GUEST COLUMNIST: The decline and fall of Provost Stanley Chodorow

Michael Nadel, Guest Columnist Michael Nadel, Guest Columnist The news is three years late in coming, but better late than never. Stanley Chodorow is leaving at last. And, of course, he's been doing a lot of interviewing. With a silly grin and a ubiquitous green sweater, Chodorow has become positively benign. He's harmless, powerless, a goof. He's Judith Rodin's court jester. But it wasn't always this way. Chodorow should be remembered for his first two years -- for what he did, for what he tried to do and for the implications of his failure at the University. Chodorow's appointment was initially well-received. He came across as scholarly, friendly and energetic. It didn't take long for the real Chodorow to come out. Two months into his first semester on the job, he proclaimed students shouldn't have a role in planning a new curriculum for the University. "The problem with student participation is that many of them don't have much time," he told the DP ("Provost places new emphasis on education," DP, 10/10/94). "It's not as if students are the best-organized people in the world." "They want to be involved but they sometimes really can't," Chodorow added. "And you have to wonder if the student is speaking for the whole or for himself." Chodorow's comments weren't "off-the-cuff remarks," nor were they merely "unfortunate." They were a snippet of his world view, and they were, if anything, understated. That same month, Chodorow told me in his office, "Undergraduates don't know what's good for them. When I was your age, I didn't know what was good for me. When you're my age, you'll understand." All undergraduates do, he said, is "bitch, bitch, bitch." Chodorow's disrespect for students was on display again in spring 1995. The provost canceled plans for a student center, opting instead to spend $75 million on the Perelman Quadrangle project -- the renovation of four ancient buildings that were not up to fire codes. The plan to scrap the student center was developed in secret. By the time word leaked, Chodorow had made Penn the nation's only top university without a student center. The final straw was the judicial charter fiasco. Chodorow attempted to remove any checks and balances. He wanted to run the whole judicial system out of his office. He sought to minimize faculty oversight and student participation. His proposal eliminated the presumption of innocence for students caught in the system. Chodorow coined his own dichotomy of injustice. Changes to the judicial process, he said, "are not about fairness, but about effectiveness." Fairness and effectiveness were incompatible in his mind, as each successive draft of the judicial charter made clear. Most appallingly, Chodorow tried to impose a gag order over the entire judicial process. If he had gotten his way, students who were railroaded by the University would not have been able to go to the press and blow the whistle without incurring further sanctions simply for speaking out. Chodorow's unpopularity grew to new heights. The faculty grew frustrated. Students fought back and ultimately prevailed. Chodorow's proposal fell, and the provost went down with it. Rodin is many things (for example, University spokesperson Ken Wildes recently called her "extraordinarily attractive"), but she is no fool. She knew something had to be done about her loose cannon No. 2. As one administrator told me in January 1996, "I want him out, and so does Judy." But he wasn't going anywhere just then. So because Rodin couldn't get him out of the office, she diminished the office itself. The once-powerful provost became a good-natured guy without authority. The man who was feared yesterday is roundly mocked today. He has a title but no influence. He has several ongoing projects but no solid accomplishments. Those who praise Chodorow for his newfound accessibility miss the point. Yes, last spring he created a new Undergraduate Advisory Board to provide recommendations relating to the 21st Century Project, but that project has been effectively dead for nearly two years. If Chodorow is "one of the few administrators who actually seems to prefer engaging in academic discussions over policy-making," it is because he no longer has any power to make policy. Now enough time has passed that Chodorow can safely be forced out. Remarkably, Rodin hasn't publicly praised him or wished him well. But the provost's future has never looked brighter. It's bizarre, really: Mid-level dean of third-rate school becomes provost at Ivy League university. Provost becomes tyrant. Tyrant becomes failure becomes buffoon. Buffoon becomes president of the University of Texas at Austin. This phenomenon, unique to academia and politics, has a name: failing up. The decline and fall of Stanley Chodorow teaches contradictory lessons. If the next provost wishes to succeed, he should take care not to make enemies of student leaders. He should listen to undergraduates and consult the faculty. He should seek to improve the University, rather than remaking it in his own image. He should respect the values of freedom and democracy. If he does not, the forces that represent those values will bring him down just as surely as they brought down Chodorow. On the other hand, perhaps the new provost should do exactly the opposite. Perhaps he should ignore students, offend the faculty and strive for dictatorship. That, it seems, is the path to the presidency of a major research university. But if the new provost chooses the latter path, he must be prepared when he leaves to hear the words that Chodorow hears today: Good-bye and good riddance.