— The opulent hotel banquet room just a few blocks from New York City’s Madison Square Garden was awash with 1988 campaign donors. They all wanted to see Oklahoma’s powerful U.S. Senator David L. Boren up close and personal. Many were oilmen who were appreciative of Senator Boren’s opposition to the windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Rich food was plentiful. Waiters didn’t allow wine glasses to empty. Ice sculptures and flowers made the reception special for the state’s delegates, alternates and the state press that traveled with them.

Boren, holding court between appearances at the Democratic National Convention in the Garden, wasn’t the most comfortable looking politician in the audience. Raising money for his own campaign, he told the assembled press, always made him feel just a little tainted.

Just over six years later, Boren would leave his secure Senate seat in Washington, his 93 percent approval rating, and come home to Oklahoma where he would rewrite fundraising records as president of the University of Oklahoma.

“I got over it,” he joked when reminded of his previous quip when he arrived in November of 1994. “It’s different when it’s something bigger than yourself.”

 Weeks earlier, the OU Board of Regents interviewed then-Senator Boren who was secreted into the closed-door meeting. Boren hid behind shrubbery and entered through a side door with the Regents secretary. The arrival of David and Molly Shi Boren to the campus was a surprise to most but the senator’s growing frustration with Washington’s partisan gridlock was well publicized. He wanted out. Washington, he said, was no longer a place where things got done.

“It seemed like we pushed the same stone up the hill every year and never got it to the top of the hill. No issue ever had a final decision,” he said of his time in the Senate.

“I could walk back onto the Senate floor today and probably enter into the debate on any issue and I would be more or less current. You can’t say that we resolved much of anything.”

The university position afforded him a chance to impact and shape the lives of the next generation of Americans. That kind of satisfaction never came in the U.S. Senate.



A realistic goal

If his health holds and the governing Board of Regents keep him, Boren, 71, hopes to eventually top his mentor George L. Cross as the longest serving president in the university’s history. To do that, he’ll have to work in Evans Hall until he’s 78. The former state representative, governor and U.S. Senator passed OU’s first president David Ross Boyd in longevity in January of 2011. Boren is now the second longest serving president. Dr. Cross served from 1944 to 1968.

In January of 2017, he’ll notch 50 years of public service, beginning with a state legislative seat in 1967 while he was still a law student at OU. He’ll cross that bridge first, then think about Cross’ record.

“Those are goals, but I’m a realist,” he said recently over lunch in his Evans Hall office. A bust of Dr. Cross sits behind his desk. The nearby office chair was his seat in the U.S. Senate. He formerly used the overstuffed chair from his time as Oklahoma’s governor but his recent back problems forced a change.

 “I realize anybody my age can have an unexpected health problem. Any age for that matter,” he said. “Will I really stay that long? I hope so. I really do. I think Dr. Cross would be pleased.”

He doesn’t want to stay longer than his health allows. Molly, he said, would tell him if it was time to go.

“She says ‘Be sure you don’t stay too long at the fair.’ I don’t want to. If no one else will tell me, she will. I would love to stay if it works out. I love what I am doing. It engages you fully.”

It hasn’t always been that way. The first few years were a bit rocky. A staff pay raise angered some longtime faculty. Entrenched staff who feared change made waves.

 “Having your own team in place makes a difference. It’s so different than the first year when I felt like all the battery cables were attached to me.”



It’s about the money

Boren remembers the first time he asked a potential donor for a large gift. He had lunch with the late Helen Walton in Tulsa where he would eventually ask her for $5 million.

“I heard myself say to her, ‘Helen, it’s only $5 million.’ And, it was like it was an out-of-body experience. Those words could not have come out of my body.”

It came easier each time he made a multi-million dollar pitch. But still, it was against his nature.

“I was the worst fundraiser. When I was a kid I was in the band and in debate and you had to sell candy bars and magazine subscriptions door to door. I could not do it. I felt like I was asking for something for myself. Especially in politics.”

He didn’t take PAC money and would bristle when consultants told him to play the various professions against each other to score bigger donations.

“After one meeting, I said I just want to go home and take a bath. I would feel so awful.”

Fundraising and lobbying the legislature occupies much of Boren’s time these days. It attempts to fill the gap when public dollars become fewer. State funding for OU, which at one time was as much as 40 percent of the budget, now is closer to 17 percent.

Tuition and fees will rise again this year. That keeps students from coming to the university and from graduating. About 60 percent of all OU students receive some kind of aid.

“We’ve fallen from first to 12th in the world in the percentage of our college age population actually going to college,” he said.

Through scholarships, emergency loans, labs, mentoring and better enrollment management, OU has managed to raise its graduation rate to 68 percent, highest in the state. They’re aiming for 75 percent within five years.

“We’re doing all sort of things. Our goal is to have more college graduates and the governor is right to make that call, but we can’t do it if we’re not funded.”



A CEO of sorts

When he came to OU, Boren was overwhelmed by the state of the university. Lots of decisions had been deferred. Building maintenance, filling endowed chairs, scholarships, facilities,

“I think the institution had lost its self confidence.,” he said, noting the freshman class was about 2,400.  “With that rate and with our retention rate, within five years, OU would have probably have been smaller than Central State,” he said. This year about 4,000 freshmen will arrive on the campus.

That campus, along with the Health Science Center and Tulsa, make up a $2.5 billion annual operation with between 14,000 and 15,000 employees.

As president, Boren’s plate includes dealing with personnel, food service, the largest hotel in the state, athletics, coaches, health care, a police department, donors, faculty, alumni and students.

Just when he gets a team of deans, directors, coaches and vice presidents in place, another institution comes calling to lure them away.

“Great faculty are always getting offers. Every time I think I have all the deanships filled or everybody is in place. That will last about a week until a dean goes elsewhere.”

He didn’t anticipate all of the university’s demands when he accepted the job. OU has absorbed more than $100 million in cuts and unfunded increases in the past four years.

“Honestly, being governor or being senator is a less demanding job than being president of the university because as governor you’re dealing with huge budgets and broad policies and decisions. There’s a pot boiling somewhere in the university all the time. It’s a very complex institution.”



Five-year goals

Boren recently set goals for the university’s next five years. They include increasing the graduation rate, increasing teaching loads to a minimum of four courses per year on the average for faculty and remain in the top four in Big 12 faculty salaries.

Two major initiatives he is personally spearheading include a comprehensive look at the university’s curriculum and improve the presentation of core classes taught by faculty stars to freshman.

“The freshmen right off the bat in my opinion should be exposed to the greatest stars in the departments. I think that’s so important. It exposes them to the best. It excites them.”

Boren also wants to increase the percentage of OU students studying abroad from 25 percent to 40 percent. The campus purchased and renovated a former monastery in Arezzo, Italy, that serves as a base for traveling students.

“In the kind of world in which our students are going to have to live, they’re going to have to have global skills. To have them leave here without some global skills, I’m almost likening it to not teaching them to read and write.”

It’s a challenge in Oklahoma where many parents are concerned about their children’s safety abroad. Traveling abroad is expensive. Scholarships will help.

“A lot of people in our state have never been out of the United States,” Boren said. “Arezzo is kind of an icebreaker for us. We have OU people there. Tuscany is a safe region.”

Other goals include facility expansion at the Health Science Center and Tulsa campuses, increased honors classes, more retired faculty members teaching and alumni enrolling in the Osher Life Learning Programs and alumni college.



No time to relax

A new farmhouse west of Norman is the Boren’s sanctuary. They can see the campus.

“We love it out at the farm. It’s so quiet. There’s wild turkey out there and deer. We can see forever. Looking out the back door, it centers right on the campus. You can see the stadium.”

Even though “Windrush” allows some solitude, Boren still thinks about campus problems when he’s there.

“It’s a great getaway. It’s just amazing. Looking at the campus and thinking about the problems from that perspective is really, really helpful. But I’m extremely glad we live in Boyd House at least half the time.”

He reads historical biographies and does Pilates. Before his back surgery, he took time to walk the campus contemplating the institution’s future.

Boren worries the loud noise in Oklahoma right now is on the far right with the extremist Tea Party. Education funding progress isn’t in their agenda.

“But I think there has to be a competing series of voices. There are a lot of people in the mainstream of the state who care about education,” he said, recalling previous initiatives to move the state forward and the grassroots support this past year.

His concerns extend to K-12 schools who are receiving the same dollars to educate more students and meet more rigorous requirements.

“People are shocked that we are 49th in education,” he said.

Wealthy districts like Jenks are privately raising funds to keep teachers employed.

 “What happens to all those districts that don’t have the ability to raise that money. We’re doing away with writing and arts and debate.  I thought about a statewide education campaign to let the public know how low we have fallen.”

Andy Rieger writes for The Norman Transcript.