May 2006

A Letter to the GW Community from
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

To the GW Community:

In the summer of 2007, I will complete my term as President of The George Washington University. It will culminate 30 years of continuous service as the head of a major urban university—11 years in Hartford and 19 years in the nation’s capital. When I step down, I will transition to the faculty of the School of Public Policy and Public Administration, where I will serve as a University Professor.

For me, this is a bittersweet moment—the passing of the professional torch from generation to generation and the marking of a milestone, moving from one career path to another. For all my years as a president, I have worked tirelessly 24/7, 365 days a year on behalf of an institution I greatly admire and respect. Serving as President of The George Washington University is both an honor and a labor of love.

In this marvelous city we call Washington, DC, there are many challenging jobs to be had. Among them, one of the truly great opportunities is to lead GW. But, at age 69, the time will be ripe to recapture my personal life. My sons, Adam and Ben, who some of you will remember as children, have grown to adulthood and gone off to careers of their own. Francine retired from her post as senior vice president of WETA, and is now pursuing a life of community service as president of the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center. This seems a plausible time to redirect my energies.

The George Washington University is 185 years old. In 1988, when I arrived to follow my distinguished predecessor, President Lloyd Elliott, I became part of a University that was eager to go to the next level. With the full participation of the faculty and staff, with the Board of Trustees, and with a constantly improving student body, we are continually raising the academic profile of GW.

Undergraduate student applications have increased from 6,000 to over 20,000. It reflects a more representative gender, racial and geographic mix. Our SAT scores are up 200 points. GW students—both domestic and international, undergraduate, professional and graduate—are first-rate, able to compete with any others in the nation. Deans and department chairs consistently recruit their first choice of faculty hires. GW’s teaching and research professors are among the best and brightest in the world. The rankings of our professional schools of law, business, medicine and education have gone on and up year by year.

GW has had a balanced budget for the past 18 years and its endowment stands at the brink of $1 billion, nearly $800 million more than it was in 1988. We have, in the last few years, built the first new hospital in the District of Columbia in a quarter of a century; a new facility for the Elliott School of International Affairs; renovated the Law School; constructed an edifice for the School of Business; created a facility for the School of Media and Public Affairs; opened the Annette and Theodore Lerner Family Health and Wellness Center; renovated the Gelman Library and put into place new and improved student residences that will shortly house 70 percent of our undergraduates. We have upgraded classrooms, laboratories, student facilities, the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery and all forms of electronic infrastructure. The grounds have been landscaped. There are sculptures outdoors. The campus is a campus, at last. And we are hardly done yet.

Faculty and staff salaries and benefits have been raised and are competitive across the ranks. Day care and other family-friendly programs have been introduced. Partners’ benefits are now available. The school’s educational options have expanded through growth on the Virginia Campus in Loudoun County, as well as the Mount Vernon Campus. The physical size of GW has gone from one campus of 45 acres in Foggy Bottom to three, for a total of 170 acres in Washington and Virginia. The facilities at our Mount Vernon Campus on Foxhall Road have put us in full compliance with Title IX, and our enhanced research facilities in Virginia attract increasing levels of grant support.

GW has raised its profile in Washington these past 18 years. Our work with the DC public schools, the training of local government employees, clinics in the law and medical schools, support for the Chamber of Commerce, the Urban League and countless other off-campus activities by faculty and students demonstrate the University’s ongoing commitment to the city. Our faculty and staff hold positions of importance in civic life throughout the capital region. Our students work and fill internships in major companies and government agencies throughout Washington. They excel in the classroom and on the playing field. We celebrate the remarkable record of our women’s and men’s basketball teams this year. GW is not only in Washington, but, more importantly, of Washington.

Now would be a good time for the Board of Trustees to begin a search for a new president with the hope that the individual selected will join us in the fall of 2007.
I remember well the search process when I was called almost two decades ago.
I received a message from Trustee Everett Bellows in the late fall of 1987. My appointment was announced a few months later in early winter, and I completed my presidential obligations in Hartford and arrived on campus in Foggy Bottom that following August. In order to have a similarly smooth transition, the Board must begin its work creating a job description and electing a search committee shortly. To get the process underway in a transparent fashion, I now reiterate the public announcement made in August of 2002 when we published the news that I would serve until the end of the summer of 2007.

On a personal note, over the 16 months remaining, I will be diligently endeavoring to complete several major projects underway on campus and, perhaps, even begin some new modest ones. Life at a university is a constant renewal of ideas, plans and projects, and the work is ongoing. There is a strong administrative team in place and an academic strategic plan that needs to be completed. We are all committed to keeping on track.

I have, for the past year, been thinking about a book addressing American higher education in the 21st century. Some of my observations have been shared with this community and in various public talks around the country. Those who study this subject understand too well that the current model of a master passing information to a novice face-to-face—a format that has changed only slightly since the Middle Ages—is on the brink of a major upheaval. Life, as we know it in the Academy,
will be reintegrated on three levels: (1) how students learn and faculty teach; (2) where these activities take place and (3) from what sources scholarship will flow. Not insignificant is a coda about how the development and transfer of new knowledge will be paid for. It is difficult to cast aside centuries of work habits, but, if the economics are to remain viable in the next 100 years, universities must change their modes of operation. And, as we have seen the last few years, change—even when it is inevitable and arguably for the better—does not come easily. I foresee it as gradual and nationwide once it begins, taking at least a decade and ranging from coast to coast. I am prepared to further develop my ideas on this subject. I will begin by giving the Sir George Watson Lecture at Sulgrave Manor in England next November. I plan to test the hypothesis that those who can do—can also teach.

As I begin the transition from one role at GW to another, I pray that we continue to move forward from strength to strength. I know that all members of the GW community will continue their commitment to excellence in all ways.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu