Halfway there, Fagin limited only by time

From behind her desk in a cozy corner room in the president's office, Claire Fagin sighed and smiled as she leaned back in her chair. "I like this room best," she said. "It's just the right size for a good conversation." Fagin, who has earned the reputation of being a "what you see is what you get" kind of administrator, has almost reached the half-way point in her term as interim president. In five short months, Fagin has appointed three committees, appeared in two live televised town meetings, pledged to revamp the University's judical system and is looking to replace the current racial harassment policy. These actions have drawn both approval and criticism from inside and outside the University community. Of course, she's also spent a considerable amount of time cheering the University football team on to victory. She even traveled to Harvard to witness the Quakers' 27-20 triumph over the Crimson and the end of the Harvard Hex – the University's inability to win a game in Cambridge since 1972. "Can you believe the Harvard president wasn't there?" she said the day after she hugged players on the sidelines, congratulating the team on its penultimate win of the season. "Who would miss a game like that?" But now, after the football team has clinched the Ivy League title and Fagin has announced her decision on the racial harassment policy, it's a good time for reflection. "I think we're making enormous headway in many things," Fagin said last week. "But one of the limitations of an interim presidency is time. It's difficult, especially with a 'can do' and 'move ahead' personality like mine, to accomplish everything I'd like to do." She said the next six months will be a "regrouping" time, in which the announcement of the University's next president – likely to be sometime in late January or early February – will have a great impact on her interim work. "I would be less than honest if I said the president-elect would not influence me," she said. "Clearly, I would have to discuss my agenda items with him, or her." Fagin said while she thinks the president-elect would naturally limit some of her powers to act, she thinks many plans are already in motion. "I think we're far from being lame ducks," she said. "Many plans, like the [Revlon] Center and diversity on Locust Walk are in gear. We're hoping to make some announcements over the next few months." While many people see the president's position as an "all powerful" one, Fagin said she has learned all too quickly the impracticality of such a notion. "The extent to which the president can influence the bureaucracy [at the University] is limited," she said. "The perception, however, is that the president's power is almost supreme – that I can fix problems of race, gender and so forth with a snap of my fingers. "Being interim president, I've learned to recognize my own limitations – what a president can do fast, what he can do slow and what he can't do at all." Fagin said she will continue to work toward "healing the community" and moving forward. "In my experience in the interim position, I think I have something of a grandiose notion of goal accomplishment," she said. "While you have to acknowledge that there are human limits in what you can do in a period of six or seven months, I don't think there are sharp limits in looking forward."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.