Leaving a lasting legacy

By Jennifer Torline

Monday, May 4, 2009



Graphic by Matt Bechtold

Nearly every morning with his wife, Leah, and dog, Cassie, Chancellor Robert Hemenway leaves his house, walks past the Chi Omega Fountain and down West Campus Road. He passes Joseph R. Pearson Hall and stops at the light pole near the corner of 11th street. Before he continues, he clenches the fingers on his right hand and knocks his knuckles on the pole.

“I like to think it’s for good luck,” he said during a recent walk.

But it’s taken more than luck for Hemenway to accomplish what he has as the University of Kansas’ 16th chancellor.

When he retires in June after a 14-year tenure, his record will show he oversaw the doubling of money raised each year for research, an increase in minority students and faculty by more than 40 percent, and a completion of more than 100 building and renovation projects.

He will leave behind a university that is ranked 40th among 164 public universities in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings, with 28 of its programs in the top 30 among public schools nationally.

And as expected of any leader with a long tenure, he will leave with his share of criticism for actions such as pushing for tuition increases and trying to staff St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., with medical residents.

Even the University’s ascension as a national powerhouse in basketball and football, which has garnered huge support from alumni and others, has made some complain that Hemenway has supported athletics at the expense of other areas. But most people interviewed for this story, including former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, said he struck the right balance.

She pointed to 2008 when the University was nationally ranked in basketball and football at the same time as the pharmacy school and debate team.

“One of the hallmarks of a well-rounded university is that you need to do many things simultaneously,” Sebelius said in a recent e-mail. “KU has proven they can do that. So, the debate about athletics vs. education will go on and KU will continue to show they can be focused on both of those areas.”

As Hemenway, 67, explained his decision to step down, he seemed comfortable with his legacy.

“You reach a point when you feel like you’ve done a lot and you’ve been quite successful,” he said. “But you also want to leave open the possibility that a new leader will be able to accomplish more.”

Academics

When Hemenway arrived from the University of Kentucky in 1995 and took the reins from Del Shankel, he was hailed as an intellect with a commitment to better education, a dedication to the advancement of minorities and an openness with students.

Soon, he outlined his goals.

Photo Gallery

Chancellor Hemenway

Chancellor Hemenway is retiring in June after 14 years at the University.

One was to provide more international study and teaching opportunities, an effort that has become a badge of honor for faculty and students. In 2008, the University was ranked 11th in the nation by the Institution for International Education for study abroad participation.

Hemenway was also determined to make the campus more diverse. Under his leadership, the number of minority faculty grew from 217 to 397, which now accounts for 16 percent of the entire faculty. At the same time, the minority student population increased by approximately 1,200 students per year and now comprises 13 percent of the student body.

“He has focused aggressively on making available opportunities for people who traditionally in academia have not been given opportunities in the same degree that white males have,” said Provost Richard Lariviere, who is also leaving the University and will become president of the University of Oregon.

Life as Chancellor Bob

Life as Chancellor Bob

There’s more to Chancellor Robert Hemenway than the man who works in Strong Hall.

There’s also a parent and grandparent who has watched his family grow and change during his time as chancellor.

When Hemenway and his wife, Leah, came to Lawrence 14 years ago, they moved into The Outlook, the residence for the University’s chancellor and a place that they would soon call home.

At the time, Hemenway’s two youngest sons — Arna and Zach — were 7 and 11 years old. The two boys grew up on campus, which became their playground.

“Arna rode his bike around campus, and knew all the good hiding spots, especially when his parents were looking for him,” Hemenway said.

Hemenway has six other children — Gina, Jeremy, Robin, Karintha, Matthew and Langston. Four of Hemenway’s eight children have received degrees from the University.

The Hemenways have celebrated weddings, family reunions, graduation parties and other family events at The Outlook.

The annual graduation lunch on the lawn is one of the family’s favorite events, Leah said.

Famous celebrities and politicians, ranging from Danny Glover to Bill Clinton, have visited The Outlook and some have stayed in the guest house.

But there have been rough times as well, such as the death of The Outlook’s gardener and Hemenway’s surgery to remove a tumor in his prostate in 2001.

Being chancellor is a demanding job, Leah said, and several times a week Hemenway often goes to work at seven in the morning and has events in the evening until 10 or 11 p.m. The weekends can be filled with athletic events and catching up on office work.

“It’s a seven-day job for him,” Leah said.

Hemenway admits that the balance between work and family is difficult, and said he had not always been able to do as much with his family as he wanted.

“There were times when Arna had a Little League game or something else, and I had to choose between our kids and the students as a whole,” Hemenway said. “For most people you learn how to balance that out.”

As Hemenway prepares to retire and move into a home near campus, one of his biggest challenges remains: where to put the hundreds and hundreds of books that line the shelves in his office.

“I’m going to have to figure out what to do with them,” Hemenway said.

— Jennifer Torline

A third major goal of Hemenway’s was to raise and spend more dollars on research, and he made good on the promise. Research funding increased from $124 million in 1995 to nearly $300 million this year.

Some, such as Sebelius, think the research emphasis is just what Kansas needs.

“Great research universities are the economic engines of the future,” she said.

Others question whether the demand for research and scholarship by faculty are pulling too many good teachers out of the classroom.

“More than I can ever remember before, the University is a corporation for big business,” said Timothy Miller, a professor of religious studies who has been at the University for more than 30 years. “It seems to me that is emphasized more and more, and it is emphasized at the expense of other things.”

Nancy Kinnersley, president of the Faculty Senate, acknowledged the debate.

“There are as many opinions on that as faculty members,” she said.

Tuition increases during Hemenway’s time have also raised eyebrows.

In 1995, tuition for two semesters at the University cost an undergraduate in-state student $1,766. This year, the price tag is $6,195. Still, the University had a record enrollment of more than 30,000 in Fall 2008.

Hemenway agreed the increases were not ideal but defended them by pointing to higher rates at other universities. He also lauded the 2007 approval of the Four-Year Tuition Compact, designed to keep tuition rates flat for students during the four years they attend the University.

“You try not to be in a situation where you’re raising tuition, but you make sure it’s legitimate by making things better for students,” Hemenway said.

Donna Shank, chairwoman of the Kansas Board of Regents, said she and Hemenway have sometimes disagreed on the need for the increases. But Shank praised Hemenway’s desire to improve the University and how he handled himself during discussions.

“He will state his position and he’ll try and convince you,” Shank said. “He respects where you end up.”

The Medical Center

Issues involving the University of Kansas Medical Center have brought Hemenway some of his heaviest praise and criticism.

The Med Center is a biomedical research center in Kansas City, Kan., that offers more than 30 academic programs in allied health, medicine and nursing professions. More than 3,000 students are enrolled there this semester.

Barbara Atkinson, executive vice chancellor of the Med Center, said Hemenway has improved the center in three areas: separating the University of Kansas Hospital from the Med Center in 1998, which staved off financial losses and allowed it to thrive; revising and modernizing the medical school and its curriculum; and making the cancer program the University’s top research priority.

Under Hemenway, the University has created partnerships with clinics and businesses to develop cancer drugs and build new research space, all in an effort to earn a prestigious National Cancer Institute designation in the next few years. The Med Center has added 250 new faculty positions since Hemenway arrived.

The local community has responded to the Med Center’s success. Johnson County residents voted in November to approve a 0.125 percent sales tax increase to raise $15 million for a research triangle that involves a KU Cancer Clinical Research Center and additions to the Edwards Campus.

One area of controversy, however, has been the partnership between the Med Center and St. Luke’s Hospital. Both institutions have invested money so that the Med Center could train more students to be doctors and serve residencies at St. Luke’s.

Dolph C. Simons, Jr., editor of the Lawrence Journal-World, has been critical of the partnership. Simons declined to be interviewed for this story.

The St. Luke’s situation is something the new chancellor will continue to deal with, as are larger issues about preparing the next generation of doctors and other workers.

“There is still a huge need for the kind of specialized education that KU is so good at doing,” Atkinson said. “I think figuring out how to balance all that while continuing to move ahead as a research university is a challenge for the new chancellor.”

Athletics

If there is one area of widespread agreement, it’s that the University has had huge success with athletics during Hemenway’s tenure.

In 2008, the University became only the second school in the country to win a BCS football bowl game and the national basketball championship in the same year.

Hemenway is a big sports fan and he and his wife, Leah, attend as many athletic events as they can.

Hemenway finds athletics so intriguing that after retiring in June, he plans to write a book about the value of intercollegiate athletics to a university.

“I’m very interested in the way that a university assimilates athletics into the enterprise of the University,” Hemenway said. “I think that KU, for example, gets a great deal of success and a great deal of its academic success because our educational experience and our athletics experience are really tied together.”

Athletics have come a long way since Hemenway arrived in 1995, right around the time that the Big 8 Conference became the Big 12.

“That was a dramatic change for the University of Kansas and for all the Big 8 institutions to suddenly have Texas and Texas A & M,” said Bob Frederick, athletics director from 1987 to 2001. “Suddenly the playing field changed dramatically.”

Shortly after his arrival, Hemenway became the chairman of the Big 12 Board of Directors, and later became chairman of the board of directors of the NCAA, which governs college sports.

There have been rough spots during Hemenway’s tenure, such as the announced departure and then rehiring of football coach Glen Mason in 1995. Many fans and alumni felt Hemenway should not have allowed him to return, especially because Mason left the following year.

In 2001, Hemenway came under fire for abolishing the men’s swimming and tennis programs to save the Athletics Department $600,000 per year. The move prompted petitions and protests from alumni as well as students, but the eliminations stayed in place.

The 2003 firing of then-athletics director Al Bohl and the departure of basketball coach Roy Williams within a short time period also brought criticism. But the vacancies opened the way for two well-known faces in KU Athletics: Athletics Director Lew Perkins and basketball coach Bill Self.

The balance between athletics and academics has been a rollercoaster ride during Hemenway’s tenure.

“I feel like whenever there’s been a decision between looking out for the interests of students versus looking out for the interests of the Athletics Department, I feel that he has chosen the Athletics Department instead,” said Eric Foss, Overland Park law student and member of the Student Senate finance committee.

Yet others, such as Drue Jennings, chairman of the search committee for the new chancellor, disagreed and said there has been an appropriate balance between athletics and academics.

“All you have to do is go to a football game or Allen Fieldhouse to know that athletics are the front porch of the University,” said Jennings, a former football player and a former interim athletics director. “While you shouldn’t ignore the other areas, you have to understand that athletics are the window that many people in the world see you through, and it’s extremely important.”

Building projects

Those who know him said Hemenway could be a very frugal man.

Several years ago, Hemenway refused to allow new carpet in his office because he did not want to spend money on it, even though his old carpet was falling apart. Hemenway’s employees waited until he was away on vacation to install new carpet.

Mary Burg, Hemenway’s executive assistant both here and at the University of Kentucky, remembers when Hemenway first went to the University of Kentucky as chancellor of the Lexington Campus. He drove the same beat-up Volkswagen bus he had driven around the country to research Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was an African-American author who has been at the center of Hemenway’s studies. Hemenway’s 1977 book, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography,” is often credited with sparking an interest in African-American female novelists.

When Hemenway discovered he could drive a University of Kentucky car, he sold the Volkswagen to a graduate student for $35.

Although the University has spent nearly $1 billion in building and renovation projects during the years, those close to him said Hemenway had approached the projects with a knack for fundraising. Hemenway led the KU First Campaign, a capital campaign which raised $635.8 million from 1998 to 2004.

Most of the money for University construction has come from student fees, donors and endowment gifts. University Architect Warren Corman credited Hemenway with a talent for explaining the needs of the University to donors and administrators.

Some of the projects that have occurred during Hemenway’s tenure include the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, the Hall Center for the Humanities, Budig Hall, three new scholarship halls and renovations to Murphy and JRP halls among others.

Another major project was the development of eight buildings on West Campus on more than 400 acres.

When Hemenway arrived, three buildings existed on West Campus: the Simons, Haguchi and Smissman labs. Since then, the University added the circular Becker Drive to host the Multidisciplinary Research Building, Structural Biology Building, pharmaceutical labs and more than 260,000 square feet of research space. This extra space has helped the University vie for a National Cancer Institute designation.

“He understands building and construction better than all the chancellors I’ve worked with,” said Corman, who has worked for the Board of Regents and helped design the original Malott and JRP halls.

City and the HIll

Growth of West Campus has helped the University build cooperation with local officials.

Whether it be the city transit system, cooperation on land use, or the building of Fire Station #5 at 19th and Iowa streets on KU Endowment land, City Manager David Corliss said the Lawrence community has benefited from the University’s influence under Hemenway’s tenure.

Corliss pointed specifically to the city, county and Lawrence Douglas County Bioscience Authority working with the University on an incubator facility on West Campus. The collaborative project is the first of its kind in the relationship between the city and University. The city recently made its first payment of $75,000 for the center.

Mike Amyx, city commissioner and vice mayor, said the University’s influence was mostly beneficial, especially regarding the business that KU athletics attracted to the city.

Amyx has a distinct relationship with Hemenway because the chancellor has been a customer in Amyx’s barber shop on Massachusetts Street since he arrived at the University, and the two men often talk about local and University issues.

The biggest conflict between the two men? The location of the Kansas-Missouri football games.

“I’d rather have it at Memorial Stadium,” Amyx said, citing the economic and athletic advantages of a Lawrence game.

What’s next

After Hemenway retires and finishes his book about intercollegiate athletics, he will return to his first passion: teaching at the University.

“He’s a born teacher,” said Maryemma Graham, an English professor who has worked with Hemenway on numerous academic and research projects. “Not only does he continue his interest in the academic side and is a mentor for scholars, he was teaching and working with graduate students and teaching undergraduate students and being chancellor.”

Ever since he was an undergraduate student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Hemenway said, he thought it was “the coolest thing” to be paid to read, write and teach.

That’s what motivated him to teach at the University of Kentucky and to continue teaching as chancellor of the University of Kansas.

“It’s a way to continue to have your students challenge you and you get to challenge your students,” Hemenway said. “The relationship between faculty and students is a very special relationship.”

For nearly 13 years, Hemenway taught a 7:30 a.m. course on American literature. Students said they remembered his quirkiness in the classroom, whether it be trying his hand at rapping, telling stories, or demonstrating a scene from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

“He wasn’t one of those professors who spoke from his notes,” Cindy Lynn, Lawrence senior, said. “He had a strong command of his topic and you could tell that he loved his topic and he liked his students. He really liked being in the classroom.”

Throughout his tenure, Hemenway has been known for keeping an open door with students, faculty and staff, inviting their questions and concerns.

“He has such a depth of knowledge in such a variety of areas,” Adam McGonigle, Wichita junior and former student body president, said. “He’s such a go-to person for me whenever I have any questions.”

With the 24/7 demands of being chancellor, Hemenway said he was looking forward to retirement and being able to spend more time with his colleagues and students.

“I think it’s time for me to step down from the chancellor’s position and to get the pleasure of reading and writing and the progress that I think inevitably should accompany any chancellor in what they are doing,” Hemenway said.

And though Hemenway will no longer be chancellor, he won’t disappear any time soon. He and Leah have bought a house close to campus, and Hemenway plans to maintain the relationships he’s built with students by teaching courses and attending athletic events.

He will likely remain a familiar figure in the early mornings on Jayhawk Boulevard for years to come.

“The one thing that I want to make sure that I don’t miss is that I sustain the relationships I have with students,” Hemenway said. “That’s really what we’re about here, is educating students.”

— — Edited by Jessica Sain-Baird

Comments

pantheon (anonymous) says...

Matt Bechtold, the graphic design nazis are coming for you.

On a more positive note, this was actually relatively informative.

May 4, 2009 at 8:11 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

awood (Adam Wood) says...

Hemenway is going to "sustain the relationships" he has with May Davis.

May 4, 2009 at 11:38 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Advertisement