Shirley Ann Jackson Sticks to the Plan

For Shirley Ann Jackson, the appeal of leaving behind a high-level federal-government job to become president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lay simply in the institution’s untapped potential.

In the 15 years before Ms. Jackson’s arrival in 1999, Rensselaer had been through five presidents. The 183-year-old institution, which is in a city that was more than once nearly destroyed by fire, has had shaky finances and faltering enrollment. Rensselaer had a $500-million endowment at the time she arrived, paltry in comparison with its academic peers. And although Rensselaer is the nation’s oldest technological university, it was not as widely known as it should have been, Ms. Jackson says.

The institute, after all, had one of the earliest university-based business incubators, geared toward start-up technology companies. It pioneered the use of studio classrooms, where students work in teams connected by computers. The Brooklyn Bridge was designed and built by a Rensselaer alumnus. Another alumnus invented the cathode-ray tube, which gave the American television industry its start.

But Rensselaer did not follow in the footsteps of other universities that turned their focuses to research after World War II, leaving it a science and technological institution that was better known for providing an outstanding undergraduate education.

“It’s not that the university was a terrible place,” says Ms. Jackson, who was chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when a recruiter called. What Rensselaer needed, Ms. Jackson says, was to re-establish its storied history. It needed someone with a strong vision for what it could be. It needed someone like her.

Ms. Jackson, 60, who has had a career of many firsts and unabashedly refers to herself as a “change agent” and a “visionary,” promised progress to Rensselaer’s Board of Trustees. But she warned that not everybody would be happy about it. And the pace of it all would be unrelenting.

“If you know there needs to be change, and you know there’s a lot of ground to cover, you don’t waste time,” says Ms. Jackson, who is one of the nation’s best-paid college presidents.

So Ms. Jackson is on a national stage showcasing what is by all accounts her best skill: crafting a plan and then sticking to it. Nearly eight years after her arrival, most faculty members generally support her vision for reinventing Rensselaer by emphasizing information technology and biotechnology, new focuses at an institution traditionally known for engineering.

That is not to say Ms. Jackson’s tenure has been without controversy. Beneath the university’s new luster is what some faculty members say is discontent with Ms. Jackson’s management style, most often described as “formal” and “aloof.” Communication between the president and faculty members, particularly the give and take that often form the backbone of shared academic governance, is infrequent, some say. And a little more than a year after a no-confidence vote against Ms. Jackson just barely failed, not much has changed, says Jim Napolitano, a physics professor who just finished a one-year term as president of the Faculty Senate.

“I think there have been some great things that have happened to us since she’s been here,” Mr. Napolitano says. “She’s been able to put us on the map,” but “you need some kind of political knack” for leading a faculty. “Try as she might,” he says, “she just hasn’t been able to do that.”

A Tough Boss

Ms. Jackson is a theoretical physicist, breaking a path in one of the most male-dominated of the scientific disciplines. She calls herself a pragmatist and is known for her innate intelligence, a clear and direct way of speaking, and for being assertive but not adversarial. She calls herself “high energy” and she sets high standards for herself and her employees, as well as a nearly frantic work pace. That weighs heavily on those who work for her.

“I feel a lot of pressure; I want to do this right,” says Robert J. Linhardt, acting director of the university’s new biotechnology center. “I have been here four years, and I have never seen an institution change as fast as this one has in that amount of time. It can be stressful. But I think what we’re doing here is the right thing to do.”

People who have seen Ms. Jackson work talk about how she attacks problems in a methodical fashion and about her ability to stay focused. She has shown an ability, some say, to finesse her way to a consensus.

“She needed to lead our board that’s made up of highly regarded, well-respected scientists, each of whom has strong opinions, and she did it in a very graceful and delicate way,” says Alan I. Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the leading interdisciplinary science organization. Ms. Jackson was chairwoman of its board in 2005.

She also has a knack for sifting through immense amounts of information and organizing it in a way that brings clarity to the issues.

“What she can do that a lot of people cannot do is, she can come in and look at a situation and develop an outstanding strategy as to how to make that situation better,” says Clarence G. Williams, who first met Ms. Jackson, a graduate student at the time, when he was hired as assistant dean of the graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And she can lay that strategy out in such a way that the custodian can recognize what needs to be done.”

When she came to Rensselaer, Ms. Jackson was true to form. She “had a plan in her mind already,” says David Haviland, the recently retired vice president for institute advancement, who had a key role in developing what would become known as “The Rensselaer Plan.” Ms. Jackson and senior administrators met regularly right away to talk about what the strategic plan, Rensselaer’s first in 25 years, should cover. The intense meetings typically ran into the night for about three months, says Mr. Haviland.

Faculty members, who had their say in the plan as well, largely did not object to what Ms. Jackson wanted to do, Mr. Haviland says, but “they protested the speed at which it all came together.”

That is a criticism Ms. Jackson is all too familiar with.

“That’s just the pace at which I work,” she says.

The ‘We Will ... ' Plan

“The Rensselaer Plan,” approved by trustees in 2000, hinges on the institution’s building its own niche in biotechnology and information technology and hiring superstar faculty members with specialties in the areas new to the college. The document also set a goal of doubling the university’s endowment, its research funds, and the number of doctoral degrees awarded. The plan is crafted around more than 140 statements that begin with the words “We will ... " followed by what Rensselaer must do to achieve the goals set out in the plan.

“It’s meant to send a message of commitment and resoluteness,” Ms. Jackson says of the word choice. With that same precision, she always refers to the institution as Rensselaer, rather than RPI, the appellation of choice for most students and alumni. She does not believe the name RPI is well known outside engineering circles or the northeastern United States.

The strategic plan has also brought about tougher standards for promotion and tenure and tighter financial controls.

Some goals in the plan have already been achieved or nearly so. The institution has hired 180 new faculty members, 80 of them in newly created positions. It has a total of 471 faculty members, who serve 6,273 undergraduate and graduate students. Research grants have more than doubled, from $37-million to $80-million. And the number of doctoral degrees awarded has risen from 91 to 163 since 1999. The endowment is now valued at $805-million.

Ms. Jackson started her tenure not only with a bang but a buck. After less than two years on the job, she reeled in an anonymous gift of $360-million, which was then the largest single gift to an individual university in the United States.

Roger L. Geiger, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University’s main campus who studies research institutions, says Ms. Jackson’s plan to boost Rensselaer’s research reputation is “ambitious, but in this business you just can’t stand still.” Mr. Geiger says Rensselaer seems to have identified niches in biotechnology that will allow it to

compete in an arena where its peers already have a foothold. And the increase in research grants to the institution “indicates that the plan is kicking in,” Mr. Geiger says, “But transforming an institution takes time.”

Rensselaer is considered the home of the world’s most powerful university-based supercomputing center, which will soon become operational and was made possible during Ms. Jackson’s tenure by a partnership among Rensselaer, IBM Corporation, and the State of New York.

A biotechnology center opened three years ago, and the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, critical to the institution’s push to link the arts with technology, will open in the fall of 2008. In addition, applications to Rensselaer — at just over 10,000 for a spot in this fall’s freshman class — have almost doubled in the last five years; freshman retention is at an all-time high of 94 percent; and the average SAT scores of incoming students are up 39 points since the fall of 1999.

“I feel very positive” about the plan,” says Joyce R. McLaughlin, a mathematics professor and director of the Inverse Problems Center who has worked at the college for more than 20 years. “But at the same time, not everybody says they’re on the train. Many people are enthusiastic, but not everyone.”

Don Steiner, a research professor of nuclear engineering, says such sentiment was to be expected. “There was some acceptance that in this plan everyone wasn’t going to be happy, because there are always limited resources,” says Mr. Steiner, who was in charge of planning Ms. Jackson’s inauguration ceremony. “Everyone can’t be a winner in that context. But there was no feeling early on that this wasn’t what we needed to be doing.”

Some newcomers have thrived. Linda B. McGown, head of the chemistry and chemical biology department who was hired away from Duke University three years ago, says she believed the atmosphere at Rensselaer “would totally revitalize my research, and it has. I’ve had more conversation about research here than I’ve had with colleagues in years.”

No Confidence

Despite all the momentum under Ms. Jackson, frustration with her management style boiled over into a no-confidence vote against her in April 2006. At the time, senior administrators were talking about possibly cutting employees’ pension benefits, and that, coupled with the lack of a “real forum to talk about it,” triggered the vote, says Mr. Napolitano, who did not vote in favor of the no-confidence resolution. “All of a sudden you have a powder keg.”

The vote failed by a slim margin: 149 in favor, 155 against. At a meeting two days later with faculty members, Ms. Jackson said it was clear that she had not talked to them enough about her vision. She promised to listen to faculty members, but in turn, she said, they would have to listen to her as well.

“You cannot not reach out to me while saying I must reach out to you,” she said in her speech. “You cannot hope to get my attention and cooperation by vilifying me or trying to embarrass me publicly.”

Ms. Jackson set some guidelines for future discussions by saying that “engagement does not mean that everyone does everyone else’s job.” Administrators, she said, have their jobs to do, as do faculty members, and “clarity comes from knowing the difference.”

Says Ms. Jackson of her frank remarks: “I just felt the moment had come. I think it helped clear the air.” Since then, Ms. Jackson has held dinners with small groups of faculty members each semester and had lunches for entire departments.

The Board of Trustees, in a statement following the vote, heartily endorsed Ms. Jackson’s leadership and announced that it had signed her to a new five-year contract. Ms. Jackson’s pay and benefits were $983,365, including contributions to a deferred compensation account, in the 2005 fiscal year, the latest for which information is available. Her compensation package from Rensselaer, according to the IRS Form 990 the college files each year, has more than doubled between the 2000 and 2005 fiscal years.

“The board is 100 percent behind what Shirley has done and is doing,” says Samuel F. Heffner Jr., chairman of Rensselaer’s Board of Trustees. “Anytime you do something of this magnitude, you’re going to have issues with people who don’t like change. The facts are undeniable. The naysayers have very few legs to stand on.”

Mr. Steiner, who thought a no-confidence vote was premature at the time, says the board’s response, should have recognized that “in spite of perceived achievements, there are some significant issues that need to be dealt with.”

Ms. Jackson, who says she felt “some degree of angst” about the no-confidence vote, appears to be as resolute as everperhaps because the path through her already-lengthy list of accomplishments has included such rough patches before.

Lifetime of Firsts

Shirley Ann Jackson’s predilection for science dates back to elementary school, when she collected live bees and documented their behavior in a journal. Her mother, a social worker who taught her and her siblings to read before they went to kindergarten, and her father, a postal worker with a gift for math, groomed her for success with some outside help. Ms. Jackson, the valedictorian of her class, still speaks fondly of her high-school math, Latin, and economics teachers.

A vice principal at her high school suggested that the Washington, D.C., native apply to MIT, which she attended on a full scholarship. Ms. Jackson, one of fewer than a dozen black students at MIT in the late 1960s, has talked openly about the isolation she felt in a majority-white and often hostile environment. Still, she became the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in any subject from MIT.

The early years of Ms. Jackson’s career were in industry. She was a researcher for 15 years at what was then AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey before becoming a physics professor at Rutgers University.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed her chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where she oversaw 3,000 employees and a $500-million budget. Ms. Jackson, the first woman and first African-American to hold the job, took over a commission that had been heavily criticized for its cozy relationship with the nuclear-power industry.

By the end of her four-year tenure, Ms. Jackson was credited with making safety standards for the nation’s nuclear power plants tougher and with restoring the public’s confidence in the commission by championing openness. She created a process that made it easier for nuclear-power plants to renew their licenses. And she also spearheaded the formation of an association of top nuclear regulators from eight countries who still meet today to discuss nuclear safety.

Members of Rensselaer’s board say they were not concerned about Ms. Jackson’s somewhat untraditional background. The board believed her stint at the regulatory commission was proof enough that she could lead Rensselaer. In addition, trustees were banking on her arrival at Rensselaer to add instant prestige.

Rensselaer has a history of hiring from the traditional track, and could have done it that way again, says Mr. Heffner, a board member for 30 years. “But that’s not what we were looking for. We were looking for change.”

Big Dollars

The renaissance at Rensselaer has not been cheap. The institution has borrowed more than $400-million to pay for construction and renovation. More debt is in the works, this time for a new athletics complex.

Bond analysts at Moody’s Investors Service are closely watching the university’s debt, rated A2 after a downgrade from A1 in December 2005, and have noted that the institution’s operating performance has suffered because of heavy investment in the plan. In the 2006 fiscal year Rensselaer had an operating deficit of $8.4-million, says Virginia C. Gregg, vice president for finance and chief financial officer. Such shortfalls are expected to continue over the next few years, she says. Trustees have approved a $365.5-million budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“We’re taking a short-term financial risk for longer-term strategic and financial gain,” Ms. Gregg says. “We’ve seen our net assets grow every year, and the strategy is working for us.”

The expenses associated with the plan mean raising money is key. A $1-billion fund-raising campaign began in 2004. The institute has raised $1.2-billion so far, which includes an in-kind gift of computer-assisted-design software valued at $514-million. The campaign, still in need of more cash, has been extended to June 2009, with hopes of raising $1.4-billion.

The anonymous $360-million gift that Ms. Jackson nabbed and that jump-started the campaign is viewed on the campus and off as a stamp of approval for the Rensselaer plan. “It got people’s attention that we were serious about what we were doing here,” Ms. Jackson says.

However, a significant part of what Ms. Jackson is doing on Rensselaer’s behalf, and for the advancement of science in general, takes place away from the campus. Perhaps more so than with other presidents, it can be tough to catch Ms. Jackson on the campus.

Among her activities during the spring 2007 semester: She gave four commencement speeches, led a delegation of Rensselaer administrators on a weeklong trip to Europe to explore partnerships with institutions there, and spoke about energy security at Harvard. She shuttled back and forth to Washington to attend a meeting of the National Governors Association, to give a lecture at the National Science Foundation, and to receive the Vannevar Bush Award. That award is given by the National Science Board, and in Ms. Jackson’s case, was for her role as an advocate of global energy security, her work as the regulatory commission chairman, and for her role in transforming Rensselaer.

In nearly every speech she gives, Ms. Jackson talks about the “quiet crisis,” the term she coined to describe how America’s technological innovation will be hampered by the shrinking number of students who are pursuing science and math careers.

In 2002 she wrote a report on the topic, and two years later made it her official platform as president of the AAAS.

Ms. Jackson is also focused on luring more women and minorities to the sciences. Although she herself is a barrier breaker, a glimpse of the challenges surrounding such a goal can be seen on this campus. Ms. Jackson leads a university of mostly white males; only one quarter of its students are women, and 10 percent are members of minority groups.

Ms. Jackson spends more time than many of her presidential peers at meetings of nonprofit and corporate boards. On the corporate side, Ms. Jackson is a board member at FedEx Corporation, IBM Corporation, Marathon Oil Corporation, Medtronic, Inc., the New York Stock Exchange Euronext, and the Public Service Enterprise Group. Only 1.2 percent of college presidents serve on four or more corporate boards, according to a 2005 Chronicle survey. Ms. Jackson is also a life member of the MIT Corporation, the governing board of that institution.

She says her corporate board service allows her to influence public policy, while at the same time raising Rensselaer’s name recognition among influential business people. Such service also provides substantial income — as much as $396,750 for the 2006 fiscal year, plus awards of stock that she receives.

All those activities keep her days, and sometimes her nights, full of activity.

“I have a lot of energy,” says Ms. Jackson. “I can get bored easily.”

Pizza Lunches

As a way to reach out to more students, Ms. Jackson hosts “pizza with the president,” an informal lunch every month or so in the basement of Rensselaer’s student union. Recently, Ms. Jackson, fresh out of a meeting with Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, sat down and quizzed a student candidate on what he would do if elected grand marshal, the university’s top student leader. Then she slipped into mother mode and asked whether he was getting enough rest — campaigning for the post is serious business.

“Well, don’t get sick,” she cautioned as she munched on a slice of cheese pizza and then sipped soda from a white styrofoam cup.

Over the next hour or so, two dozen students trickled in as Ms. Jackson talked about a wide range of topics, including the sometimes-prickly campus race relations, and whether an aging dormitory — still popular because of its proximity to academic buildings — would ever be renovated. One student even worked up the nerve to ask Ms. Jackson to consider allowing male and female students to share rooms in campus housing, a request that elicited a curt refusal.

As Ms. Jackson makes substantial progress on her goals, will there be enough to hold her interest at Rensselaer?

In her last job, her game plan was clear to some. “I never thought she’d be here any more than one term,” says Janice Dunn Lee, her special assistant for international policy affairs at the regulatory commission. “She was very hard-working from the get-go. She did what she set out to do and then it was time for the next challenge.”

Mary L. Good, a member of the search committee that selected Ms. Jackson as president, says the challenge for her now is to keep up the momentum.

“When one has these major visions for an institution and you get up on the curve where you’re beginning to essentially accomplish what you’ve set out to do, the real issue is how to take advantage of that and how to maintain the level of excellence,” says Ms. Good, a former president of the AAAS.

For Ms. Jackson, who has ties to leaders in science, industry, and the top levels of government, yet another chapter in her career is likely. Running another university might not be out of the question. Ms. Jackson’s name is often bandied about — think Harvard University during its recent search — when vacancies come up. She turned down a chance to be Governor Spitzer’s running mate and is a friend of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s who spoke at her inauguration and praised her as a “true pioneer.”

But right now, Rensselaer’s new motto “Why Not Change the World?” still beckons. Above all else, she says, she wants to be remembered for repositioning Rensselaer.

Says Ms. Jackson firmly, “We’re not done yet.”

http://chronicle.com Section: Money & Management Volume 53, Issue 41, Page A24