Boston U. president paid to step down from post

The recent issues surrounding Boston University's decision to terminate its agreement with Daniel Goldin, who was to assume the school's presidency, have raised eyebrows throughout the world of higher education.

Goldin, previously an administrator for NASA, was given a vote of "no confidence" by the the school's Board of Trustees just a day before he was to become the university's president. He had originally received unanimous support from all 41 members.

Last Friday, Goldin and the board concluded their discussions about his severance package which, according to the Boston radio station WBZ, includes $1.8 million. The actual terms of the agreement are being kept confidential.

According to an official release on the school's Web site, "Neither party will discuss the matter further."

BU spokeswoman Nancy Sterling said only, "We reached a mutual agreement with Dr. Goldin."

Penn recently experienced a similar situation, when former business chief Clifford Stanley unexpectedly stepped down after less than a year in office. Administrators have declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding Stanley's departure, attributing it to personal reasons.

Students at BU do not consider their university's method of handling the matter acceptable.

"We found out through the Boston Globe before we found out from the school," said Jennifer Sichel, a BU sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.

She said that the school sent out two letters via e-mail from the interim president, Aram Chobanian, and the Board of Trustees, but "that's all the information that we've been given about the whole thing" from the university.

Sterling verified that the e-mails were distributed, but claimed that they were sent as quickly as possible from the time the terms were finalized last Friday between Goldin and the trustees.

Students are not the only ones who are curious about the dismissal. It has drawn attention from higher education officials as well.

Tony Pals, the information director at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, wrote in an e-mail, "What the BU board of directors did in this case is unprecedented."

He added, "In the short term, this will be a PR nightmare for the institution. It will depress the moral[e] of faculty and staff, raise further questions about the management of the university from those inside and outside the institution and may hurt alumni support and fundraising efforts."

Rumors looking to explain the situation have been circulating throughout the media and among students at the university.

Goldin's appointment was said to conflict with the way that John Silber, the former president, ran the university.

Silber agreed to step down from his post as chancellor to a lesser role as president emeritus in late October, before the university's decision regarding Goldin was released.

University President Judith Rodin declined a similar chancellor position over the summer -- despite initially accepting it -- after announcing her resignation to the Board of Trustees.

Some members of the BU community have other ideas about what may have led to the university's decision to buy Goldin out of his contract.

Sichel said that it was alleged that Goldin was planning to put an end to the trustees' practice of investing the university's money in their own companies.

Sterling denied these allegations.

"Dr. Goldin never raised that subject to the board," she said.

Sichel replied that "she's just saying what the school's told her to say," adding, "Just because he didn't say it to the board doesn't mean he didn't say it."

"If they won't talk about it, it's probably not kosher," Sichel said. "They're not fooling anyone with this vote of no confidence -- give me a break. He ran NASA; he's a competent guy."

While such allegations are merely that, allegations, Pals declared that two problems exist at the heart of the situation: the first is about "the concern any incoming president was going to have about the role that former BU president John Silber was going to play in institutional decision making."

He added that the "second may have been the discomfort the board had with Goldin's disclosure that he was going to clean house at the institution, replacing several high-level administrators and evaluating long-standing business practices."

Pals believes that BU will "have a very difficult time attracting highly qualified candidates for this position, which is a position that the nation's third or fourth largest private university does not want to be in."

He added, "The board needs to make clear that John Silber will not be looking over the shoulder of the next president, and informally or formally advising board members."

Pamela Slorio, a sophomore in BU's School of Management, agreed.

"I think it will take a while to find a new president because they'll probably want someone to work the same way that Silber did," she said, adding that "something else is going on behind the scenes -- it's just making the school look bad."

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