University Times

Like J. Dennis O'Connor, Wesley Posvar was widely viewed as a vigorous young academician and a breath of administrative fresh air when he became Pitt chancellor. Posvar was 42 at the time of his hiring in 1967. O'Connor was 49 when he succeeded Posvar in 1991.

Each man arrived at a time of institutional turmoil (Posvar faced student protests and a $30 million University debt, among other crises) following the departure of a long-serving chancellor who had lost the support of his Board of Trustees and been criticized by some faculty for his "imperial" style. (While fans of Edward H. Litchfield, chancellor from 1956 to 1965, might blanch at the comparison with Posvar, the parallels remain.) A striking contrast between O'Connor and Posvar is that the latter was chancellor for 23 years. O'Connor, who announced his resignation this week, is expected to complete his fourth year as chancellor this August.

In an interview, Posvar — who teaches political science in the University's Honors College — dismissed the idea that the Pitt chancellorship has become too demanding a job for anyone to successfully handle.

"I personally think Dennis O'Connor had a very respectable tour of four years," said Posvar, 69.

"It's a tough job," Posvar acknowledged. "It's like being mayor of a city and captain of a raft going downstream, all at the same time. It calls for a lot of political skills and also a lot of intellectual skills and leadership. But I don't think it has become an impossible job." O'Connor's resignation doesn't threaten Pitt's long-term future, according to Posvar. "This is a 200-year-old-plus university, an old, old university among the great ones." Asked whether Pitt should recruit a new chancellor from outside or within the University, Posvar replied: "I think it's always wrong to prejudge that. Generally, for presidents, you go outside because of the need for change and turnover and so on. But I just can't say. I do think that they [the Board of Trustees] should move expeditiously and aggressively and go after people, not just sit back passively." Will Pitt suffer if O'Connor remains as a lame duck chancellor for a year or longer? "Well, as I said, the decision has been made now and the trustees should recruit. If he [O'Connor] is willing to stay until the next person comes, that's fine. But I don't think there is any reason to deliberately delay. I am sure Dennis O'Connor would agree with that," Posvar said.

Posvar's own retirement, which he anounced in May 1990, didn't officially take effect until summer 1991. Didn't his authority decline during that period? "Well, that's a given when someone is known to be leaving," he answered. "And of course you'll recall that in my last year here there was a lot of instability for that very reason." Posvar said he has never offered advice to O'Connor, nor been asked for any. "I have stayed totally, utterly out of University administration. I have been teaching my students in the Honors College and doing research and working for the government. I just thought the best thing I could do following my retirement, other than moving to Tucson or Saratoga, would be just to do my own thing." The former chancellor said he has read newspaper reports of O'Connor's deteriorating relations with the trustees, but has no insights to offer. "Frankly, I have no idea what the board's thoughts are," Posvar said. "I am completely out of touch with them. I don't want to be in touch with them. Boards are always politically involved in one way or another [in University administration]. I simply don't know." While Posvar has consciously avoided contact with the chancellor's office, he said he sympathizes with O'Connor over the media coverage the latter has received during his tenure. During Posvar's last two years in office, details of his retirement package were splashed across newspaper front pages along with other negative coverage of his administration — the February 1990 vote of no-confidence in him by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences department chairpersons, for example.

Posvar declined to speculate about what O'Connor might have done differently as chancellor, but he offered a self-criticism. "What I have discovered as a faculty member — a consumer, as it were — is that the administrative information system for teaching at this University is very inefficient and antiquated," he said. "I'm speaking of student registration, scheduling and so on, all the paperwork and other things students and faculty have to go through. If I had only known when I had the authority to do something about it, I would have done it."

–Bruce Steele