As the University's presidential search progresses toward its final stages, the magnitude of the decision at hand becomes clearer. The Board of Visitors' Special Committee on the Nomination of a President met Nov. 9 to begin approving nominations for President John T. Casteen, III's successor. The Committee has received almost 200 nominations for the position and is now moving from its research stage, University spokesperson Carol Wood said.
When scrutinizing the list of nominees and ultimately selecting a candidate, the Committee should be mindful of the University's presidential history. One useful exercise is to examine the University's larger controversies during the 20th century, with a special emphasis given to how the sitting president's personality and leadership traits played a role in each affair.
The first such controversy of the University's modern era arose during the term of Colgate W. Darden, Jr., who assumed the office of president in 1947. During his time as an undergraduate at the University, Darden had felt excluded from fraternity life, which fostered a sense of skepticism about the Greek system. In particular, he thought fraternities exerted far too much social power. "The university has suffered too often in the past from the activities of a group of fraternities and societies dedicated primarily and sometimes exclusively to outward and visible signs of social distinction," Darden wrote in a report to the Board of Visitors for the 1948-49 academic year.
To reduce the pressure placed upon students to join a Greek organization, Darden commissioned the construction of a student activities building, later named Newcomb Hall. The project caused significant backlash from many students who thought Darden was undermining the University's traditional Greek culture. Perhaps compounding the problem was the fact that Darden arrived from the University after serving a term as Virginia's governor; faculty viewed him as an outsider with limited experience in the University's administration, and students remained wary of his misgivings with the fraternity system.
Darden's successor, Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., faced discord of a different sort during his administration. Serving from 1959-74, Shannon presided over the University during a tumultuous social period that saw civil rights and peace movements take center stage among student concerns. Student discontent with American politics reached a critical mass in May 1970, when the major protest known as May Days erupted across Grounds. The protest, in which some faculty participated, was in response to both the killings of four Kent State University student activists by National Guardsmen and the decision of President Richard Nixon to move U.S. troops into Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
In what History Prof. Phyllis Leffler called "Shannon's finest hour," Shannon was able to handle the protest without the substantial violence or brutality that had embroiled other colleges. He took what can only be described as an unconventional approach. Standing on the steps of the Rotunda, Shannon delivered a memorable address to the thousands of students gathered, condemning the decision to invade Cambodia and stating his intent to sign a petition that would be delivered to Virginia's two senators. Shannon came close to losing his job for taking a political stand on the issue, but his deft response successfully mollified the protesters. Few universities weathered the strife so well.
If these narratives suggest something, it is that each University president is likely to face his own period of crisis. History also demonstrates that each leader's personal attributes and perspective on University life largely determined the outcome of such controversies. Lessons drawn from the subsequent administrations of Frank L. Hereford, Jr. and Casteen point to similar conclusions. Hereford was a quintessential University insider, assuming the presidency after serving as head of the Physics Department, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, provost and vice president of the University. His close ties to Grounds may have given him enough comfort to remain a member of the racially-exclusive Farmington Country Club, despite strong student and faculty objections. Similarly, Casteen is a more or less homegrown leader, which likely impacted his handling of living wage and sexual assault policy controversies just as much as it impacted his landmark capital campaign and his re-envisioning of the University's financial picture.
The Committee should take these historical analogies seriously when choosing the University's next president. Qualities like foresight might prevent the avoidable crises from occurring, but candidates must also exhibit the strength of character to manage effectively those situations that will inevitably arise.
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