Searching for a new president, as the Johns Hopkins
trustees are doing now, is the board's most
important task, and it never is easy. A look back over the
past 60 years confirms that.
In December 1948, President Isaiah Bowman, a
distinguished international geographer and
adviser to U.S. presidents, retired after leading the
university through the Great Depression and
World War II.
The trustees selected Detlev W. Bronk, professor and
research scientist at the University of
Pennsylvania, to succeed Bowman. Bronk, who is said to have
developed the modern theory of the
science of biophysics, took office in January 1949. During
his time at Johns Hopkins he also served as
president of the National Academy of Sciences (1950-62). He
left Johns Hopkins in 1953, after just
four years, to become president of the Rockefeller
Institute, later Rockefeller University.
The trustees did not have time to mount a major search
for Bronk's successor and coaxed out
of retirement a highly regarded Johns Hopkins professor and
administrator, Lowell Reed. A pioneering
biostatistician who had been dean of the School of Public
Health, he became president in the fall
of 1953. Reed, it turns out, was sort of a place holder for
Milton S. Eisenhower, the president of
Pennsylvania State University.
When Bronk announced his intention to leave, the board
had dispatched trustee Thomas S.
Nichols (for whom the president's residence at Homewood is
named) to State College, Pa., to recruit
Eisenhower for the presidency. Nichols and Eisenhower's
brother, Dwight, were good friends, giving
Nichols entree to Milton. He declined the invitation.
Nichols tried again in 1956. By that time,
Eisenhower's wife, Helen, had died, and he was ready to
move. He became president of Johns Hopkins
in July 1956. With two successful presidencies (Kansas
State before Penn State), an engaging
personality and a wide network of domestic and
international friends and advisers, he was welcomed
warmly by the university family. Eisenhower announced his
retirement in fall 1966, when he was 67
years old, to be effective June 30, 1967.
There was an interesting flavor to the ensuing search.
Several trustees said that Johns Hopkins
needed a president with more academic credentials than
Eisenhower, who had earned only a bachelor
of science degree in journalism. (Eisenhower, however,
often said to close friends, "But I have more
than 30 honorary degrees, so they must be worth
something!") The board's two top candidates, an
impressive university president and a provost at a leading
research university, seemed interested but,
after many weeks, declined the invitations.
The search committee went back to its list of possible
candidates and selected Lincoln Gordon,
a Harvard professor of international economic relations and
a former ambassador to Brazil who was,
at the time, assistant secretary of state for
inter-American affairs. His brief tenure, which began in
July 1967, was beset with problems, and he resigned,
suddenly, in March 1971.
The trustees immediately called Eisenhower, who was
living in the Homewood neighborhood, and
asked him to return to the President's Office. He said he
would, but only if the board would meet four
conditions: 1. Trustees must appoint a woman to their
all-male membership. (A School of Medicine
alumna, Marjorie Lewisohn of New York City, was elected.)
2. The board must appoint younger
members. (The current Young Trustee program, in which
trustees each year select a graduating
senior, began then.) 3. The student center at Levering Hall
at Homewood must be expanded and
improved. (The trustees pledged $1 million for the
construction of the Glass Pavilion.) 4. Finally, the
board must persuade Steven Muller, a Cornell University
professor and vice president, to assume
immediately — rather than several months later, as
scheduled — his position as the new Johns Hopkins
provost. (Muller agreed to the board's request.)
The board mounted a national search for a president
but quickly realized their best candidate
was the talented new young provost. They appointed Muller
president in February 1972. With youthful
energy, creativity and a strong international orientation,
he led Johns Hopkins through 18 years of
unprecedented growth and vitality until resigning in
1990.
Muller's successor, in July 1990, was William C.
Richardson, the highly regarded executive vice
president and provost of Penn State. He was an experienced
administrator and internationally
recognized in his area of expertise, health policy and
management. He quickly gained support through
his friendly, warm personality and his ability to quickly
grasp issues facing Johns Hopkins. His tenure
was brief. In December 1994, between Christmas and New
Year's, he traveled to New York City to
inform board chair Morris W. Offit that he would be leaving
to head the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
within six months, in July 1995.
Needing to move promptly to find someone to assume the
presidency, the board once more
looked inside to find its person. Daniel Nathans, a winner
of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or
medicine, was professor and director of the Department of
Microbiology. Deeply respected for his
scientific accomplishments, he also was known for his
abiding devotion to Johns Hopkins, his firm
leadership and his quiet, gentle interaction with
colleagues. He was appointed interim president while
the trustees sought his successor, who turned out to be
William R. Brody.
Brody was already well-known at Johns Hopkins.
Formerly a professor and director of the
Department of Radiology at the School of Medicine, he had
left the university in 1994 to become
provost at the Academic Health Center of the University of
Minnesota. His broad understanding of
Johns Hopkins had been developed by chairing the Committee
for the 21st Century. That group of 100
leading faculty, staff and students had been charged with
examining and making recommendations
about every aspect of the university to assure that Johns
Hopkins would stay at the forefront of
higher education well into the 21st century.
He was elected 13th president of the university in
April 1996 and began his tenure on Sept. 1 of
that year.
Ross Jones is vice president and secretary emeritus of
the university. A 1953 graduate of Johns
Hopkins, he returned in 1961 as assistant to president
Milton S. Eisenhower and staffed the
subsequent presidential searches for the board of
trustees.
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