Oak Room Interview: Brodie looks back at his presidency, at Nan's, and beyond

This interview with President Emeritus Keith Brodie, who served from 1985 to 1993, is the second in a series of Oak Room Interviews designed to shed light on the personalities of noted campus figures. The interview was conducted earlier this spring by Kevin Lees, The Chronicle's managing editor.

KL: What does a president emeritus do on a day-to-day basis?

KB: Well, that's a good question [laughing]. I think the most important thing is that the president emeritus should get out of the way. There have been too many instances where past presidents remained on campus and basically served as the complaint department where any disgruntled person could wander into and complain about the incumbent in the office or reminisce about the good ol' days. So it's important for the president emeritus to be low-profile and yet serve the institution with the institutional memory that he or she might add.... But I will have one more year and then at 65, I will retire.

KL: Ten years after leaving the presidency, do you miss the limelight?

KB: No, no! That was for me the hardest part. Psychiatrists, they're trained to have confidential conversations, small-group discussions. They get no training in public speaking whatsoever, and they don't get trained to raise money or ask people for money. Those are the sort of things, the development function and the public announcement function, that I found the most difficult during the presidency.

KL: Looking back to before the Brodie presidency, you served as acting provost and as chancellor to President Terry Sanford. What was that like and what was it like serving with Terry Sanford?

KB: He was not an academic, as you know. He was a wonderful man, a politician who understood groups and people. He understood the politics of presidential power on the campus.... He ran for U.S. president twice from the Allen Building!... He could do all the things I was not good at. He was great at making money, he was fantastic at public speaking, he had the ability to focus in on the key issues of the day for his particular audience.

KL: The current strategic plan emphasizes sciences and engineering. The plan you and Provost Philip Griffiths implemented emphasized humanities and social sciences. Are you satisfied with those efforts as a groundwork for Provost Peter Lange's current plan?

KB: Oh yes! I think no question about it. What we didn't realize at the time was that in hiring Stanley, we also were buying into Stanley's network of people, so all of these other people began to join us. Fred Jameson has remained on in literature, we had Anthony Appiah who came and went, Skip Gates came and went.... Each of these people brought with them grad students and what was more important, they brought Mellon fellows. We had never had any Mellon fellows at Duke before.... I think Duke is all the better for [Fish's] efforts. It was interesting to see what he did to the English department. The English department was somewhat desultory. He brought such a level of energy to it that people who were here who had stopped producing scholarship, but were still teaching, suddenly came alive and began to contribute and write articles. It was really astounding. And some of those people were the people who would call me when I was chancellor, in the dead of night, saying, 'Keith, you've got to stop this. This guy has run amok up at Johns Hopkins when he was chair.'

KL: I couldn't find a single public word you've said about Nan Keohane. What do you think of her as president?

KB: [laughs] There's no question that she's been a great president. When the history is written, she will be viewed as just an outstanding president, strengthening fundraising and development. She was recruited in part for that. I think she's succeeded beyond any expectation. She also has been good for student services and dorm construction and the concept of putting freshmen on East Campus. We were getting ready for that.... You couldn't do that unless you had enough dorm space, so we built those two dormitories, which opened her first day in office and that allowed in her second or third year, that transition. I think she's been great. She also seems to enjoy it. You see her there at basketball games, men's and women's, and her husband is totally committed to the University, a great teacher and scholar. I turn around occasionally in Cameron and there he is, really into games. It's also nice in that it's the first to see a two-professional couple operating so publicly, so visibly, in that that is really the future. It's the case that they derive energy from each other, and they epitomize couples you'd want to see in academic leadership.

KL: What kind of president should Duke look for after President Keohane?

KB: Well, it's hard to say. You need to look first of all, just in general at someone who would thrill to the job, take it seriously, invest their whole life. These presidencies are very, very time consuming. They're 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You never really have much privacy. Boards of Trustees these days want the president to be the number-one fundraiser, and basically serve the bully pulpit in addressing the key issues of the day. But then they hold them responsible for everything that goes on on campus, the day-to-day running of the place, the hiring and the firing. You've got to get someone who's shown some track record in leadership.... I think an institution grows by having at its helm a series of presidents who have slightly different priorities. I came out of the Duke faculty, I put the faculty number one in my mind.... I think the sequencing of presidents and their interests in and capacity to build some sectors of the University probably would imply someone who is committed to raising even higher lofty rankings and scholarship.

KL: How did you know it was time for you to leave?

KB:....By teaching psychobiology, by practicing a little psychiatry a little day in the office with people coming in to the office disgruntled, trying to motivate or whatever, 11 years away was probably about as much as I wanted to stay and I needed that 12th year to refresh.... I think as I looked around and watched other presidents leaving, I was impressed that they became desperate. They couldn't go back to their fields. They couldn't re-enter the classroom because they hadn't taught and their fields had passed them by. They had spent long periods of time as deans and provosts and then presidents. They also didn't want to give up the perks. Their spouses were used to large presidential mansions in which they lived, with servants provided by the University and vehicles and drivers and so on. Many presidents, when their terms expired, when they were being eased out, they told me privately that they could only go on to another presidency, or to a foundation or something where they basically had the salary and so on. That I found not to my liking. I wanted basically to do what I enjoyed doing best, to teach and to write and see a few patients. I think if I'd stayed much beyond that, I would have gotten a bit stale.

KL: You came from the Medical Center. Given the costs of health care and the growth of the Health System, what do you think of the long-term health of the Med Center?

KB: I do worry. I think the two Achilles' heels of the University [could have been] the athletic department, with some sort of scandal, and the Medical Center, where the financial base was dependent in part by federal support through grants and contracts and reimbursements.... I think we did get burned on a couple of recent acquisitions and we've begun to get out of it.... At one point, we owned some sort of an HMO which we finally sold at a bit of a loss.... You have to learn from your mistakes.... But yes, at the end of the day, the future of health economics is somewhat shaky and bears watching.

KL: When you were president, of course, divestment from South Africa was a huge issue. What do you make of current efforts to divest in companies with ties to Sudan and Israel?

KB: Well, it is a very powerful lever, this economic lever.... So it really was not until I had a one-on-one session with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The archbishop was very convincing to me that yes, this would inconvenience, yes, it would cause pain, but in the end, it was the only way we could effect change in South Africa.... I remember Gene McDonald, who at that point we had just set up as the head of DUMAC, said, 'Hey, we can be invested in most anything here and make money, as long as we pick it effectively. If you send the signal to get out, we'll get out.' That's what we ended up doing. But it was amazing to us the vituperative nature of some of the corporate leadership. It was amazing to me that at the end of the day, the most vocal person opposing divestment was Rex Adams. Rex Adams was head of public relations for Mobil Oil. Mobil Oil had a big installation in South Africa. And he wrote angry letters; oh, it was a nightmare. Of course, we got out, and he made peace and the next thing you know, he's dean of the business school, back here to help us out.

KL: You mentioned you'll retire next year. What do you plan on doing in retirement?

KB: I will turn 65 and I will stop teaching. Others should come along. I occupy space and curriculum time and what not. We love Durham, we enjoy being here..... I see myself staying here, probably setting up a little office in town, maybe doing a little diagnostic work, continuing a relationship of sorts with Duke, but not in the classroom.