wrong kinds of strings are attached.”

Boren is proud of OU becoming an “economic engine” for the state, a position that draws criticism from people who say universities are about education and nothing more. He agrees with them to a certain point, in that providing a broad-based education is the most important mission. He also believes the university’s goals are not either-or propositions.

Whether the issue is academic programs, research, business partnerships or athletics, Boren said “excellence begets excellence.”

Between Boren and me stands a coffee table. A small stack of books, topped by “Presidents Can’t Punt” written by former OU president George Lynn Cross – a witty title that combines administrative responsibilities and OU’s rich football tradition. There’s also a metal knick-knack embossed with “United States Senate.”

Boren legislated in the Senate from 1979 until his arrival at OU after serving as Oklahoma governor the previous four years and in the state House of Representatives from 1967-75. In Washington, Boren chaired the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and authored a many bills including the National Security Education Act that provided college scholarships for overseas student and an emergency farm relief bill that kept many farmers from bankruptcy.

Thanks to his political career, Boren estimates he’s had contact “with probably close to one-fourth of all the families in Oklahoma” via telephone, letters, group meetings or conversations.

“It would be much harder for someone to come in and be president of a university who’s never had any ties to Oklahoma, who doesn’t know people in Oklahoma, who has to spend quite a long time getting acquainted before moving forward,” he said. “I think coming in with so many friends sprinkled in all different segments of the state and all the people wishing me well has been a tremendous help.”

Boren said one big advantage Norman has over Washington is the many chances to work with his wife, Molly Shi Boren, a heavy hitter in her own right. In 1975, she became one of the state’s first female judges, and she was the first woman to serve as an Oklahoma Bar Foundation trustee.

At OU, Molly Shi Boren led an effort to improve the gardens and landscaping around campus, helped start the Religious Studies, ballroom dancing and campus bench programs and, most importantly, finally has the ability to be her husband’s closest adviser.

“We walk the campus Sunday afternoons,” Boren said with a wave of his hand. “We’re notorious for picking up trash and things like that, but we’re going around looking at the building and seeing that things are going right. We do a lot of these things together.”

“So with this kind of job – unlike being a senator where the senator’s wife doesn’t get to see the senator very often during the day – we’re really partners in serving the university and we spend a lot of our time with each other, sharing ideas and hopes and dreams for the university.”

Boren said being around students was a primary motivation to leaving the Senate and coming to OU. Every August, he delivers a speech at New Sooner Convocation inviting students to stop by his office when they need to see him.

Of course, that’s often easier said than done.

“When I came here, I’m sure I underestimated all the other demands that would be placed upon me,” he said. “How many times I would be expected in a day’s time to participate in ceremonies or go make speeches or travel to other places…

“There are literally days when I sort of go from one crisis to another and don’t have the opportunities I would like…But a week doesn’t go by when I don’t have several individual conversations with students and keep the process open. Sometimes I tell them you may have to wait for me a week or two, just because I get so far behind on the volume of my work, but don’t give up on me. For the most part they don’t, and we end up having time together.”

Despite heavy time demands, Boren said his convocation promise is not an empty one.

“I think it’s important symbolically, too, that if they ever really need to come in and see the president, or they really needed some help and maybe even counseling, that they can still come,” he said. “And that does happen.”

Boren gets two regular opportunities to interact with students – when teaching a political science course and when students approach him as he walks on campus. He teaches a small honors course in the fall and a larger lecture-hall course in the spring. Either way, a few students normally approach him after class to finish the day’s discussion or to ask questions.

It was easy to tell Boren digs the faculty gig because his face lit into a wide 100-watt grin while talking about it.

“They view me as a person,” Boren said of the 1,200 or so students he’s taught over the last four plus years. “They view me as a person, not as the president of a university. I’m just another one of the faculty, and I think they tell other students, ‘Oh, Boren is accessible.’… My happiest time of the week is when I’m in the classroom with my students, or in an individual conversation or a group conversation with students, it absolutely is.

“I want to die an idealist and an optimist,” the president added later, “and I think the best way you can avoid cynicism and loss of your idealism and sense of purpose is to stay around young people. So I feel it’s not a job; it’s a privilege. Our students here, they make me believe in the future.”

Boren also draws inspiration each day from the past from George Lynn Cross, the former longtime president who wrote the book on the coffee table. Cross, OU president from 1944-68, was one of Boren’s most influential mentors, and Boren still aspires to be like him. Boren said Cross “had a very dry wit and very good way of putting things in perspective and not allowing himself to be in the midst of a crisis environment.

“He was able to remain calm, above board, with a sense of humor when things were in a tense situation. I certainly haven’t mastered his ability yet.”

Cross calmly presided over OU when it struggled with an enrollment explosion after World War II and the rugged road to desegregation. Boren said he looks back on Cross’s presidency and hopes to learn his patience. “Like Molly says to me, if we were planting a tree, I want it to be 30 feet tall the next morning.”

There is a statue of Cross right outside Evans Hall, home of the president’s office on the North Oval, and in conjures back words of wisdom for Boren.

“One was remember the faculty is the ongoing, continuous part of the university. Always have respect for the faculty’s point of view. Another things he said was when you’re dealing with young people who’ve made mistakes, he always said to me, ‘You know, it used to annoy me that there are so many people around me who have forgotten that they were ever young once.’ So that’s what I remember.

“And the last,” Boren added of Cross’s saying, “was keep a sense of humor. That is absolutely essential.

“I’m so glad the statue is exactly where it is because there’s no way I don’t see it every day and it’s like he says, ‘Good Luck today.’”