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From Kindergarten to
College
The Administrator's Perspective
With Stephen Trachtenberg
George Washington University President
Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT
How different does higher education look from the administrator's point of view? How does a president balance the financial and educational aspects of running a university? What insights do they have for incoming students and their parents?
George Washington University President Stephen Trachtenberg will be online to discuss higher education, current university trends and the problems college administrators face.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Stephen Trachtenberg: I am very pleased to be here and grateful for the opportunity.
Tempe, Ariz.:
What traits or skills are most critical for a University President in today's environment?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think that stamina, optimism, a vision for the institution and patience.
Centreville, Va.:
Mr. Trachtenberg, I have a two year old son who hopefully will go to college when he turns 18. My question is, at what rate do you see tuition going up in the next 10 to 15 years? When I started college back in 1990 in-state tuition was a little over a thousand, now it is over 2500 (I went to GMU). That's over 100% in 5 years, do you see that trend continuing? Thanks!
Stephen Trachtenberg: I have no better crystal ball than anybody else about the future of the economy or the inflation rate. Higher education costs tend to run somewhat ahead of the cost price index because universities are so labor intensive. Increasingly also capital intensive.
I think that the rate of tuition rises has mitigated somewhat in the last few years. To some extent the price of tuition at a state university is a political decision more than it is an economic decision. So you have to have some future insight on what a Governor r state legislature is going to do in that regard.
The price is significantly less than the cost, both at public institutions and private. At public institutions the tuition is set by the legislature through a political process and the cost is subsidized by tax appropriations. In the private sector the price tends to reflect the cost more closely but even there there is a subsidy from endowment and philanthropy. Nevertheless it is always good advice to save for big expenditures like university tuition costs, new cars and down payments on homes.
Somewhere, USA:
What special problems do universities located in large cities such as Washington face?
Stephen Trachtenberg: Space is always a challenge. Finding ways to work with adjacent enterprises, neighbors and a community is always more daunting in a big city than it is on a suburban or a rural campus. We live in a 50-acre square. Many state universities will have 3,000 acres located in a corner of the jurisdiction, which has a modest population. There are obvious great advantages as well, like the opportunity to work with other universities, libraries, theatres, museums, and other cultural groups to do things together so that their efforts and our efforts create a roll up. That way 1+1 =3.
For example, we just agreed to sponsor the Coolidge string Quartet which is an autonomous musical group but will now be in residence. We will support them and they will do concerts both on campus and throughout the city/
Georgetown student:
Not to be antagonistic or anything, but why does there seem to be such an 'us vs. them' mentality between administrators and students? Georgetown has all these initiatives to gather student in-put, but it seems like if offices were run in such a way that didn't patronize students, it would work better. Also, what do you think of 'token' events by the university to foster campus unity? Is it so simple?
Stephen Trachtenberg: The answer to the first question is that some things are culturally decreed and date back to the earliest days to the founding of universities in Oxford and Paris. Administrators have their roll and students have theirs, and while there is a large degree of concurrence there is always going to be a certain amount of inevitable friction because, in fact, the two groups see the world slightly differently. Most of the time the issues get resolved amicably through give and take on both sides. Sometimes it gets fractious, but universities are among the oldest self-governing democratic institutions on the planet.
Washington, D.C.:
You hear a lot of rhetoric about how anyone who wants to can afford to go to college. Is that really true? I mean, GWU costs what, 30K a year for undergrad? Even with scholarships and aid, is that realistic?
Stephen Trachtenberg: Yes. We give $50 million a year in scholarships. A particular focus of our aid are students in Washington, D.C. who we feel a responsibility for. But, not everybody has to go to Georgetown or AU or GW. It is possible to get a wonderful runup on a college education at a first rate institution like Northern Virginia Community College which keeps costs and prices down and provides very good instructions. Then someone can transfer as a Junior to GW or some other school. If price is a concern, people have to be smart shoppers for higher education, just as they are for other things in life.
Washington, D.C.:
What is, or has been, your greatest challenge as an administrator?
Stephen Trachtenberg: Finding the resources to provide the people I serve - our faculty and our students - with what they need in order to be the scholars and teachers and learners that they can be. Money turns out to frequently be the motehres milk of quality educational opportunity. Whether it is scholarship aid or faculty salaries or better libraries or a health plan for the teaching assistance or a new laboratory, it all takes paying for. My frustration is that I see infinite possibilities to do good and I have finite resources with which to respond.
Arlington, Va.:
What makes higher education so expensive? What are the main factors that attribute to recent college tuition hikes?
Stephen Trachtenberg: Paying first rate people to be professors when you are competing with a hot economy where they get well paying opportunities presented to them regularly means that the price of education is going to go up. Secondly the 21st century university needs 21st century technology. The cost of equipment and buildings are the second driver of the budget.
Washington, D.C.:
How has your approach to students changed over the years you've been
president? How have students at GW changed over the years?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think we are more student friendly today than universities used to be at my time as a student. As administrators trying to make decisions we frequently put students first on our agenda. We try to be sympathetic and empathetic to their interests. Whether it is scheduling classes or providing daycare, the welfare of students is at the center of the picture at all times.
Students have changed because they increasingly expect that the universities will accommodate to them in ways that never would have been dreamt of twenty years ago. Some of this is good and some of it is probably a little over the top.
Washington, D.C.:
If you were to describe the goal, or job description if you will, of a university president in one sentence, what would that be?
Stephen Trachtenberg: To provide the best possible environment for scholarship, teaching and service to faculty and students.
Bethesda:
Do you think faculty-staff relations are a concern in higher ed? As someone looking at a career as higher ed staff, I perceive that staff are often treated as the "stepsiblings" of the university system.
Stephen Trachtenberg: Well, the staff, including the president of the university are servants of the institution. Our purpose is to support the professors and the student sin what they do. The mission of a University is defined by professors and students. The rest of us are ancillary to that constituency. Nevertheless, if we are not the heart of the institution we are no less indispensable if we are the lungs.
Fairfax, Va.:
"and some of this is probably over the top" -- such as?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think that it is important to accommodate significant student interests, but I think that it is also important to prepare students for a post university life and I think that excessive indulgence does not do that. Students who do not meet deadlines for example, and expect a faculty member to say "oh well, hand the paper in later," are ducking an accountability that the world of deadlines will impose in later life.
Washington, D.C.:
What is your view on the Greek system on your campus, and throughout the country? Do you see it as an antiquated old boys network, or a worthwhile group of organizations?
Stephen Trachtenberg: It is all of the above. It varies from one greek fraternity/sorority to another. There are some chapters which are irresponsible and others which serve their members and their campus admirably. We have fraternities at GW which are mischievous and which oblige us to deal with discipline problems and others which are model citizens and hard working students for whom the fraternity or sorority are terrific social experiences.
I don't think you can judge all greek life with a common stereotype anymore than you can judge all students with a common stereotype.
Washington, D.C.:
Mr. Trachtenberg,
How large a part do you see the Internet playing in the future of higher education, eg distance education, online tutoring, etc.?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think it is going to be profound. I think we are going to see more and more Internet initiatives. The technology will increasingly be perfected. The programs and substance will also improve over time. For some people it may be their highest and best opportunity, but just as television did not mean the end of the movie theater, I don't think that the Internet is going to mean the end of the university campus. People are social animals. There are limits to technology. Not everything can be done virtually. There are benefits to living on a campus, playing on the basketball team or in the band, actually dating co-eds as opposed to meeting them in chat rooms, joining fraternities and sororities and having all the benefits of campus life that will I think persist.
Virginia:
Do you think minorities students are too segregated from white students in classes, dorms, groups, sports, etc?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think that varies from campus to campus. I think people of different races are too segregated generally in American society but I see great progress at becoming one country during the course of my life. I am optimistic of university campuses and America even as the census tells us that we are changing the mix dramatically decade by decade.
Washington, D.C.:
President Trachtenberg,
What steps do you see presidents of universities taking in the future to insure that universities continue to provide good broad education as opposed to meeting current economic needs by providing more and more technical or "saleable" degrees and programs?
Stephen Trachtenberg: I think that students need to graduate wit three capacities. One is to live a life, which is to say that they need to be broadly educated The second is that they need to be able to earn a living, make some economic contribution to their society. The third is to be able to participate in civic discourse, which is to say play a roll in the governance of their community. My hope is that a GW graduate would come out sufficiently rounded and empowered to be able to deal with that trinity.
Orlando, Fla.:
What can students in Educational Leadership or Educational Administration programs do to best prepare them for administrative and leadership positions in today's (and the future's) universities?
Stephen Trachtenberg: Ultimately I think human skills and the understanding of the people are the most daunting issues before us all. We have demonstrated our capacity for building great structures. We have shown our technological resources. We have put a person on the moon. But the social issues of justice, equity, continue to provoke us. The issues of resource distribution between rich and poor, the issues of perceived fairness between black and white Americans, men and women - These are the really hard questions. Unless we solve them, sending machines to Mars won't mean a thing in the long run.
You need to study and try to prepare themselves in which these are the primary curricular issues. Running efficient universities is important, but running moral and just universities are imperative. Universities today are, just as they were in the 12th century, a collective of people who have come together on a common intellectual quest. They are searching for truth, justice and beauty. They are trying to define the ambiguity of the human condition. If we reduce university administration to just good management we will miss the point.
Washington, D.C.:
Dr. Trachtenberg--
how much of a president's job is it to continuously strive to improve the university's rank? What are some things that you, as president, are involved in to monitor and improve that rank? Are you concerned with the overall reputation of the University or more so with developing certain departments for which GW has a "comparative advantage" by location: such as political science, international affairs, international economics, monetary economics, public policy. Thanks.
Stephen Trachtenberg: It is a question of the cart and the horse. You improve the rank by making the university into a better place. The university is a better place if it carries out its mission of serving professors and students and giving them what they need to do their job. If they do their job well, the rank follows. So the question has a quality of chicken and egg about it. I try to give GW a worldclass library. I think a library is central to the core mission of the university. If in fact I succeed the students are served, the faculty is served, and the rank of the university goes up. It is hard to know where it begins and where it ends. What I don't do is turn the administration of the university over to the editors of U/S. news and World Report. Where I think their judgements are sound, I am pleased to use them to inform my behavior. But where I think their judgements are not sound, I follow my own priorities.
Washington, D.C.:
How difficult is it to deal with academic dishonesty?
Stephen Trachtenberg:
As long as there have been human beings, there have been people who have looked for shortcuts. That is the lesson we take from the bible and it is as true now as it was in earlier times. It is no less true in a university setting filled with human beings than it is in any other environment. So, we hold ourselves to a somewhat higher standard in the academy and we police ourselves in these matters as well through academic regulations about cheating. Technology has complicated these matters on the one hand, making it easier than ever to obtain and adapt other people's work and offering it as your own. But professors have become increasingly sophisticated and more of them now know how to check on the plausibility of student work. So it balances itself out.
Universities are one of the only places I know where customers celebrate getting less for their money. We have all been in classrooms where a professor announces "there will be no class next Tuesday" and everybody cheers. If you went into a cafeteria and you paid and then they announced that there would be no lunch this afternoon, people would be very disappointed. Likewise with cheating, if you don't do the work you don't learn the material. Classes are like exercises, you don't get fit just by joining a fitness program. You have to actually work out. If you take a course and you don't do the work, it seems to me you cheat yourself. The professor presumably knows the material.
Englewood, N.J.:
Where do you see the study of liberal arts going? Although there has been a proliferation of these programs, most people I've met stick to more practical routes. What can the college community do to encourage non-conventional types of study?
Stephen Trachtenberg: A healthy liberal arts environment is constantly evolving. The received wisdom adapts to change otherwise it becomes irrelevant. We don't read classics because they are old, we read classics because they are modern. Because the wisdom and the insights they provide are pertinent today just as they were when they originally were written. We don't read history to learn about the past, we read history to learn about the future. So I think that no matter how technical the training, people who aspire to leadership position are going to always need a foundation in the liberal arts. The liberal arts tell us who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.
Stephen Trachtenberg: Thanks to everyone for asking question without which I wouldn't have had very much to say.
Thank you.
washingtonpost.com:
That was our last question today. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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