The almost simultaneous announcements of the departure of UNM President William Gordon and head basketball coach Fran Fraschilla provided a snapshot of what the University is all about in the eyes of most New Mexicans. The notice of Gordon's retirement occupied only an inch or two on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal, while that of Fraschilla's termination was spread all over the front page and the sports section.
Speculation on Gordon's replacement has been pretty much limited to the predictable demands of the Hispanic Roundtable, while the issue of Fraschilla's successor has filled pages in the local papers and has been discussed endlessly on local radio and television.
Inasmuch as he is a coach, Fraschilla's tenure is of course easy to evaluate: he was a failure. And his failure not only means disappointed fans, but also that once again the University will be paying a huge sum of money - his $450,000 buyout is exactly 10 times my annual salary - to someone not actually working for us. UNM seems to have a special talent for this, at one time paying money to three different football coaches. But we have to invest resources in what is really important, right?
Evaluating Gordon is a much more subjective exercise. He was certainly far better than his predecessor, Richard Peck, but that is like saying Claudius was far better than Caligula: anybody would have been better. Gordon in fact once told me after I had written an unflattering column that while criticism was fine, if I ever again compared him to Peck, he would beat the hell out of me. Like any sensible human being I took this as hyperbole, yet Gordon and his administration took as a serious threat my offhand remark that Dean Migneault should be shot. Go figure.
Like many faculty, I initially received Gordon's nomination with enthusiasm. This was not the usual out-of-state professional academic administrator but rather a guy who had actually been part of the University faculty for some 20 years. But two little flies of suspicion began buzzing about my mind. As provost, Gordon had agreed to an attempt by Vice President for Student Affairs Eliseo Torres to retaliate against me for criticizing Hispanic Student Services, hardly a recommendation for making him president of an institution that is supposed to protect and encourage free speech.
Second, and more compelling, he was the obvious choice of the Board of Regents, a gaggle of businessmen, attorneys and political wannabes. I found it very odd and uncomfortable to be in agreement with a group of people who have rarely displayed any idea of what a university actually is.
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It is perfectly clear now why he was the perfect choice. He was charming and looked very good, especially as a long-time faculty member at UNM. He was also willing to give public voice and support to the often pernicious policies of the regents and mouth whatever platitudes were required, regardless of whether they matched his actual convictions or not. One simply cannot go from dean to provost to president without a full tank of hypocrisy, and as former - and fired - UNM President Tom Farer discovered, one cannot continue to serve as president without toeing the regents' line.
Given the strictures of the job, Gordon was perhaps about as good a president as we might expect, though it should be noted that most of the recent gushing about him comes from people - like Faculty Senate President John Geissman - who appear to be clueless about the nature of the University and academic freedom. Gordon was perhaps more honest than the average UNM president and more committed to the most important part of the University - undergraduate education - but I believe that at the critical moment of his presidency he failed, waffling on the issue of free speech and refusing to unequivocally defend his faculty from the mobs outside the University's gates.
Under different circumstance Bill Gordon might have been a great university president, but as the CEO of UNM he was compelled, in order to keep his job, to support the policies of the Board of Regents, of men such as Larry Willard and Richard Tolliver, who have time and again demonstrated their lack of understanding of the University. Inside sources, in fact, suggest that Gordon is leaving precisely because he is sick of dealing with fools, be they Regents or boosters or state legislators. Or faculty.
I fully expect that whomever the regents hire - after going through the charade of consulting the faculty - will be far worse than Gordon, so I make a modest proposal. Let us combine the positions of president and head basketball coach. Symbolically this would make a lot of sense, since it is obvious to everyone that the basketball coach is far and away the most important official at UNM.
Further, combining the two positions would produce a compensation package large enough to attract some serious coaching talent. If he can win games, he will by definition be a great president. I suggest Bobby Knight, who could keep unruly faculty in line by throwing chairs at them or throttling them. Hey, it's what New Mexico wants, isn't it?
by Richard M. Berthold
Daily Lobo Columnist
