Herbert leaving IU presidency ‘appreciative of the opportunity’

Over four-year term, Herbert served as a ‘change agent’ in many areas, including IU’s relationship with Ivy Tech
INDIANA UNIVERSITY

By Steve Hinnefeld 331-4374 | shinnefeld@heraldt.com
June 30, 2007

Adam Herbert said he leaves the presidency of Indiana University today with no regrets, having served as a “change agent” and met the goals set for him by the IU board of trustees.

“When I came here, I was very excited and very optimistic about the future of the university,” Herbert said. “And I leave feeling very appreciative of the opportunity to become part of the Indiana University family, and with the same enthusiasm for the future of this institution as when I came.”

Michael McRobbie, the IU Bloomington provost, takes the reins as president Sunday. Herbert will spend the next year before retirement as Indiana president emeritus, doing research and working on projects.

Herbert, 63, came to Indiana from Florida, where he had served as president of the University of North Florida and chancellor of the state university system.

At IU, he carried out a “mission differentiation” initiative to focus the roles of the university’s eight campuses, dramatically improved relations with Ivy Tech Community College and strengthened the institution’s commitment to racial and international diversity.

He got the ball rolling for an ambitious life-science initiative, prodded faculty to agree on general-education programs and oversaw the elimination of athletics department debt and the development of plans for improving sports facilities.

“I think the legacy is going to be great,” said Sue Talbot, a trustee who lives in Bloomington. “He really has a lot of things to his credit. I think he’s set a good stage for Michael McRobbie to come in and further a lot of those goals.”

Herbert also got credit for improving relations with the Indiana General Assembly, which were sometimes strained under his predecessor, Myles Brand.

“He looked at the whole state. And he looked at how IU could serve the whole state,” said House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend.

For Bauer, the way Herbert reached out to Ivy Tech “made history in Indiana education.” When Herbert arrived, only a handful of Ivy Tech courses counted toward credit at IU, and lawmakers were accusing IU of putting roadblocks in the way of developing a community college system.

Now more than 400 credit-hours transfer from Ivy Tech to IU Bloomington, and the institutions have several articulation agreements, in which two-year Ivy Tech degrees count toward four-year IU degrees.

“I am particularly proud that we have built bridges that did not exist before,” Herbert said. “We’ve broken down barriers that previously hindered our capacity to serve students.”

Herbert challenged IU faculty to double government and private research funding over a decade. He said the life-science initiative, which called for hiring 500 top researchers over 12 years, will be the platform for meeting the goal. IU asked the Legislature this year for $80 million for the initiative; lawmakers authorized $15 million.

Herbert faced criticism from some faculty for spending too much time on athletics, but he defended that use of his time. Not only was it a directive from the trustees, he said, but a strong athletics program is important for a Big Ten university.

Besides balancing the athletic budget, he said, IU turned the corner on facilities improvements, building a field hockey field and a soccer practice field and recently breaking ground on basketball practice facilities, athletics offices, a training area and an academic center for student-athletes.

Academics are “the first priority,” he said, but “athletics is one of the important magnets that draws alumni together across the country and around the world.”

Herbert signed a five-year contract when he came to IU, and he said he intended to stay for that long. Some of his supporters thought the contract would be extended.

“I really thought he would be here longer, maybe seven years,” said Talbot, the IU trustee. “We hired him hoping he would be here that long.”

But Herbert angered many faculty in the fall of 2005 when he canceled a search for a new IU Bloomington chancellor, passing over Kumble Subbaswamy, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The move brought forth criticism that Herbert was slow to make decisions and not accessible to faculty and the public. After an unusual mass meeting, Bloomington faculty called for a trustees’ review of the president’s job performance.

There was no review, but in January 2006, Herbert announced he would step down when his contract ended, or sooner than that if his successor were identified. Trustees appointed McRobbie as president-elect this March, and Herbert is leaving office a year before his contract expires.

Ted Miller, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council the past two years, told trustees last week that Herbert’s presidency was a time of positive change. “It’s very, very clear to me the university is in better shape today than it was four years ago,” he said.

Fred Cate, an IU Bloomington law professor and member of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, said that’s true, but it doesn’t mean the university has made enough progress in a time of enormous change and competitive pressure in higher education.

“I think it was clear the last three or four years, at least, the Bloomington campus needed a sense of an active, strategic, energetic leader, and it wasn’t getting that,” he said.

Herbert also promoted diversity efforts, setting IU Bloomington on a course to double the enrollment of under-represented minority students by 2013 and pushing to hire more minority faculty and do more business with minority contractors.

As IU’s first black president, he developed close ties with African-American leaders around the state and was held up as a role model for minority achievement. He said it’s up to his successors — and the governors and alumni who choose future members of the board of trustees — to carry on the initiative.

“I can tell you, the expectations within the broad community are higher now than they were before we initiated some of these very important programs,” he said.