Ever
since his appointment was announced last spring, Trinity's seventeenth
president has been
the subject of intense speculation. Almost anyone associated with
Trinity University has been besieged with questions. "Have you met the
new president?" "What's he like?" From a rapidly growing
number of the Trinity community, the short answers are "yes" and "terrific."
The subject
of this enthusiasm is John R. Brazil, a lanky, 6'4" native
Californian and former president of Bradley University in Peoria,
Illinois.
Although Dr. Brazil officially assumed
the presidency of Trinity University on June 1, Trinity faculty
and staff got their first glimpse of the new president last December,
when an obviously delighted search committee introduced their unanimous
choice at an open forum in Chapman Auditorium. The standing room
only audience listened attentively as Trustee Robert McClane '61,
chair of the search committee, recounted Dr. Brazil's credentials.
Indeed, Dr. Brazil has the right stuff. His A.B. in history from
Stanford, M.Phil. and Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale, Fulbright
scholarship, and membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Kappa Phi
honor societies, and numerous scholarly publications attest to his
intellectual vigor. A hugely successful capital campaign at Bradley
- he exceeded the $100 million goal by $27 million - proves his prowess
as a fundraiser. And a 23 -year academic career that includes positions
with San Jose State University in California, University of Massachusetts/Dartmouth,
as well as Bradley, speaks to his experience as an administrator
and commitment to higher education.
Impressive as
his resume is, there were additional qualities that wowed the search
committee. Says
Gary Kates,
acting dean of Humanities and Arts and a member of the committee, "All
of us felt his love of teaching and knew it would be infectious. We knew
he would lead by example. We also discovered that behind a certain soft-spoken
and thoughtful character lies a very competitive person who is not satisfied
unless he and everyone around him are performing at their best." Sarah
Burke, professor of modern languages and literature, also served on the
committee and was attracted by "his discussion of building community."
The match appears
to have been one of mutual admiration Dr. Brazil was happy at Bradley
and not looking for a change. Initially, he
agreed to meet with the search committee as a favor to a headhunter.
However, "every time I met people from the Trinity community,
I was impressed with them," he says, "and in a short time
- two or three weeks - we became more and more attracted to them."
From day one it was obvious that Dr. Brazil had caught and was exhibiting
signs of Trinity spirit. One of his first acts was to visit the Art
Department seeking student work to adorn his office walls. He also
requested four enlarged photographs of campus scenes. They complement
a large original painting of a tiger, the Trinity mascot, that dominates
the west wall of the office. Demonstrating his respect for and willingness
to encourage tradition, Dr. Brazil revived the opening convocation
for first year and transfer students and was the first to climb the
Trinity tower during the annual party prior to the opening of the
academic year. From that vantage point, he was able personally to
meet and welcome the incoming class.
A round of meetings with Trustees,
administrators, and student leaders also dominated the early agenda.
Again Dr. Brazil earned
high marks.
Charles B. "Chuck" White, interim
vice president for academic affairs, finds Dr. Brazil "reflective,
thoughtful, and very responsive. He has a high regard for this faculty
and a very firm sense of Trinity and its role in higher education," says
White. Vice President for Student Affairs Coleen Grissom describes
Dr. Brazil as "reserved, dignified, extremely intelligent, and
focused." She
is especially pleased by his eagerness to meet students and participate
in new student orientation. On a more personal level, Grissom, the
English professor and noted wit, was delighted to hear Dr. Brazil "quote
both James Thurber and Woody Allen during our first private meeting."
Junior
Charlie Manzanares, president of the Association of Student Representatives,
was among the first
students to meet with Dr. Brazil. He and a small committee wanted
to present the
results of a student survey they had taken last spring related to
student life. Manzanares terms the encounter "a thoughtful dialogue,
formal yet laid back." He says the president was "very
concerned, pleased to see a representative survey, very down to earth,
and easy
to talk to." Among
the many issues they discussed were the role of the Greek system,
faculty-student interaction, and the spiritual component of campus
life.
As Dr. Brazil
methodically continues meeting various campus constituents, he
tends to listen more than
he speaks. In
fact, he lists his number one priority this year as "doing
everything I can to absorb [Trinity's] culture and practices, to
meet its people,
and to understand it from the inside out and the inside in."
His second
priority will be "participating in
and contributing where I can" to
the faculty-initiated discussion that will be led by the Curriculum
Council on the shape and context of the common curriculum. Ultimately
the common curriculum
will be determined by the outcome of discussion centered on What should
a Trinity student know? What skills should they have? "This
is a critically important faculty initiative that will mean a great
deal to Trinity University," says
Dr. Brazil.
A third priority that will occupy
much of this inaugural year is the search for three administrative
positions
to fill the vacancies left by Vice President for Academic Affairs
Ed Roy, who stepped down this year, and Vice President of Student
Affairs
Coleen
Grissom and Director of Admissions George Boyd, both of whom
will retire next May.
Even as Dr.
Brazil immerses himself in Trinity culture, contributes to the
discussion of
common curriculum
and
oversees the "absolutely key" searches, he will also
deal with a variety of issues that are challenging most institutions
of higher learning.
For example, he points out that in some ways higher education
is in danger of becoming a commodity. "People seem to be
more and more concerned about the degree instead of the learning
it should represent" - a
situation he finds personally distasteful because it forces schools
to sell the value of a certificate. Factors such as price resistance,
concerns
about quality, and powerful third party payers that have dramatically
changed many sectors of the economy--banking, transportation,
and health care,
for example - will ultimately begin to affect education. Although
Dr. Brazil feels those forces will not have a dramatic impact
on schools like Trinity, "we
will certainly feel this." And, of course, "there are
the more substantive intellectual issues about how you prepare
people for the 21st
century."
While most educators
are grappling with such issues, there are others on which Dr. Brazil
is perfectly clear. Diversity is one. "A
heterogeneous student population - not just domestic diversity, but
international diversity - is as important as any other single factor
in the personal development and intellectual growth of students" he
states emphatically. The Hopwood decision, which struck down many
efforts at affirmative action, will not have much effect on Trinity
because "we are committed to that kind of diversity and we have
the ability to generate it without running afoul of the law."
Technology is
another area which Dr. Brazil views as a very expensive proposition
but an "integral, absolutely unavoidable element" of
higher education. "Technology will have, and continue to have
even more than it has today, an impact on the way we learn, the way
we teach, what we learn and what we teach." He sees the potential
as overwhelmingly positive, but cautions, "We must master it,
not have it master us. And I mean that in both the financial and
intellectual sense."
Student recruitment
and retention will also receive renewed attention as Dr. Brazil
anticipates increasing competition
for a relatively unchanging pool of highly qualified students and for
the resources to support them. Demographics will figure prominently
in the
recruitment effort as Dr. Brazil notes most demographic growth is going
to be among populations that traditionally do not send their children
to college. He also says Trinity is not for everybody. "It's
a highly competitive environment. We want to avoid promising all
things to all people."
Although
the priorities and tasks Dr. Brazil has set for himself leave little
spare time, he and his wife, Janice
Hosking Brazil, enjoy active sports and try to make time for golf, tennis,
and skiing. Additionally, the Brazils share an interest in history, literature,
and writing. He is a voracious reader and writer with two scholarly books
in progress. Murder and Twenties America deals with the social phenomenon
of murder and how the emphasis in both literature and popular culture
has evolved from the intellectual approach to solving the crime to
the current
model where the physical act and its consequences take precedence over
the solution. The Twenties on Trial deals with the era's most famous
- or infamous - trials, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, Scopes, and Gen.
Billy
Mitchell, and the reactions and responses to them from virtually all
academic disciplines.
Janice Brazil, a native Kentuckian, met her husband in 1969 when
he was leading and she was participating in an Experiment in International
Living program. A published poet, she is especially fond of Robert
Frost and Trinity's own Naomi Shihab Nye, whom she met several years
ago when Nye spoke at Bradley. Most recently she has devoted much
of her spare time to genealogy which allows her to combine her love
of history and writing. Friendly, open, and down to earth, she shares
her husband's interest in traditions and has already initiated what
she hopes will become a special one for Trinity students: a contest
for Trinity students to design the University's annual holiday card.
The guidelines ask that it reflect the Trinity spirit.
.In addition to plenty of school spirit,
Trinity's new first lady also possesses a sense of community spirit.
One of the nicest things about being the wife of a college president,
she says, is the opportunity it affords her to meet people and quickly
become involved in civic and charitable affairs of the city.
Interestingly,
the Brazils are not strangers to San Antonio. They were stationed
at Fort Sam Houston for three months
in 1972 and celebrated their first anniversary on the San Antonio River
Walk. They visited again in March 1998 when they came to cheer his alma
mater, Stanford, in the Final Four.
Although the
Brazils moved into their new home on Oakmont without their two
children—son Adrian is a Bradley
graduate working in Peoria, daughter Morgan is a first year law student
at the University of Texas, Austin - they are not exactly empty nesters.
Making the move from Peoria with them were Niko, a canine of the rare
American Eskimo breed, and Muffin, a cat of indeterminate lineage.
Now comfortably
settled, John and Janice Brazil, in their quiet, understated manner,
are quickly assimilating the
culture of Trinity and San Antonio - and winning many friends in the
process. As Dr. Brazil sets out to make Trinity "the very best school of its
kind in the United States," he is mindful of Trinity's rich traditions
and respectful of its extraordinary strides over the last twenty years.
He simply cautions: "We must not let our sense of accomplishment
obscure our sense of potential." |