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During his tenure, former University President James Duderstadt promoted the
University's most liberal policies. In retirement, he continues to fight the good fight.
Here's how he came to take up the bullhorn.
world inwhich the pace of knowledge continues
to accelerate and where you're one paycheck away
from the unemployment line, unless you're willing
to continue to prove your skills."
Duderstadt, who served from 1988 to 1996 as
the 11th president of the University, is knowledge-
able about more than just higher education. He is
a veritable giant of policy - and philosophy - on
an array of topics, including energy policy and the
Michigan economy. He is also a theoretical physi-.
cist and nuclear engineer by trade.
Thirteen years after his retirement from the
presidency, Duderstadt maintains an office on
North Campus in the building that bears his name.
He rose into a leadership position because he
wanted to get things done - and he stepped down
when the job was finished.
Though much is often made of his retirement
and unlikely return to the College of Engineering
faculty, Duderstadt maintains that there's nothing
so mysterious about his decisions. He was a change
agent who pushed the envelope, never thinking
about whether it might hurt his chances at taking
another presidency at a more elite institution.
"I burned a lot of bridges," he said with a soft
chuckle, reflecting on some of the unpopular deci-
sions he made. "But once in a while, you have to do
things like that."'
THE BOY WHO THOUGHT YALE
WAS IN ENGLAND
Born in Carrollton, Mo. in 1943, Duderstadt
was just the second person ever from his town to
take the SAT. Passing on the usual career paths
for rural Missouri boys in the 1950s ("agriculture,
maybe dentistry"), Duderstadt's parents encour-
aged him to apply to faraway schools - some of
which were actually closer than he thought.
"I applied to places like Stanford and Michi-
gan, and Yale and Harvard - which I thought at
the time were in England," he said.
Sight unseen, the young Duderstadt headed
to Yale, with the promise of playing football for
the Bulldogs the deciding factor. A culture shock
was inevitable, but that didn't make it any easi-
er. Initially, Duderstadt carried a B average and
struggled to fit in with his Andover and Exeter-
prepped classmates.
But just as he would later in life, Duderstadt
adapted quickly - raising his grades and taking
on electrical engineering as his major because, as
he describes in his memoir "The View From the
Helm," it was "the hardest engineering major so I
reasoned it had to be worthwhile."
From there, it was the Cold War and the noto-
rious '60s that shaped his career.
"A lot of things were happening," Duderstadt
said in September. "Martin Luther King was the
said, presidents are snapedby tneinstitution and
time in which they serve.
"Institutions are much more influential in
shaping the president than the president is in
shaping the institution," he said. "These are big,
powerful organizations that have lasted a very
long time. The ultimate responsibility of a presi-
dent is to the institution, and through that, to the
various constituencies that it serves - students,
states, the nation and the world."
Asked what a University president could or
should do to oppose public impositions such.as
the ban on affirmative action, Duderstadt admits
that there isn't always much to be done - with
one exception.
"You have to speak out," Duderstadt said. "But
the difficulty today is that the voice of the presi-
dent is not nearly as loud or highly regarded or
heard as it might have been at earlier times. As
president, -you always have a lot of responsibili-
ties. Some things are important enough - I felt
diversity was - that you simply have to be a very
powerful voice for it."
Regardless, pressures from the government,
students, donors and alumni are intense. Duder-
stadt, speaking of each in turn, was most appre-
ciative ofthe influence students have traditionally
exerted, especially in Ann Arbor. He admitted
it can be a "headache" when students disrupt
administration meetings or barge in on the presi-
dent's office, but he still feels student activism
is a positive influence on the University, such as
when students pushed for the Michigan Man-
date, a University agenda to make racial diversity
on campus mirror national and statewide demo-
graphics.
"We would not have done that had it not been
for the students who pounded on the desks and
got our attention," Duderstadt said.
But Duderstadt believes that students today
just aren't as involved as they used to be and
feels the University is lacking student energy and
engagement on issues.
Student energy is rarely low when it comes
to Michigan athletics, though. And even though
Duderstadt was at the helm of the University
through several Rose Bowls and Final Fours, he
is very critical of the role of athletics on college
campuses.
"I think (athletics) just distorts the American
perspective of what universities are all about," he
said. "I am also deeply worried about the degree
to which it exploits young people.
"We've found that most of the student-athletes
that come to the University of Michigan come
with the same academic objectives as all of our
students. And the factthat a significant number of
them don't finish and gettheir degree here - and
don't have life afterward in terms of athletics -
means they've been exploited to benefit coaches
and institutions. And that's wrong."
See DUDERSTADT, Page 8C
speaker at my commencement. (President) Ken-
nedy was assassinated in my senior year. The
Space Race was off and running. I was interested
in the space program, went to Caltech and then
got involved in the nuclear area, which seemed
like a hot area at the time."
After a stint after graduation in Los Alam-
os, N.M., to work on nuclear-powered rockets
intended for manned missions to Mars, Duder-
stadt intended to settle down in California. But
his wife, Anne, had other ideas. "Having grown
weary of the smog and traffic of Southern Cali-
fornia," Duderstadt recalled, she accepted on his
behalf an offer made by the College of Engineer-
ing at the University of Michigan in faraway Ann
Arbor.
"THE PRESIDENCY SWUNG TO ME"
Duderstadt arrived in Ann Arbor in 1968, and
didn't take long to make his mark.
"I went through the normal process of doing
research and teaching and found myself more and
more involved in university politics," Duderstadt
said. "I was on (the Senate Assembly), and in 1980
was surprised when the provost called and asked
if I'd be dean of engineering. I was 36."
As dean of the College of Engineering, Duder-
stadt began the type of work that would come to
define his 40 years at Michigan. He was known
for restructuring the school, making improve-
ments and advancing the department to prepare
for a new age in education.
Duderstadt himself puts it more bluntly.
"I had changed the College of Engineering so
much thatI feltI wasn't the appropriate person to
serve more than five years," he said. "They need-
ed someone to come in after me and let it heal a
little bit."
Promoted to provost in 1986, Duderstadt
became the first person from the College of Engi-
neering to gain a senior administration position.
Then-University President Harold Shapiro may
have already had in mind an even higher position
for Duderstadt. Shapiro left the following year
to become the Princeton University president,
which left Duderstadt as the only internal candi-
date for the Michigan job.
"Not that I was interested in it, but that's
where I found myself," Duderstadt clarified. "And
through a variety of things that happened, the
presidency swung to me."
Duderstadt was in many ways the first modern
presidentofthe University.Hetalked aboutissues
like diversity and repositioningthe University for
the digital age - ideas that have become main-
stays of the University's identity today - at a time
when these were still novel, untested ideals.
His focus on diversity was multi-faceted, suc-
cessful and largely applauded even by his harsh-
est critics - The Michigan Daily's editorial
page among them. Two of his pet projects, the
Michigan Mandate and the Michigan Agenda
for Women, improved racial and gender diversity
among the University faculty. His later move to
extend benefits to same-sex partners of Univer-
sity employees was also successful, though much
more controversial.
"I came under enormous heat when I extended
the concept of diversity to include sexual orien-
tation," he said. "(Former Michigan Gov. John
Engler) tried to pack our Board of Regents with
people that were hostile to that and to me. I lost a
lot of support, but it was the rightthing to do."
Another product of Duderstadt's tenure was
the improvement of campus facilities. In a 1996
editorial reflecting on his presidency, the Daily
said that Duderstadt's greatest legacy might as
well have been turning the Diag into a perpetual
construction zone. But from that age of change
emerged a fully rebuilt campus that students and
faculty could be proud of.
Duderstadt said the University's strong credit
rating and the weak economy made it the right
time to rebuild the campus. Nevertheless, there
were critics, from students frustrated by detours
to state officials who criticized money spent on
construction. anywhere besides the revenue-
reaping Michigan Stadium.
Perhaps the reason Duderstadt has been able
to embrace the controversy and fallout of such
unpopular decisions so easily is because he takes
a much broader, idealistic view of the role of a