For William C. Powers, 2011 has been a year full of upheavals.
Certain issues were foreseeable for the president of the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s largest and arguably most prestigious public university. State lawmakers were heading into a legislative session with budget axes at the ready, and nationally there were questions about the value of higher education.
Then, in early February, when he should have been testifying at the Capitol about the university’s financial needs, Mr. Powers suffered a pulmonary embolism. He was in the hospital for a week.
It was the first struggle in a year marked by high-profile battles involving Mr. Powers — to some, the university’s very own Dumbledore; to others, a particularly large bee in the bonnet of higher education reformers.
“How you do in challenging times is more important than how you do in easy times,” Mr. Powers said Wednesday in an interview with The Texas Tribune, acknowledging that the last 12 months fell into the challenging category.
Most recently, on Dec. 8, Mr. Powers abruptly demanded — and received — the resignation of Lawrence Sager as dean of the School of Law. Mr. Powers, who had formerly held the post, said the move was necessary to quell unrest among a deeply divided faculty. “You can’t have a unit be productive, frankly, both on the teaching and on the research side, if there’s not a sense of common enterprise,” he said. “And for whatever reason, that has broken down.”
Mr. Powers and Stefanie A. Lindquist, the interim dean of the law school, are now trying to calm the waters. Mr. Sager’s abrupt departure put an uncomfortable spotlight on the strained personal relationship between the two men, and it has also drawn scrutiny of the role private foundations play in the university’s finances. (more…)
