Interview: Tom Kean: after 15 years at the helm of Drew University in Madison, NJ, President Tom Kean is set to step down next year. The former two-term governor of New Jersey, and chairman of the 9/11 Commission, sat down with Editor In Chief Tom Halligan to discuss his career, the state of education, and his achievements at Drew

University Business, Nov, 2004 by Tom Halligan

It seems today as if presidents are juggling many duties, in some respects, working almost 24/7 on fundraising, technology issues, finance, and a host of other duties and responsibilities. What's your view on this?

Kean: We're spending too much time on that. You can't be a good president doing all that. I might be a little old-fashioned, but I think the business of the college and the university is education. If you're being pulled off education, you're going to have trouble. You've got to do the others. You've got to get into the technology issues, they're too important for a president not to be aware of them. You've certainly got to do fundraising; it's too important for the university. But if they become your primary occupation, I think it probably hurts the academic enterprise.

UB After two terms as governor of New Jersey, what were your expectations going into the position?

Well, first I might say that I was fortunate enough to have six or seven universities or colleges who were interested in my coming for one reason or another, once I decided this was a direction I was interested in. I liked the idea of a small liberal arts college with an emphasis on teaching and mentoring as well as research, and where professors really can get to know students. I picked Drew because it very much had that philosophy and had a very strong commitment to the liberal arts. And because, frankly, it enabled me to come to a place that was a short distance from my home.

UB When you came to Drew did you have a mandate from the trustees, or your own agenda?

Well, you get hit with some real problems that have to be solved and you can't put off. And they become your priorities for a while because they have to be done. And then you have a long-term vision, but you're not able to get at that for a year or two until you solve the more immediate problems.

When I came, we had a budget deficit. You can't have a budget deficit. I had to immediately get a hold of the budget and straighten it out. And we haven't had a budget deficit since. We also had a gym which was like a high school gym. And it was an embarrassment: an embarrassment when the other teams came, here, and an embarrassment when prospective students visited. Students had been promised a new gym for, oh, 15 years, and it wasn't ever going to happen. So, in my first year or two, I had to say we're going to have a first-class gym because I want to attract great people to this university to speak. We had no place for them to speak. So we build a forum on top of the gym that holds about 1,000 people. So I've been able to have ex-presidents and Colin Powell and Tom Brokaw are coming this year. That was the beginning of putting a little bit of my own priorities on things.

UB I understand you hold a weekly President's Hour?

Any student who wants to come in and chat with the president can do so any week. We hold them at different times because we don't want to do it when students have classes or athletics or whatever, so every week it's a different time.

UB Open forum?

Yes, whatever they want to talk about. And students are wonderful. They talk about everything and ask me why I haven't been to a rugby game this year ... to a student who talked about his father being very sick and lost his job and the student didn't know if he'll be able to graduate now because his family can't afford it. It's everything. It enables me to put out small fires before they become large fires because the students will come in and say--this is a problem. And you find out about it, you bring in the resources to eliminate it before it becomes serious.

UB Should there be more intervention in the critical freshman/sophomore years?

You need interventions, particularly in those first couple of years. I think this goes for all schools. More and more students have some kind of a problem. It can be a learning disability, for example. These are not things that they have put down on their admissions applications, so you find out about them when they get here. Unfortunately, more and more students are picking up bad habits, particularly alcohol habits, back when they were 14 or 15 years old. So they come into college already with a drinking problem and you've got to deal with that. Some students have, unfortunately, some very difficult family problems. We find here that students who come from an inner city, often on scholarship, really need somebody there for them every day and if you are there for them every day, they will stabilize; they will do well and they will graduate, often with honors. But if you're not there, you lose them and we work very hard at that.

UB You have always been a proponent of implementing technology on campus.

I believe, we were one of the first, before it became fashionable, to give every student a computer. We've been technologically wired on this campus for a long time. It is very common for faculty and students to correspond at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. For a student who has a problem, he or she feels they can message that faculty member and get a message back. In the course that I teach, I can tell you which students are into theater, which students are into sports, which students may or may not have a problem. I can intervene if there's a problem and that's the philosophy here. I think we have a very good graduation rate because of that.