I couldn’t believe it. “Gerhard,” I said, taking him by the arm, “if you leave now, your presidency is over.” He was a little startled but stayed as Stanford went on to a remarkable win.
Because of our relationship, I didn’t think much of it when my secretary came in to say that Gerhard wanted me to come to lunch one day; I knew the university was looking for a new provost, and I figured they’d settled on a candidate and he wanted to get my opinion.
When I arrived, Gerhard and I went into his sunny office and sat across from each other at the round table. After a few pleasantries he said, “I want you to become the provost of the university.”
I literally dropped my forkful of tuna back into the bowl. “This is a joke, right?”
His eyes twinkled a bit and he smiled. “No, Condi. I want you to become the provost.”
Perhaps to give me a moment to recover, he launched into a discussion of why he thought I should be provost. “I’ve decided that it’s time to skip a generation in leadership here at Stanford,” he said, referring obliquely to the numerous deans and department chairs undoubtedly expecting to be named provost. “After your experience in Washington, and having gotten to know you, I think you’re the right person to help me lead Stanford. In fact, I knew it the moment we met in Chicago.”
Gerhard then addressed my unspoken concern by saying that he was not making the appointment because I was a black woman, although he was delighted that I’d be the first to hold the job. He added that, at thirty-eight, I was also going to be the youngest provost by almost a decade. From his point of view, that would be the real issue, not my race or gender. He could have added that I had never been a department chair, let alone a dean—or he could have mentioned that I’d been promoted to full professor only about a month before.
The provost of Stanford has broad-ranging responsibilities for the academic program, the physical plant, and the budget. The deans report to the provost, along with most other senior officials of the university. Provosts’ responsibilities vary from university to university, but the Stanford job is probably the most powerful and broadest in all of academia. And these were not ordinary times. Stanford faced crippling challenges, and the provost would be expected to solve them.
I told Gerhard that I’d think about it overnight and call him the next day. As I made my way back to my office, memories flooded back of walking along the same colonnade as an insecure graduate student going to my first interview so many years before. I knew that I’d say yes and become provost—even though I was still totally stunned to have been asked.
I imagined how the news would be received on campus. Not only was I young, black, and female, but I was a Republican on a campus where that is rare. I focused on what messages I wanted to send to the faculty, the students, the alumni, and the trustees. The next day I went to see Gerhard and accepted the job.
The news was received somewhat better than I expected. People were surprised, of course, but with the exception of some grousing by a few faculty members about my being a conservative, there wasn’t much negative reaction. I no longer felt much trepidation about what was to come. In fact, I was pretty excited. A couple of days later I found myself driving through campus singing along with the theme from the early-eighties TV series The Greatest American Hero: “Believe it or not, I’m walking on air / I never thought I could feel so free / Flying away on a wing and a prayer / Who could it be? / Believe it or not, it’s just me.”
My most important responsibility as provost would be dealing with the university’s financial situation. I had to cut $20 million from the budget immediately. Moreover, the university needed money to rebuild the campus after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 had left the university severely damaged. All the easy budget cuts had already been made, I told the Faculty Senate, so we’d have to make significant cuts. “I don’t do committees,” I said. “I’ll consult widely. But someone will have to make decisions, and that will be Gerhard and me.”
There was a bit of a rumble through the room, but I don’t think anyone really believed me. It didn’t matter. I had made a promise to the trustees that I would balance the budget, and I was determined to do it.
Predictably, the pushback came from groups that had felt privileged and untouchable for political reasons. The ethnic centers (Asian American, African American, Chicano, and Native American) were the most offended. The protests heated up, and they called a town-hall-style meeting and asked me to attend. I expected a huge, angry crowd, and that’s what I got.
After a few strong words about how marginalized and victimized the ethnic students were feeling, the president of Stanford’s Black Student Union handed me the microphone. I resisted the temptation to say that I thought marginalization was a peculiar term for students who’d been given the chance at a Stanford education. Instead, I plunged into a presentation of the financial situation, saying that I’d asked the Physics Department for the same budget analysis. Everyone had to contribute.
During the question-and-answer session, a young woman yelled, “The problem is, you just don’t care enough for the plight of minorities.” The audience erupted in cheers. Then, not really having thought it through, I said, “You don’t have the standing to question my commitment to minorities. I’ve been black all of my life, and that is far longer than you are old.” The buzzing told me that I’d hit a nerve. The young woman sat down. I said a few words more and prepared to leave. But as I was turning away, the moderator decided that he would have the last word. I went back and took the microphone from him. “When you are the provost, you can have the last word,” I said. Then I left, feeling that I’d established necessary boundaries.
Throughout this difficult period, the headlines about me were brutal and the criticism came almost daily. I talked to Daddy every day, and he brought the perspective of someone who’d been through tough decisions in a university environment. I know that the barrage of criticism directed at me, some of it quite personal, bothered him. I assured Daddy that I wasn’t worried about the headlines, but he was concerned nonetheless. His reaction at that time has caused me to wonder how he would have dealt with my encounters with the rough-and-tumble environment of Washington when I was national security advisor and then secretary of state. I am sure he would have gotten through it, but I could tell that Daddy hated to see his “little girl” demonized.
Nonetheless, Daddy also helped me to see the student protests in a different light. He believed it important for students to find their political voices while in the university. He reminded me that they were, after all, quite young. I realized that Daddy was right when, shortly before graduation, the student who had moderated the town hall came to see me and asked how he could be more effective at leadership. In the classroom, I was always careful not to put a student down for a comment, no matter how inappropriate. To do so is to freeze the rest of the students, who will fear humiliation. The power relationship is unequal, and students feel it. I decided that I’d try to remember that in my encounters with them as provost. In any case, I had established a pretty tough line. Maybe it was time to back off.
The budget situation took most of my time, but I had to attend to other matters as well. A few games into the football season, Bill Walsh, the legendary coach who had returned to Stanford after extraordinary successes in the NFL, asked to see me for dinner on the Sunday after a home game. He had found the return to Stanford hard and ultimately unsatisfying. Initially, his team had been very successful, defeating Notre Dame at South Bend in the first year. But now, in his third year, Stanford’s football fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. The talent was thin and the execution flawed. Bill was in no mood to do what it would take to revive the program: spend days and weeks on the road trying to recruit players to come to Stanford. He was tired.