One of the notable perks for some college and university presidents is a grand house where the president lives, holds important meetings, and entertains. Living there is living the high life, and no president should whine (at least publicly) about being “a prisoner of the white house.” Yet we can also recognize that while this perk has many attractions, it features its share of pitfalls and surprises as well, which I can share from my personal experience.
The Downfall of Decoration, the Revenge of Renovation
Attempts at presidential home improvement, cosmetic or deeper, have proven the demise of too many higher education leaders. Boards need to be alert to how the president’s residence can become a nightmare for their CEO, the university, and them.
The house my spouse and I lived in when I was a president was spacious, bright, elegant, and surrounded by 14 acres of lovingly tended grounds. It also featured (by general consensus) some of the ugliest old wallpaper ever to be displayed anywhere. In this case, it “decorated” the wall in the tall entry hallway. It greeted all visitors tastelessly.
My wife, even more than I, yearned to replace it from the moment we moved in until we left 10 years later. She regularly threatened to fill the bathtub on the second floor, which sat above the entryway, to overflow so the water would run down the wall and require wallpaper removal and replacement, but I reminded her that I liked my job, and we didn’t want to be accused of profligate use of university funds to feather further our lovely nest.
When I announced that I was stepping out of the presidency, my attentive board leadership and I arranged for new wallpaper and other needed updates during the interim between my announcement and the arrival of the person they had hired as my successor. This, I thought, was one of the better pieces of joint board-presidential strategic planning we had done. I’d recommend it to all who don’t want to die on the hill of presidential residence enhancement. Incidentally, my wife and I are still married.
A colleague president started renovating his digs as soon as he moved in. Some of the changes were not minor. He installed an elevator, for instance, for an aging parent who was going to be living there, or at least visiting often. He thought he had the approval of his board leadership for such projects. When an inquiring reporter began writing about them, however, he found that the support had evaporated, if it indeed was there in the first place. He was forced out before the end of his first year, and then had to renovate his own career plans. He never got hired as a president again.
A Public Place
Presidents who have homes provided need to remember that they live in “public housing.” Not the tall rent-subsidized “projects” of our large cities, but a place that no matter how settled and proprietary you and your family might feel, to some folks it’s public space.
One time a local gardening society wanted to tour the beautiful gardens of the house. We enthusiastically agreed to have several busloads of serious gardeners enjoy the superb handiwork of university groundskeepers. Several days before the tour, we got a call from the tour organizer saying that the group would like to have access to the bathrooms in the house. Faced with the prospect of busloads of unknown visitors roaming around inside, we politely suggested instead the posting of port-o-sans on the grounds for their use. More of a thoroughgoing outdoor experience for the gardeners.
For a football weekend we had longtime personal friends staying with us. During the football pre-game brunch at the house, our friend was changing her blouse in a second-floor guest bedroom. The door suddenly opened and a brunch-goer in full fan gear said: “Oh. I was just lookin’ around. Sorry.” He probably had a stadium seat with an unobstructed view, too.
Culinary Strategies
An advantage of presidential premises is, of course, the ability to host friend-raising and fundraising receptions and dinners in a genuinely welcoming environment. Particularly with your board, these events at the house can be important opportunities to build more personal, warmer relationships among board members and between the board and the president. For dinners, adroitly crafted seating charts can be a handy tool to do that. When I was an internal candidate for the presidency, my crafty and supportive predecessor placed me at a dinner table with several leading board members on the search committee. It worked out—I got the job and have been forever grateful to my then-boss.
One of the exhilarating and challenging things about many boards of trustees is that they are composed of accomplished people with a wide range of experiences and of different persuasions. It’s the responsibility of the president, working with the board chair, to bring them together into an effective governing body. What better venue to advance this noble goal than a gracious repast at the president’s charming home?
At one of these dinners, we sat two board members together, one accompanied by his spouse. They were from the same region of the state. One tended to be a shifty backstabber with an air of superiority. Toward the end of an enjoyable evening (I thought), the spouse of the other trustee approached me. Discreetly seething, she said through tight lips: “I never ever want to be seated at a table in this house with that man again.” So much for strategic seating chart planning.
I mentioned the large estate-like setting of the house. Besides many human guests we had many animal ones as well. Among others, wild turkeys, deer, coyotes, mice, and rabbits called it home. Our owls especially enjoyed their role of keeping the rabbit population in check. One fine fall Saturday morning, I was strolling down the long, winding, leaf-strewn driveway with my dog. Ahead of me, around one of the driveway curves, I spotted a lump of leaves that suddenly drew the dog’s nose. As a breeze came up and some leaves blew off, I realized that a rabbit’s head, minus the rest of the rabbit, had been dropped there by an owl who had enjoyed a rare hare dinner at the president’s house. I took the incident as a stark reminder of how often presidents lose their heads.
At the beginning of my presidency, people would sometimes ask what surprised me most about my new job. I often had two responses. One was about how every raise of the eyebrow or mild chuckle on my part would be interpreted a hundred different ways, 99 of which (at least) were wrong. The other was how hard folks would angle to get an invitation to the president’s house and how much it seemed to mean to them to be there.
It’s easy for presidents to forget this: the house is a special place for most people you invite to it. It would be difficult to overestimate the good will generated by the gesture. It can make later difficult conversations with key stakeholders less hostile, less pointedly personal. It’s harder to regard someone you’ve broken bread with, or shared a friendly drink with, as the enemy. And keeping the true enemies list short is a skill of a successful president.
So, it’s fair to say that however so unhumble, there’s no place like the president’s home…er…house.
Kevin P. Reilly, PhD, is president emeritus and regent professor with the University of Wisconsin System. Earlier in his career, he served as secretary of the university for the State University of New York, working closely with that system’s board of trustees. He is currently on the boards of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, and the Irish American Cultural Institute.
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